S1 Ep. 22: Love Before Judgment

Transcript

Carol Vassar:

From SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut, I'm Carol Vassar, and this is Living in Faith, Hope, and Love. Each week, our Pastor, Father Mark Suslenko, delves into Scripture, shares insights from the saints, prophets, and theologians, and discusses practical ways to cultivate faith, strengthen hope, and embody love in the world around us. Through his reflections and spiritual encouragement, this podcast aims to inspire you to live your Catholic faith with joy and purpose. Welcome. 

Ahhhh…the age-old question of who, exactly, is my neighbor.  The answer, it turns out, is not simple to pin down. In the best-known sense, our neighbors live next door, or they look like us, or they share our beliefs. Yet Father Mark argues in this encore presentation of the podcast that the concept of neighbor is much more inclusive when we examine it through the word of God. It’s more about creating space in our lives for others we may not agree with, may have overlooked or even misunderstood, and it’s truly about love first above all things. Here’s Father Mark: 

“Love Before Judgment,” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut

Father Mark Suslenko:

From its inception, our faith tradition has always tried to increase our understanding of "Who is our neighbor?" In fact, the whole concept of biblical justice is based on restoring our relationships with one another, with God, with ourselves, with the world in which we live. The Hebrew scriptures that are at the basis of our faith tradition particularly specify our sensitivity to the alien, the widow and the orphan. Even within the very roots of Judaism, understanding our relationship and responsibility to our neighbor is of utmost importance. Jesus takes this to yet another level when he tells us that you cannot love God without also then loving your neighbor. So, it's even more important and even more significant to restore these relationships because you truly cannot have one without the other.

Now, all of us sitting here today, most likely could take a piece of paper and a writing utensil and list those folks we consider to be our neighbor. The people who live on our same street, the people who live in our same condo association, the people who are next to us in church today, the people we meet in the supermarket, the ones who cash us out, the folks who live in Columbia, those who live in another state, those in other parts and corners of the world, indeed, any one of God's children has the ability to be referred to as our neighbor. Defining who our neighbor is isn't the challenge. The challenge comes with defining our relationship with our neighbor. It's in defining that relationship that our faith life becomes a little bit more tricky and indeed a little bit more messy.

The tendency that we have as human beings is to ponder our relationships with our neighbor by using our heads first. In other words, we have preconceived notions and ideas, theories and philosophies about who people are and what their relationship with us ought to be. Think for a moment about the elderly woman living down at the corner of the street who never comes out of her house. In fact, when kids go by her driveway, she's always out there telling them to get out. In your experience of her, she has never, in your opinion, been nice. She's just this woman who lives in this house at the end of the street. And so your sensibility and your experience says, keep away from her. She doesn't wanna bother with me. I'm most certainly not going to bother with her. And so both of you get about the business of your lives based on what you think and what you perceive and what you assume.

The same is true of any number of folks whom we consider to be our neighbor. Sometimes how we think they are influences how we then act. If we think homeless people are homeless for a particular reason that has more to do with their responsibility than what society is doing or bigger, larger problems outside of their control, then that thinking albeit incorrect, is going to prevent that person from making sandwiches and going to a homeless shelter and feeding the homeless.

Our ideologies, our philosophies, our understanding of life and the world can so quickly and easily color how we relate to people. Think about our society. Everyone can come to the easy conclusion, and rightfully so, that. Our world is causing us to become more fearful and introverted. We're certainly much more guarded when we go into the public square and rightfully so. There are justifiable reasons for that kind of behavior. But we also have to admit, on the other hand, that it influences how we relate to one another. So doesn't technology, as good as it can be. How often it is the case that you're walking down the street and somebody's got their face in their iPhone? You say "Good morning," and you don't even get a glance anymore.

The interactions with folks are colored by how we approach life and what we think about our life. Is that how Jesus imagines this love of neighbor thing to go? Is that how we're supposed to do this? Draw the conclusion in our mind and then act accordingly. I don't think so.

We put the cart before the horse sometimes with our faith life, and we get things backwards. You see, Jesus wants us to look at things a bit differently. He wants us to do some heart work; heart work first. Not head work, heart work. He wants our hearts to be conformed to his. You see, we can't understand how Jesus relates to the poor and the afflicted, the outcast, and the broken, the wounded, and the sinner unless we can somehow get inside of Him. We have to get out of ourselves and inside of Him in order to understand how he wants us to relate to folks. And this contemplative stand toward life, which is rooted in prayer, rooted in prayer, establishes my relationship with God, my relationship with Christ, so that I become more and more in his image. I begin to see things through that different lens, a contemplative lens that puts compassion, mercy, love, and forgiveness first and foremost before ideas, theories, philosophies and rules. They always have to come first. And so if we have this contemplative heart developing within ourselves, if we have this relationship with God, when we see someone who is in pain, we're going to first respond to that pain and that need. If we see somebody is hurting we're going to put our thoughts and ideas aside and go first with the hand of friendship and compassion. Maybe it takes knocking on the door of the woman who seems so bitter about life to begin to understand how she sees the world and why she may be perceived like that.

You see, human beings are not things. They're not theories. They're unique, precious gifts created by God. Behind every set of eyes is a story, a story, a story of someone who's experienced pain, who has ideas, who has longings, desires, a heart, a soul, not things. We're never things. But see ideas and theories and regulations and rules, they can all make us easily into things. Things to be manipulated and positioned in ways that sometimes meet our comfort zone levels more than anything else.

As we deal with our neighbor, sometimes our heart is gonna call us to deal with that immediate response first. In other words, if the person in front of us hasn't eaten, we need to feed them first. If they come to us without clothing, we need to clothe them first. And then once we have that immediate response out of compassion and mercy and love, then we begin to do the other work. We allow that enlightenment to then influence our brains and help us decide where we go from here in dealing with the bigger picture of what is in front of us.

In doing it that way, we always remain committed to the work of God. Our hearts, first and foremost, have to be enlightened, because let's face it, if we truly believe in God and we truly believe that we are nothing without God, then an unenlightened heart is always going to lead to nothing; an unenlightened heart is always going to lead to nothing. Only an enlightened heart is going to fix us on the truth of who we are, and what we're called to be and do. And it's not rocket science. God places all of that stuff right within us. It's already in our hearts. It's already in our minds. All we have to do is listen to it and carry it out. Listen to it, and carry it out. We have to get out of our own way in order to listen and we have to set aside our own agenda in order to carry out God's. But the person who has a right to be called our neighbor is indeed a person. A person with needs, desires, and aspirations just as we have. A person who deserves our respect, who deserves the openness of our lives.

We all know those folks who are able to open their lives. We all know those folks who have the space within themselves to welcome someone else within. When we develop a contemplative heart, when we focus our own heart on the heart of Christ and become more in his image and likeness, then we also create that depth of space where you are welcome in me and I am welcome in you. I have room to hear your story and you have room to hear mine, and together we build up then the body of Christ.

Carol Vassar:

Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. If you like what you've heard today, please subscribe to Living in Faith, Hope, and Love on your favorite podcast app, and take a moment to leave a review.

SS. Isidore and Maria is an active parish community, so whether you’re a long-time parishioner or are just getting to know us through this podcast, we welcome you to join us at Masses or any of our other community events and services. Visit our parish website - isidoreandmaria.org - for a full schedule of Masses, services and other happenings. That's isidoreandmaria.org. We're also active on Facebook and Instagram.

On behalf of Father Mark, I'm Carol Vassar, and we thank you for listening to this episode of Living in Faith, Hope, and Love.