Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, Yr A, Proper 25 Oct 25 2020

 

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Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, Yr A, Proper 25 Oct 25 2020

Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-46

Which commandment in the law is the greatest? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, this is the greatest and first commandment, and the second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The Pharisees, who had heard that Jesus had bested the Sadducees, continued to try to entrap him. Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees is straight out of the Hebrew scripture, not a book like we know it today, but stories told around tables and hearths and campfires. Jesus knows those scriptures well; he had them on his heart, and in his soul. Those scriptures are part of the very fiber of his being, so much so that they are his flesh and blood. Those scriptures were what each Hebrew boy and girl heard and recited every day of their lives. And they also knew the story of creation, they knew the story of Noah, of Moses, of Exodus and Exile, of David, the Prophets, they knew the story about the angel passing over their homes when they put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts; they knew the stories of their ancestors. They even knew who was related to whom, the genealogy that opens the gospel of Matthew.

Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees was not a recitation of the law, the law that he knew well. Jesus’ answer was love, Jesus’ answer was to show forth a pattern of love, the activity of love. Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees was relationship. Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor. 

Remember last week when I said that maybe what Jesus might be doing is inviting us to declare our allegiance. I suggested that perhaps the key question isn’t whose image is on the coin, but rather whose image is on us. We indeed are made in God's image and marked as God's own forever. It’s hard for us to know that, it’s hard for us to believe that, it’s hard for us to follow Jesus if we don’t know the story of love.

Knowing our story, knowing our bible, is knowing where we came from, knowing to whom we belong. Knowing this story helps us to identify our value and worth. Our story teaches us, shows us, tells us that we are created in God's image. And this story is ultimately important because being created in God’s image is where love is located. We see God’s love for us in the pattern of action that is our sacred story.

And that story is about creation and blessing, it is of being separated from God, and it is of repentance, reconciliation, and resurrection. In this story, God who is the creator of the universe, comes to be one of us, Jesus, and lives, loves, suffers and dies, and is raised from the dead. It is the story that calls us to love God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is about God’s relationship with us, God’s beloveds.

But from our point of view it's hard to see the wholeness of the story. We see only pieces, we catch glimpses. When we are engulfed in darkness it's very hard to trust that there is light. It’s hard to see anything at all. And it’s hard to love ourselves, much less our neighbor. But it is when we come out of suffering and sadness with hope and joy that we really can experience the love and the light, and the new life that God has for us. And we remember, we remember God's love for us and for all of creation. Sometimes, when we listen carefully, we can actually hear God’s love for us in the voices of the people whom we encounter, especially at times of deepest sorrow or quiet joy.

And yet, love in the bible really has very little to do with how we feel. Love in the first-century Mediterranean world was not a vague warm feeling toward someone, but a pattern of action - attachment to a person backed up with behavior, attachment to this man Jesus, who is willing to stand up to the power brokers of his day. The two commandments Jesus gives demand nothing less than heart, soul, and mind -- in other words, every part of a person capable of valuing something – and that those capacities be devoted to God and to every neighbor.

And there is no one exempt from the category of neighbor; the Parable of the Good Samaritan shows us that. So what we read today is a continuation of what we read last week. Last week we heard that everything comes from and belongs to God. Everything. This continuation of that reading demands nothing less than everything, heart, soul and mind. Jesus' call will compel each one of his followers to take the fullest extent of God's love to the furthest reach of that love, to every person whom God makes. As God has first loved us, we will love others.

As God has first loved us, we will love others. So then, why is there so much hate in our world? Why do people rise up against those whose ancestry, or skin color is different from their own? Why do we hurt one another? Why? I wonder if it is because we are filled with the fear of loss. People are afraid of losing themselves, or their history, or their tradition. People are afraid of losing their power, or their possessions. We are afraid that our world will never return to normal. We are afraid the wrong people will get elected. We are afraid. And fear usually ends up as hate. 

We forget, they forget, in whose image we are made. It is God’s image on that coin, it is God’s image on our hearts. We are made for love; we are made for relationship. We are made to love our neighbor.

