Above and Beyond

February 27

Readings – DT 26:16-19; MT 5:43-48

True Confession: I often think of the Shania Twain song, “That Don’t Impress Me Much.”

I especially think of it today with these readings.

Deuteronomy reminds us that our role is not just to “obey” the law but to observe it with all hearts and our souls.  I often think of this as the “above and beyond” clause.  When we do things with our heart and soul, we don’t just stop at what needs to be done (that doesn’t impress God much) , we see what else we can do and we don’t just stop when we met the legal definition of what was required.

In the gospel, Jesus speaks about not being impressed by people who only love their friends or the people who love us back.  What does that show?  He says that there’s a revolutionary love that we are being called to.  A love that asks a lot of us.  A love that is even extended to those we call enemies.  This is extravagant love, above and beyond love, over-the-top love.  It is a love that requires practice and deep inner work.

This week in Rochester, the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, reported that the officers involved in the events that killed Daniel Prude were not going to be prosecuted by the grand jury because they were following their training protocols.  I think of today’s readings when I heard the decision.

Would that verdict impress Jesus?  What does that show that they “followed training protocols” and offered no comfort, compassion or care to a man who sat naked on the cold pavement?  Were they using their hearts and souls when they put the spit bag on him and pinned his head to the pavement until he apparently stopped breathing?

A revolutionary love requires so much more from all of us and we can apply this thinking to so many situations in our own lives and in our community.

Grace Lee Boggs, a well known Detroit social activist, speaks of how her husband, Jimmy, used to ask the people he was engaging about how they could become the human being that they had the potential to become.  He would say, “You are not born a human being. It is a journey that you have to make.” 

This is what today’s readings evoke for me.  How do we love to our full potential?  How do we create systems that do the same? What practices help us go above and beyond in what we extend to others – and especially those who have been and continue to be excluded?