In his teaching on the most important commandment, Jesus
lists (and equates) two: “Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind
and with all your strength” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
(Mark 12:28-34) Through much of
Christian history, the love of self has been frowned upon, often being bundled
with pride and self-indulgent ways. Yet
we cannot fulfill the commandment to love the neighbor if we do not love
ourselves.
Our
basic understanding of humanity says that there is a lot to love about
you. You are a precious child of
God. You have been made in the image of
God. You are unique, holy and every hair
on your head is counted and known to the divine. In Psalm 139 the author praises God saying:
“For it was you who formed my
inward parts;
you knit me
together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made.”
Moreover, the story of Jesus is a
story that teaches how God is deeply in love with you, choosing to experience
humanity for you; choosing to experience death for you. If God is deeply in love with you, then you can be deeply in love with you. You can acknowledge your gifts and quirks and
all the things that make you uniquely you.
You can take the time to care for your body. You can get enough sleep without calling it
laziness. You can get enough food
without calling it gluttony. You can experience
pleasure without calling it hedonism.
Much of Christian history has been
shaped by the denial of the self, especially the physical self. It seems problematic that somehow the denial
of pleasure and joy has been seen as way of honoring God; that the God who
created us a sexual beings wants us to deny sexuality; that the God who created
the varieties of fruits and vegetables that were part of the Garden of Eden
story is honored when we eat only bread and water. There are too many stories (including that of
Martin Luther) where great Christians have suffered long term illness or early
death because of their efforts to control and discipline their physical needs.
To be clear, there need to be
limits, which I will write about more when talking about the virtues of
Contentment and Self-control. Part of
the reason that Christians have a history of calls to self-discipline is that
it very easy to cross the line from self-love to self-idolization. It is also very easy to turn our needs and
pleasures into idols themselves. Food is
a gift from God, but an obsession with food can turn into gluttony on the one
hand and anorexia on the other. Sex is a
gift from God, but an idolization of sex can turn abusive and controlling (as
we are hearing through the current #MeToo movement). Sexual idolatry can turn into an obsession
with having sex on the one hand and an obsession with preventing sex on the
other.
Most importantly, an idolization of
the self makes it impossible to truly love God or love others, because
Christian love involves the giving of one’s self. An idolization of the self blurs our vision
so that we forget that while we are important and precious, loved by God, so is
our neighbor; so is the stranger far away; so is the immigrant; so is the
family experiencing homeless; so is the drug addict.
It is good to celebrate who you are
and how God has made you. It is good care
for yourself. We are the stewards of our
minds and bodies, given the joyful but challenging task of caring for
them. It is good to learn about
yourself, how your mind works, how you learn, how you react to situations. It is
good to experience joy and pleasure, not turning them into obsessions, but
participating in them as part of God’s good creation.
And finally, it is good to give
ourselves away in love. The Christian vision
of love is that a full life is found in giving ourselves away. As the Apostle John wrote to church, “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love
one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives
in us, and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:11-12) Loving the self is part of participating in
the gift of divine love, but love find completeness when it moves beyond the
self and into the world.
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