And this is Jesus’ call to us and claim on us. Everything comes from God and belongs to God, and that demands a pattern of action, love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor; remembering that love is not how we feel, but a decision we make, a pattern of action. Love is a pattern of action. This is how we are to love our neighbors, and our neighbors are everyone, the outcasts and the sinners, you and me. Following Jesus, begin a Christian, is about a pattern of love, and no one is excluded from that love. That love, that relationship with God through Jesus is transforming love. And that love sends us out into the world to serve God and serve one another.

The original question the Pharisees ask Jesus is, which commandment in the law is the greatest? Jesus answers not with law, but with the pattern of action that is love. You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all you soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does indeed win.

20 Pentecost Proper 22 Oct 7 2018

20 Pentecost Proper 22 Oct 7 2018 Audio

Mark  10:2-16

The gospel of Mark just keeps getting tougher. Here we have words that fall on our ears in all sorts of ways, depending on where we have been in life. But I want you to remember again; Mark is very concerned about what it means to follow Jesus. Mark is showing us what that looks like, and following Jesus is not necessarily easy.

Jesus announces the coming of God's kingdom, and Jesus brings to us the embodiment of the kingdom. So this passage from Mark tells us much more about God than it tells us about ourselves, and it tells us about our role as disciples. It tells us about who God is, who we are, and how we are to relate to God and to one another. Again Jesus is saying and doing something radical. Here Jesus shows us that relationship matters. Jesus is saying that relationships with God, and with others, matter. Indeed, not only do relationships matter, relationships can be where our brokenness may be made whole. 

So first, what does it show us about God. It shows us that God is wholeness, and in a world of brokenness, in a world of disintegration, it is God who makes us whole. The truth is that God as creator is the most powerful integrating force in nature.

This is how we experience God in the stories of creation; God calls order from chaos, God creates wholeness out of nothing. God’s Kingdom is about wholeness and health, God's kingdom is about compassion and mercy. God's kingdom is about being related to God and to one another. And relationships matter to God. 

So that is how Jesus responds to the questions of law that the Pharisees ask. The Pharisees are concerned with laws in these questions, they are not concerned with love. You and I approach marriage from the standpoint of love, and romance. The Pharisees approach marriage from a legal standpoint. But Jesus says, this is not about law, it is about love. There is a place for law, for protection of the most vulnerable in our society. A very important place. But that is not what this is about. In the 1st century, marriage is a contract by which the man takes possession of the woman from the woman's father. And Jesus responds to the Pharisees, not by upholding or disparaging the law, but by describing God's heart's desire for humanity to live in relationship, relationship that honors and respects the beloved. This kind of relationship is the way God relates to us, and this kind of relationship is God's desire for us in relationship to one another.

God yearns for humanity to be committed to one another, God wants for humanity to put the beloved before self, God wants for humanity to live together with dignity, respect, love. This is what the kingdom looks like. Jesus knows what happens when relationships are rent, and when relationships are torn asunder. That's what he describes in this passage. Humans are torn apart. Hearts are broken. Children are hurt.

We live in a world of contingency, which is all about the opposite of committed relationships. Contingency and casualness, is a message that is splayed all across our screens. The themes of some of many of our favorite television programs are that if you are not satisfied with the partner you have, you can leave them for another. And even deeper than that. The message that in order to be of value in this world you have to possess a big house, a nice car, a good wife, successful and beautiful children is pervasive, and do whatever it takes to get it.

In the world of 1st century Mediterranean culture the highest value was honor and status, not unlike our culture today. It is into all of this that God invokes relationship and community. In God's kingdom, here is the highest good is commitment to one another. Where promises are made about always being there for the other.

