The Greatest Commandment

As I have been working on nailing down a disaster response plan for Dirigo State Church, I have and had been going through scripture in my head appropriate for basing a a state wide plan on and in some regards starting a ministry. As one of the core elements is reaching out within community and to neighbors, of course it would make sense to draw upon the great commandment. As I talked about this with my leadership team, I recently found out that some of them have a real prejudice against non Christians. Which makes me wonder, how do you perceive yourself as Christian when you openly hate others.

When you love God with your whole heart, mind and soul and you accept God as creator of all the earth, am I daft to assume God created ALL people? And then to have it said in three different Gospels, love your neighbor as yourself...that doesn't just mean the Smiths to my right and the Jones to my left....as I am privileged (or not) to live in an insular and rather homogeneous area. COME ON...ITS THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT. And Jesus doesn't just even answer the "who are my neighbors" He teaches us about it in parables..the syrophoenician woman, the woman at the well, the man with the withered hand, and the list goes on. Jesus lives it folks...EVERYONE is our neighbor...Love everyone as you would yourself.

Anyways, I defaulted to Matthew 25 for my scriptural foundation......