Love Your Neighbor
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… Love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:30–31
What would happen if we truly saw our neighbors as God sees them?
When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, He refused to separate our relationship with God from our relationship with people. Love God and love your neighbor. Our vertical love for God must become horizontal love toward humanity.
Jesus does not say, “Love the neighbor who looks like you, worships like you, speaks your language, shares your culture, comes from your country, or agrees with you.” He simply says, “Love your neighbor.”
Jesus Is Justice
Throughout His ministry, Jesus crossed boundaries that society had constructed. He spoke with Samaritans, welcomed children, touched those others considered unclean, ate with people others rejected, elevated women, responded to foreigners, and restored people pushed to the margins.
Jesus demonstrated that justice is love made visible.
Long before our contemporary conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, Jesus modeled a community in which human dignity was not determined by social status, ethnicity, gender, nationality, wealth, or proximity to power. He saw people. He knew people. He valued people.
And Scripture takes us even deeper. Genesis 1:27 declares that humanity is created in the image of God. That means when we encounter another human being, we encounter someone who bears the imago Dei—the image of the Creator.
What if we learned to acknowledge and appreciate God’s image in each other?
Around the World, Precious in God’s Sight
Many of us remember singing a simple song in Vacation Bible School about Jesus loving the children of the world. Its message was uncomplicated but profound: children across racial and cultural differences are precious in God’s sight.
Maybe adulthood has made complicated what childhood faith understood so clearly:
We are all God’s children, precious in God’s sight.
Imagine how different our communities and our world could be if we saw one another as God sees us.
Our differences do not diminish the image of God. They reveal something of the extraordinary breadth of God’s creativity. Different cultures. Different languages. Different traditions. Different foods, music, clothing, stories, histories, and experiences. Humanity offers countless expressions of the creativity of Creator God.
International peace begins when we stop treating difference as a reason for distance.
Justice grows when we recognize dignity.
Community grows when curiosity replaces assumptions.
Belonging grows when people are not merely tolerated but genuinely welcomed, known, valued, and appreciated.
Love. See. Know. Appreciate. Accept.
Perhaps loving our neighbors can become a spiritual practice:
LOVE your neighbor enough to move beyond tolerance.
SEE your neighbor as a person created in God’s image.
KNOW your neighbor by listening to their story.
APPRECIATE the culture, gifts, wisdom, and experiences they bring.
ACCEPT your neighbor without requiring them to become more like you first.
This is more than diversity. This is radical hospitality.
And this is part of the work of peace and justice. We cannot build peace around the world while refusing to know the people across the street. We cannot seek justice for humanity in the abstract while overlooking the humanity standing right beside us.
Jesus reminds us that the neighbor is not simply someone to talk about. The neighbor is someone to love.
Come Meet Our Neighbors Around the World
On October 3rd, 2026, Scarritt Bennett Center invites you to put love of neighbor into practice at Celebrate Nashville at Centennial Park. Scarritt Bennett is excited to participate with programming at the newly constructed Centennial Event Pavilion.
Come experience cultures, traditions, creativity, conversation, and community. Be a part of our Love Your Neighbor Quilt. Blend your own Cultural Blend Tea with Tea Tea & Company. Enjoy sips and sweets from Scarritt Bennett.
Check out our full lineup of activities at the Centennial Event Pavilion. Travel to Terminal 4. We will be waiting on you!
Activities will take place throughout Centennial Park, beginning with the parade at 9:00 a.m., followed by opening greetings at 10:00 a.m. and performances from 10:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Come ready not simply to observe another culture, but to encounter another neighbor.
Because perhaps the journey toward a more peaceful and just world begins with something beautifully simple.
LOVE Your Neighbor by:
Seeing Your Neighbor.
Knowing Your Neighbor.
Appreciating Your Neighbor.
Accepting Your Neighbor.
When we recognize the image of God in one another, strangers can become neighbors, neighbors can become community, and community can become a place where peace and justice flourish.
Let’s Reflect:
- Who is God inviting you to see differently?
- Whose story do you need to learn?
- What culture or community could you intentionally encounter rather than observe from a distance?
This week, choose one action that moves you from simply seeing a neighbor to knowing and appreciating and accepting them.
Let’s Pray:
Creator God, open our eyes to recognize Your image in every person we encounter. Teach us to love beyond the boundaries we have created and to appreciate the beautiful diversity of Your creation. Give us courage to challenge injustice, humility to listen before assuming, and grace to welcome those whose stories and experiences differ from our own. Make us truly neighbors to one another. May our love become justice, our hospitality become belonging, and our community become a glimpse of Your beloved world. Amen.
Peace & Blessings,
Rev. Sondrea L. Tolbert, J.D., M.Div.
Executive Director & CEO
Scarritt Bennett Center
Scarritt Bennett Center — Creating Space for a More Just World.
From left: Rev. Sondrea L Tobert, Executive Director, Michael Vaughn, Director of Technology, Gloria Caruthers, Executive Assistant/HR.
No Comments