But it is in this world where humanity lives. You and me in all of our glory and in all of the messiness of life live here, in this place. God yearns for us to be together, to put the other first, and yet God knows how we fall short of that. God knows the pain of broken relationships. God knows the pain of love. Isn't that where we are going with Jesus, on this path of discipleship? Straight to the cross, that's the road we are on with Jesus. Right through that pain and suffering of brokenness. Being human is being broken. And as some might say, it ends badly with death on a cross. But you and I know different. We know it doesn't end there. We know that God loves us so absolutely and completely that something amazing happens, that Love wins. That a new thing happens, resurrection. That's the hope in God's relationship with us, and in our relationship with others. We fail. We hurt. We are broken. But because God shares God's very self with us, and because we share our lives with others, we share the very fiber of our being, we are forgiven. We have a second chance. We live through the pain we cause, we live through the pain others cause in our lives. And God's love seeps into our brokenness, God's love seeps into the fissures of our hearts and the fissures of the fibers of our skin and bones and muscles and organs, and somehow we are healed. Somehow we can live again. Somehow, Love wins.

As followers of Jesus, we live in God's kingdom. We live in the place where relationships matter, where relationships are sacred. Where every person has dignity, where every person belongs. The Gospel of Mark starts in the lonely places and Jesus will end up on the cross. But being alone is not what God wants for us. God says, "I am here, in my Son, to be in relationship with you. Nothing can separate us any longer." That's why we do what we do. That's why we ask for forgiveness every time we come to the table to eat. That's why we gather together and stand and kneel shoulder to shoulder to eat the bread and drink the wine. That's why we share our prayers and deposit them in this holy place, together. And that's why we go out into the world bearing God's yearning for relationship to all who we meet. We are Jesus' disciples, we live as kingdom people, and for us, Love wins.

In these times in which violence and disintegration seems to rule the day, sometimes the brokenness seems so vast, the chasm between us so huge, that we cannot even imagine God re-integrating, healing, calling us back together, calling us to wholeness, dying to set us free. But I believe with all my heart and my mind and my soul, that we can be healed. But I also believe we need to act on God's love, we need to be God's hands and God's feet and God's heart and insist that no one is left out. We need to be the change we want to see, wherever we find ourselves. We are the one’s we are waiting for. Find the ways to bring peace. Find the ways to build bridges. Find the ways we may be friends and neighbors again.

Amen.

8 Pentecost Yr C Proper 10 July 10 2016

8 Pentecost Yr C Proper 10 July 10 2016 Audio

A priest, a Presbyterian minister and a baptist preacher, go out fishing. They toss all their stuff in the boat, and push off for the middle of the lake. Once out there, the priest realizes he forgot his lures. So he stands up and steps out of the boat and walks to the shore, gets what he needs and comes on back to the boat. A little later, the Presbyterian minister gets hungry and realizes he forgot his sandwich in the car, so he steps out of the boat, walks to the shore, gets his sandwich and comes on back to the boat. Well, the baptist preacher had left his jacket in the car and it was getting a little chilly, so he stepped out of the boat just like the others, but fell right into the water. The priest said to the Presbyterian minister, do you think we should have told him where the stones are?

Whether or not this is a funny joke, we laugh, or we groan, because we’ve been set-up, we know the form, the pattern, and can guess at the punch line. It’s based on our common stereotypes of these three characters. It’s like the story that is embedded in Luke’s gospel today, a priest, a levite, and a Samaritan go into a bar…. O wait, that should be a Jew, not a Samaritan. Everyone knows the joke and the punch line relies on the Jew, not the Samaritan.

What’s happening here? Those who heard this story originally would have been shocked long before the storyteller ever gets to the punch line, because the 1st century hearer would think “a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan would never be in the same story.”

You see, the shocking joke here is that it is the Samaritan who is compassionate. Let's look at these people in their own culture. The priest and the Levite shared high status in the community of God’s people. They were “temple people.” They were born into priestly families. They were very concerned with status, they epitomized the temple culture of those who are in and those who are out, they were in and just about everyone else was out. Within their world, their association with the temple commends them as persons of exemplary piety whose actions would be regarded as self-evidently righteous. The priest and the Levite were accustomed to being evaluated on the basis of their ancestry, their pedigree, not on the basis of their performance.

So the teller of this story has established these two holy men who have done their business at the temple in Jerusalem, and who are now traveling on the dangerous road to Jericho. They see a man by the side of the road beaten and bleeding, and each pass to the other side of the road instead of helping.

