The dangers of loving yourself

The Advent season has arrived. I checked the Common Lectionary and read the Gospel lesson with delight. Mark 12:31. It is a favorite passage but one that tests the interpreter of Holy Rit. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The command to “love your neighbor” is plain enough. When the saying was first formed, neighbor probably meant a neighbor tribe that was not Israelite. The more difficult question is the meaning of “as yourself.” Typical interpreters have made the jump to loving yourself before you can love your neighbor. I have done my homework. Put into context, “as yourself” is a terrible misinterpretation.

First, there is a translation problem. I believe we can safely say that Jesus spoke the words to illiterate people in the Aramaic language. While Greek and Hebrew were spoken in the area, Aramaic was the everyday language of the masses of people. Jesus’ aphorisms (sayings) went from Hebrew to Aramaic to oral tradition and memory to Greek. With each language translation there is an inevitable cultural change as well. The translation realities leave the interpreter with serious problems. Our second step calls us to look to the culture for help. Apparently the Israelites and other tribal cultures of the Mediterranean area had no concept of love of self. In the Bible cultures, love always has an object outside of the lover. Love of self is a concept completely foreign to the Bible literature. Those who believe they must learn to love themselves before they can love someone else are walking down a blind alley.

In doing my research I found no shortage of psychologists and theologians who wax eloquent about loving one’s self. As a Christian thinker, I take sharp disagreement. When I read about the need to love one’s own self, I heard nothing but justification for self-interest, selfishness, self-absorption….narcissism. I contrasted this self-absorption with Paul’s description of Jesus. Paul says that Jesus emptied himself and made himself of no reputation in order to become God’s servant to people. Jesus in his Godly identity, humbled himself to death on a cross. He never defended himself. He carried on vigorous debates, but never in his own interest. Truth, justice and peace were his heartfelt interests.

Jesus commanded us to love God with heart, soul, mind and spirit; he commanded us to love our neighbor; he commanded us to love our enemies; he commanded us to love one another. Not once did Jesus command us to love ourselves. The Christian gospel says that we love because God first loved us. When we love one another, we become the living witness to the God, who loves us dearly. Love is a gift from someone to somebody else. We cannot become a whole person by going on a shopping spree and buying a new wardrobe. If we are to become whole we are to be givers of self and substance to someone else. Loving one’s self is narcissism. It is mental illness, not health.

Jesus gave us a very different formula for greatness and wholeness. He said “if someone wants to follow me, let him deny himself….”

Christianity and the practice of the ways of Jesus are always communal. Love one another is an essential to the practice of Christian Faith.

Love of neighbor is a command that, according to Jesus, is second only to the great command to love God. It is a mystery to me that Christians so blatantly avoid this second greatest commandment. We will do almost anything to avoid our single greatest responsibility in the building of the kingdom of God on earth.

I write these comments as a devout Evangelical Christian. I am a Baptist. In my tradition I have the responsibility to read and to interpret the Bible. As a Baptist I have always felt free to define and to refine my own beliefs. Here at the beginning of a new Advent season, I freely state my beliefs. I believe that every human being has the stamp of the creator God. That image has been marred by sin. That is a loaded statement. Words need interpretation. What does it mean to say that God is a creator? What does the image of God mean? What is the meaning of the word sin? I am open to broad discussion of these questions. I am certain that the discussions ought to be unending. All theologies are dated. Every creedal statement is out of date as soon as it is authored. Being ongoing is an undeniable fact of life.

Out of my Christian beliefs, I find that every human being is enormously important. Every human being needs to be loved and to have the opportunity to love. Gated communities, fences, ghettoes and “America first” mottoes are not the answer. Self-love is probably the deadliest enemy of all.

Here at the beginning of the Advent season is a good time to go back and reread the story of the Good Samaritan. Then reread it again and again and again. Then start your own discussion of the identity of your neighbor.

May God bless your journey.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.