Neighbor love

We’ve been talking a lot at Luther lately about what it means to love our neighbor. Loving your neighbor is at the heart of Christianity, but the definition of “neighbor” is both deeper and wider than the common notion. Kristin Largen, a systematic theologian on the faculty at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg has a great post up this week where she uses a NYTimes article as a place to riff on “loving the neighbor.” Read her whole post, but here’s a quote to whet your interest:

The gifts of loving the strange, the uncommon, the odd. I think that in some ways, Christianity is, at its heart, a religion that stakes its life on that kind of love, beginning with a God who loved the strange, uncommon, odd world--and its strange, uncommon, odd people [and creatures] so much, that God willingly entered into their reality, living and dying with them so that they might never be apart from God. And, speaking of the incarnation, who was fonder of oddballs than Jesus? And so then, too, are Christians called to love the strange, the uncommon, the odd, bringing God's love to the often overlooked and passed-by