Into the picture arrives the Samaritan, and everyone who is hearing this story laughs. A Samaritan, they exclaim, Samaritans are no good lazy bums. They don’t even go to the temple in Jerusalem to worship, they keep to themselves, they are just not like us. Maybe we should build a wall to keep those Samaritans out. You see, the Samaritan is a man who is in direct contrast to the holy men of the temple. He has no pedigree, he is a merchant, he worships at a different temple. It is this distinction that makes this story shocking.

You and I have heard the story of the Good Samaritan so many times we just about know it by heart. We miss the shocking punch line. The Samaritan as the one who has compassion for the beaten and bleeding man at the side of the road is shocking. And, the actions of the Samaritan man condemn the holy men’s failure to act.

So what can this very familiar story reveal to us today? The story of the compassionate Samaritan is embedded in the story about a lawyer who has come to Jesus asking about eternal life. First, the lawyer asks Jesus what he must to do inherit eternal life. Jesus answers that question with the story of the compassionate Samaritan, and then the lawyer is able to identify who in the story was the neighbor and the lawyer is told by Jesus to go and do likewise. Today I would like for you to entertain the idea that this story is not just about being good, and it's not about being a hero. I would like you to see its complexity.

The story of the compassionate Samaritan is an illustration of appropriate behavior for a person who loves God and who expects to inherit eternal life. Remember, we’ve talked about this before, when Luke uses the term eternal life, he is referring to the new creation that is a reality in the life of those who profess Jesus Christ as Son of God. The term eternal life is not narrowly defined by what happens after death. It is about the absolutely new life that is the gift of God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is about living in the here and now as much as it is about the hereafter. Therefore the story of the compassionate Samaritan is about an ethic of compassion, it is about how we are related to our neighbors, it is about the love that wins.

The setting to the story is on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This is a very dangerous road, as most travel on foot was in this 1st century rural setting, replete with robbers and full of the possibility of violence. And Jerusalem is the city where the temple is. Many people would be traveling between Jerusalem and Jericho after visiting the temple in Jerusalem.
The Samaritan is the one who participates in the compassionate and covenantal faithfulness of God, not the holy men. This is not just a story about a good guy who helped someone out. This parable of the compassionate Samaritan undermines the system of status and honor based on privilege that was the way things were in 1st century culture. Once again, Luke is telling us a story that shows how the kingdom of God is near; the kingdom of God is about reordering human interactions.

The conclusion of Luke’s story has Jesus asking the lawyer, who himself has a pedigree, who in this story is the neighbor. The lawyer answered correctly, and Jesus admonishes him to go and do likewise. Eternal life is about compassionate interaction regardless of honor and status, race or gender.

This is as hard a message to hear in the 21st century as it was in the 1st century. In these days I wonder if we've progressed at all. The challenge here is to reject the sinful categories we use to turn other human beings into labels instead of persons bearing the image of the living God. Jesus shows us that we are honorable and valuable because we are God’s creation. Jesus’ life shows us that in God’s eyes everyone has a place in God’s house, in God’s kingdom. Jesus pours out his life so that we may know that truth. Jesus fills us with new life so that we may have abundant love for ourselves and for others.

As I spent time this week thinking about this story that I know so well, and, as a country we have experienced the tragedy of gun death over and over again, and the death of Elie Weisel, who was a concentration camp survivor, it is vital that we hear this story about the compassionate Samaritan for what it is. We are more like the holy people than we are like the Samaritan. Elie Weisel, in his life and work has said, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

We are followers of Jesus, do not be indifferent. We need to be a sign of hope and of healing. We need to be agents of hope and of healing. Find ways to do that, find ways to show forth God's love. Find ways to be compassionate, find ways bear God's love and healing into all the places you find yourselves.

Amen.

23 Pentecost Proper 26 Yr B Nov 4 2012

I made a decision to move our observance of the Feast of All Saints to next week mostly because so many of us could not be here today, and it seems funny to celebrate a feast that is all about all our relations, when many of our relatives could not be here. We will read the All Saints lessons next week, and because of that, we read this set of lessons today. And what a wonderfully synchronous turn of events. We rarely hear these particular readings because we supplant this day with All Saints. So we are doubly gifted I do believe.

