Seeing God
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:17-18 ESV
Love – So you read the little sub title and you said to yourself, “Oh, he’s going to tell us about caring for each other again. I already know all this stuff. I can just skip this one.”
Really? Perhaps God’s directive about loving your neighbor isn’t an ethical principle at all. Perhaps it isn’t even a moral rule. Perhaps loving your neighbor is a window for viewing God. Let me explain. Rabbi Sacks comments:
“The truths of religion are exalted, but its duties are close at hand. We know God less by contemplation than by emulation. The choice is not between ‘faith’ and ‘deeds’, for it is by our deeds that we express our faith and make it real in the life of others and the world.”[1]
Sacks writes that we are called to “imitate God,” not merely to contemplate Him. What this means is that if we are going to see God in our lives and in the lives of others, we must act as He would act. God remains hidden precisely in order that we might discover Him in our decisions and actions. We can see His glory, contrary to the warning to Moses—in reflection through our behavior. This is exactly what Yeshua meant when He commented, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” While we may feel a moral obligation to love our neighbor, fulfilling that obligation carries an amazing benefit. God is revealed in the act.
But this means that seeing God is a matter of personal responsibility. God is not visible when I choose compassion by proxy, when I let someone else do the deed, some agency or system or government perform the act. Until my hands reach out with the cup of water, God stays hidden from me. To see God’s glory is to touch, smell, hear, taste and see the tears of another.
All of this is counter-cultural. We are taught antiseptic disengagement. “Let the government take care of them,” we say. “We’ve paid our taxes.” “Let the church do it. We paid our tithes.” Once I heard a story about a famous Christian missionary who asked a very wealthy man for help. The man responded, “Just tell me how much to write on the check, but don’t ask me to get involved. Money is not a problem. I just don’t have the time.” Of course not. Time is the great equalizer. We all have exactly the same amount in which to see God’s glory. But when life is finished, few of us will have any glimpses of Him. We were too busy keeping clean.
Topical Index: glory, love, ahav, neighbor, Leviticus 19:18
[1]Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, p. 5.
I am so heart sick and weary of hearing the words “I am just to busy to…. fill in the blank.”
This used to be a prime excuse for me to avoid doing anything I just didn’t want to do. I see this a one powerful tool of the enemies to divide and conquer.
There are people in my life that I would like to have a good working relationship with and cannot because they subscribe to the “I’m to busy” theory to really be a true friend. I have gotten to a point where I put my energies into other avenues rather than waste it trying to make one-sided relationships work.(As Skip pointed out, we all have the same amount of time in a day!) Not that I treat those folks with disrespect at all but they are not the trusted few that get to really see my heart.
I am not sure it is totally about keeping clean but more about living for that evil (My Own Way) notion that quietly sneaks into our lives in the form of self-righteousness. Oftentimes we don’t see it coming but it does.
I have woken up so many times with my day planned only to find that God has something completely else in mind. So the question comes, do I insist on My Own Way (being far to busy to make changes) or do I submit and chose to follow where He leads. So many times the choice to follow Him has led to blessings and helping others. I would have missed the blessing had I chosen My Own Way.
We come back to a fear based life again. We (I) truly fear to simply (that is really key) trust that God is in control and is a great Father who leads His children along (but we have a choice in this). That doesn’t mean we are to be stupid (can’t fix stupid!) and wasteful with what God gives us but we hedge so much because we really can’t see the outcome. Hence the trust issue (again).
The good news is that we can get of the merry go round and stop the nonsense. Ask yourself, why do I fear? The answer may be shocking.
When I was younger and life threw it’s problems at me and I would go to my grandmother and complain that life was not fair she would sing “Jesus loves me” and then asked what I learned from it. I would say “I know Jesus loves me but so and so….” she would shush me and tell me so and so is Jesus’s child too and He loves them too.
It took ten years and her passing last week for me to finally get what grandma was trying to teach me. It’s my job to love them too, that is all I am called to do. Not hold a grudge, not point my finger (another of grandma’s favorite sayings “when you point at someone you have three pointing back at you.”), not go around and tell everyone how I’ve been wronged, just love. Not run away and hide to live my life how I want to without the hurts of others to lick my wounds and feel sorry for myself but to love. Love is an action love is a choice and Love hurts. Love opens up the deepest part of ourselves and asks others to please come close to know me, know my heart. It tears down the walls and puts it’s arms out for a hug knowing full well that others are not so kind all the time. Knowing that hurt people hurt people it wraps it’s loving arms around the crying, hurting and holds on.
Can I love my mother after she shoved me down a flight of stairs*…I can if I keep my eyes on Yeshua, who loves us despite the cross.
Can I trust my womb to the creator of the heavens and the earth even after holding my still born daughter, I can if I hold on to His promises and know that He too knows the pain of separation by death.
Can I love my step daughter even as her mouth spews evil vile lies about me and my husband, I can be as harmless as a dove and as cunning as a serpent, in Love.
Love is a choice to walk a path of resistance, to walk the path that makes everyone around you uncomfortable and even angry with you, and to stay more focused on your own actions and their alignment with Yeshua, then on the actions of the ones around you. When you focus on the actions of the ones around you, that is when fear comes.
*I’m not saying you need to stay in an abusive relationship for loves sake, you can stay safe and still forgive and love. Sometimes boundaries are the kind of love someone needs.
Jill that is just beautiful.
I must say I am struck in this passage by the specific people whom the ancient Israelites were told not to hate. The are their “brother, neighbor, and the sons of your own people” But instead, they were to love their neighbor.
Clearly, this seems to be limited to a tightly knit local group, but in the N.T. Yesuha seems to expand neighbor to to include the despised Samaritans. (Good Samaritan story). Was this an expansion, or, were the Samaritans always neighbors (and brothers) of the of the Israelites?
Yeshua reveals the full intent of the commandment by including the “enemy” who is a brother and neighbor of the same Father. Samaritans were actually related, but past history and differences in religion caused the split. Yeshua’s view is the view of the Creator of both. But also take a look at the Hebrew word for “neighbor.” I think I wrote about it once.