Love Yourself

²⁹ Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:29-31

If something is important, Jesus said it more than once. We see this Great Commandment in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Let’s break it down a bit. First and foremost, love God with all that you are. Second, love your neighbor as yourself. This is really two statements: love your neighbor AND love yourself. In loving God, we learn how to love others and love ourselves.

This stands in contrast to another recurring message throughout the Bible: We are all sinners before God. And yet, we are charged with loving each other just as we love God, who is perfect. We are called to repentance, which involves acknowledging our own sins, but also to love ourselves as God loves us.

I recently listened to a great podcast, an interview of a therapist who is gay and Christian. She makes the point that you need to love yourself as you are, and accept yourself as who you are, first. Then, you can begin the process of becoming more whole: more healthy, more holy, more loving of God and others, more of who God wants you to be.

This relates also to an audiobook I recently listened to, Atomic Habits by James Clear. My motivation was to put in action the challenge I discussed in my last post. Briefly, Clear makes the point that in order to change your habits (whether to eliminate a bad one or add a new one), you must know your habits. You must acknowledge reality before you can change it. You must know yourself as a beloved child of God before you can become who God wants you to be.

I’m writing this on a day when the United Methodist Church at a special General Conference has voted to maintain its bans on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” as clergy, and on same-sex marriage. This is denial of the second half of the Great Commandment writ large. It comes from a place of not loving the UMC as it is: a church that seeks radical hospitality, welcoming all those who seek God. It comes from a denial of who people are. Nobody chooses to be gay; they choose instead to accept who they already are, who God made them to be. I wish that I had words of comfort for the individuals, congregations, conferences, and clergy who must now decide whether to stay in an unwelcoming denomination or depart. I do not. I know that similar decisions (though for the opposite reason) have had painful consequences for ELCA and PC(USA). I grieve for them all.