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. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And we spend our entire lives trying to work this out. 

What cannot always be assumed about what you know and therefore what needs to be said is that God loves you, and me, and all of us, completely, abundantly, and absolutely. God has shown and continues to show us this truth as God accompanies us in this life. We know that God accompanies us in this life because the truth of life, in all its suffering and joy, in its pain and pleasure, in its death and resurrection, show us that Love wins. It is that amazing and abundant love that calls us to Love God back. And we love God back by loving our neighbors. In fact, we love our neighbors, especially the ones we don't like, because we believe God is present with them as well. It seems so simple, and yet we spend our entire lives working that out. We spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out who indeed is our neighbor. Many people spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out who is excluded from that command. People spend a lot of time and energy speculating as to which people Jesus really intended for us to not love.

Today, we have the example of Ruth. "Turn back, my daughters, go your own way." And Ruth answers, "Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God." Ruth is an alien in this story, she is in a land and with a people who are not her own. The call to love your neighbor is a call to love the one who is completely different than you, the ultimate other, the epitome of foreign, absolutely alien. 

Ruth is a stranger in a strange land. And yet Ruth is willing to stay in this alien land and love the woman who is the mother of her deceased husband. Sometimes I don't understand the logic of those who are the lectionary choosers, but in this case the pairing of these stories is quite evident. The story of Ruth shows clearly what it means to love your neighbor. In this story, neighbor is not the friendly face over the fence. Neighbor is not folks I like down the street. Neighbor is not the like minded people I gather with for mutual whining about how the system is broken. In the story of Ruth, the one to be loved, the neighbor, looks different, sounds different, and even more earth shattering, believes in a different God altogether.   

We have been hearing from Mark for weeks now these stories of discipleship. Discipleship is about being healed from blindness, it's about seeing with new eyes. Discipleship is about being baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Discipleship is to walk with the poor. Discipleship is to be in relationship with all of God's creation, and to protect the most vulnerable of God's creation. Discipleship is to cast off the idol, to lay down that which is killing you. Discipleship is to live one's life as if God matters. Discipleship is to show forth the truth that Love wins. 

It isn't complicated, but it is mighty difficult. We see the difficulty everywhere we look, we hear the difficulty over and over again. But we know that love unites, love reconciles, love heals. To love one another is to approach every encounter with mercy and compassion. To love one another is to approach every encounter expecting to meet Jesus. To love one another is to expect your own transformation in the encounter. To love one another brings us closer to the kingdom of God. To love one another is to make a truly daring and authentic decision, in the face of uncertainty, in the face of division, in the face of fragmentation, to love one another is to say yes to God's possibility.

We are mistaken about God's love and God's kingdom when we approach the other with the intent to convince them of our rightness. We are mistaken when an agenda of judgement supersedes a posture of grace. We are mistaken when we let ideological difference get in the way of reconciliation and healing. We are mistaken when we believe the kingdom is about a seating chart. We are mistaken when we believe the kingdom is about power. We are mistaken when we embrace exclusion and hate as a way God acts in this world. We are mistaken when we believe perfection has something to do with God's expectation of us. 

To love one another is to want the other's well being as much as or more than your own. To love one another is to be God's agent of healing and wholeness, to be God's agent of resurrection in all places in which we find ourselves. To love one another is to let the brokenness in our hearts reach across all boundaries and meet the brokenness in the other's heart to find some sort of common ground. To love one another is to feed your neighbor, literally. To love one another is look into the eyes of the one across the aisle and to actually see another who is also God's beloved. To love one another is to show the world that division and death are not the final word, indeed, the final word is Love wins.

