By Veronica Gould

Ruth 1:8, 16-18; Mark 12:28-31

“Stranger Things”

Let’s recall the words of the Greatest Commandment: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself”.

I am a fan of checklists. Anyone who has ever worked with me can tell you, I am always taking notes: things to do, people to email, meetings to remember. When I’m packing for a trip, I can’t zip my bag until I am sure every item on the list is inside. I’m not actually the most organized person, but having a plan helps me to accomplish my goals.

So there is a part of me that hears the words of the great commandment and thinks “Only two things?! Thank God!”

I begin making my checklist: 1) Love God. 2) Love literally anyone else besides myself.

I figure, if I can do each of these things once today, I’m doing alright. For a month or so during my time at seminary, I used this as a metric for my spiritual well-being. Before I would go to bed each night, I would reflect on the day, asking myself two questions: How did I love God today? And How did I love another person? I discovered the many ways I could love God through worship, prayer, gratitude, reflection, study, and meditation. I actually felt better about myself as a friend when I recalled the ways I had helped others, been there for my loved ones, and prayed for people I care about.

There was only one problem. Time and time again, I found myself loving the same people in the same ways. People who were like me, who shared my circumstances and point of view, who prayed like me, voted like me, and spoke like me.

Jesus tells us that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. But who exactly is meant to be included in the word “neighbor”? How far-reaching is our love expected to be? And what happens if we have trouble even loving ourselves?

We begin to see that this great commandment is not as simple as a checklist.

I am reminded of the words of a hymn I sang growing up: “Neighbors are nearby and far away”. We live in a world where more than ever before, we know about the pain and suffering of our neighbors, nearby and far away. Neighbors like Stephon Clark and his family here in Sacramento. Neighbors like Amal Hussein in Yemen. Neighbors like the members of the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh. Sometimes, it can feel like it is too much to bear. We feel powerless. We wonder what it means to love from afar. To love a stranger.

Love is meant to be more than a feeling. It’s an action. A way of treating one another that arises from the understanding that each person is inherently valuable in the eyes of God. Each person that we encounter is God’s beloved child, just as we are.

Up close, loving one another as ourselves is not an easy task. People can be frustrating. We find certain personalities easier to love than others. But at least we are faced with the other on their own terms. We can discover one another and grow together. Through shared experiences, we can cease to be strangers and become friends.

But loving our neighbors who are far away is a far more difficult task.

And it’s the task before our nation this week as we elect officials who will determine the future of our neighbors nearby and far away. We are responsible for one another, whether we like it or not.

So we vote. We pray. We volunteer. We offer words of support to our far away neighbors. We discover nearby neighbors we didn’t know before and we listen to their stories. God is drawing together strangers and making neighbors and saying “Love them the way you are longing to be loved. Love them like I love you.”

Hear, O children of God, the LORD, our God, the LORD is one. These words are sung every week at Shabbat services.//  Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.  In college, I attended services weekly with my friends, and on Friday night, I found myself again in worship with the B’nai Israel congregation. We sang these words together. I found comfort in their familiarity. What a beautiful tradition to recite these words. Because they are a promise.

The oneness of God is a powerful promise to us. Despite our divisions and our estrangement, our God is one. Our hope is one. There is no division in God, only perfect unity.

And since we are created in the image and likeness of God, we must know that estrangement is not our natural state. It is not God’s will for us. Alone, we may survive, but together, we can flourish. All of God’s commandments point us to our greatest flourishing in communion with God and in community with one another.

We are never asked to do the work alone. It is by God’s grace that we live and move and have our being. It is by God’s grace that we are inspired to pray and worship. It is by God’s grace that we love one another, because God first loved us.

I would like to end with the words of another one of my favorite Shabbat prayers, the Mi Shebeirach, the prayer for healing: “May the source of strength who blessed the ones before us help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing, and let us say, Amen”.