Alex Swain

Beloved,

God uttered a word, and the Universe erupted forth. God’s voice whispered, and thing-ness blossomed into infinity; order from disorder, existence from non-existence, and after many years, you and I sprouted forth. So it is that God spoke, and as a response to God’s voice, creation arose by His command.

Likewise, the Holy Scriptures are utterances of God, spoken to us through His prophets and peoples. These pages contain the eternal words of the Lord brought to a particular people in a particular place in a particular context - and these eternal words continue to speak to a particular people in a particular place in a particular context. The ancient writings of the Holy Scriptures are charged with the beautiful, challenging, and electric commands of God who met humanity where it was millenia in the past, and continues to meet us where we are now.

A particularly stirring meditation for me is the proclamations of the LORD regarding the alien, and how they are to be regarded. God proclaims, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34).

The other, the alien, the foreigner, the person who is not technically part of the tribe of Israel is yet to be treated as such. We humans are full of identities which simultaneously hold us to groups of love and commitment, and which also highlight who is and is not a part of our particular group. Here we see the LORD laying out that, though there may be individuals coming from significantly different backgrounds than you, you are to treat them as one of your own kin, citizens of the same nation. “You shall love the alien as yourself.”

Let us fast forward a few thousand years to the incarnation of God in Jesus the Christ. We hear as he declares in the Gospel of St. Matthew, “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 a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Over and over and over again the Lord God demonstrates and commands us to love the neighbor, the alien, the other, the not-me, the different, the outcast, as we love ourselves. The Lord God commands this practice in us and we see this play out time and time again in the Holy Scriptures. From the beginning utterances of creation unto the end, God is calling us to love God and love neighbor.

We have been brought forth by the voice of God, we are sustained by the voice of God, and may our hearts and minds be so shaped by the word of God found in the Holy Scriptures. 

Amen.

Alex Swain