19 Pentecost Yr A

Which commandment in the law is the greatest? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, this is the greatest and first commandment, and the second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees, who were the experts of their day, is straight out of the Hebrew scripture. Jesus knows those scriptures well; he didn’t have them written in front of him, like we do, he had them on his heart, and in his soul. Those scriptures are part of the very fiber of his being. Those scriptures were what each Hebrew boy and girl heard every day of their lives. They new the story of creation, they knew the story of Noah, of Moses, of Exodus and Exile, of David, the Prophets, they knew the story about the angel passing over their homes when they put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts; they knew the stories of their ancestors. We need to know our story, knowing our story, knowing where we came from, knowing to whom we belong gives us value and worth. Our story teaches us, shows us, tells us that we are created in God's image. That story is ultimately important because being created in God’s image is where love is located. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind is about the truth of the story that constitutes us, that makes us who we are. So God’s love for us is not about how we feel on any given day or at any given time. God’s love for us is the in the pattern of action that is the story that tells us who we are. You have heard your story many times, I have told you this story many times. It is the story of creation, of blessing, of separation and independence from God, of repentance, reconciliation, and resurrection. In this story, God who is the creator of the universe, comes to be one of us, Jesus, lives, loves suffers and dies, and is raised to absolutely new life. It is the story that shows us Love Wins. But we usually don’t see the arc of the whole story all the time. From our point of view it's hard to see the wholeness of the story. We sometimes find ourselves in one part of the story, or we catch glimpses of ourselves in the story. When we are engulfed in darkness it's very hard to trust that there is light. But it is when we come out of suffering and sadness with hope and joy that we really can experience the love and the light, and the new life that God has for us. And we remember, we remember God's love for us and for all of creation. Sometimes, when we listen carefully, we can actually hear God’s love for us in the voices of the people whom we encounter, especially at times of deepest sorrow or quiet joy. But how do you know about love and how can you see God's love if you don’t know where you come from and who created you? Or if you don't know that God's love is a love that gives, a love that looks for the best for the other. It is a love that is patient and kind, compassionate and merciful. God's love does not look much like the love that we witness in so many places in our culture. If the only love people know is like what they watch on TV and see in movies, their view of love is indeed distorted. That love is all about sexual attraction. That love is all about excitement. That love is about revenge and passion. That love is all about what you get out of it, it is about demanding a return. But love in the bible really has very little to do with how we feel. Love in the first-century Mediterranean world was not a vague warm feeling toward someone, but a pattern of action -- attachment to a person backed up with behavior. The two commandments Jesus gives demand nothing less than heart, soul, and mind -- in other words, every part of a person capable of valuing something – and that those capacities be devoted to God and to every neighbor. There is no one exempt from the category of neighbor, the Parable of the Good Samaritan shows us that. So what we read today is a continuation of what we read last week. Last week we heard that everything comes from and belongs to God. Everything. This continuation of that reading demands nothing less than everything, heart, soul and mind. Jesus' call will compel each one of his followers to take the fullest extent of God's love to the furthest reach of that love, to every person whom God made. As God has first loved us, we will love others. This is Jesus’ call to us to ministry. Everything comes from God and belongs to God, and that demands a pattern of action, love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor; remembering that love is not how we feel, but a decision we make, a pattern of action. Love is a pattern of action. The pattern of action that God shows forth is, creation, blessing, dependence on God, forgiveness, and new life. This is how we are to love our neighbors, and our neighbors are everyone, the outcasts and the sinners, you and me. So what does that look like? Our Old Testament passages of late have given us some parameters. Those stories show us that there are no other Gods, and no idols, and after that comes keep Sabbath. Keeping Sabbath means that every seven days, every seven hours, every seven minutes maybe, we should stop what we are doing and rest, maybe even pray, “thank you lord for your abundant love and blessings, thank you for this moment to give you glory and praise.” We are to respect the people to whom we are related, and we are all related, we are not to murder, we are not to be promiscuous, we are not to steal, we are not to lie about our neighbor, and we are not to be greedy. These are the actions of love. The results of all these actions of love are right relationships, and an attitude of abundance and thanksgiving. When we act in love we adopt a posture of mercy and compassion. The original question the Pharisees ask Jesus is which commandment in the law is the greatest? Jesus answers not with law, but with the pattern of action that is love. You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all you soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does indeed win.