You Cannot Love God and Ignore Your Neighbor In Front of You
📌 Homily by Fr. Matthew Brown. 🗓️ December 07, 2025 📍 St. Mary Magdalen Orthodox Church (OCA), New York City
The Nature of Our Obligations to Others
We have a number of readings today. The Good Samaritan is probably the parable from the New Testament that most people are familiar with, even if they are not very religious. Everyone knows this story. It is all about the question, who is my neighbor, which really means, who do I have obligations to. Who do I owe things to. It is a question about the nature of my relationships with other people.
This question asks specifically, how do I relate to people who have nothing to give back to me. What do I owe the one whose suffering brings me no reward and no consequences if I ignore it. If my child is hungry and I do not feed them, someone will eventually call protective services on me. But if I step over a homeless man on the street, nothing happens to me. That is the nature of what we are dealing with.
The lawyer in the Gospel answers correctly, but he still does not understand. He knows the right words, but he does not grasp what it means to love my neighbor as myself, nor has he put it into practice.
In the other Gospel reading Jesus sits with tax collectors and sinners and He is criticized for it. Why are you spending time with these people. Why are you in any kind of relationship with them. This reveals our human desire to draw lines, deciding who is in and who is out of our lives.
Cutting people off is extremely common now. Many people cut others off because they say they are toxic. Usually those who do this quickly are themselves toxic. Ghosting has become normal. People disappear to sever obligations and remove themselves from any relational responsibility.
The people criticizing Jesus think the tax collectors and sinners are people He does not need to love, people unworthy of mercy. Jesus responds by saying God desires mercy and not sacrifice.
Here sacrifice refers to temple rituals and obligations. Sacrifice stands for my love for God. Mercy is the extension of love toward my neighbor. When God says He desires mercy and not sacrifice, He is teaching that the truest way to love God is to love the neighbor that He loves.
You cannot love God and hate your brother. Saint John says that the one who claims to love God but hates his brother is a liar. He also says the greatest love is to lay down your life for your friends. These teachings reveal what love is. To love God means to love other people. And it is very difficult to love people well if we are not loving God. These two loves are inseparable.
Yet we often separate them. Jesus calls out a kind of religious hypocrisy where people use religion to boost their status or self esteem rather than to love others. Our spiritual ancestors did not hand down this tradition so that we could feel nice. We are here to live differently.
If I fast well but act like a jerk, I broke my fast. If I pray and keep long vigils but do not grow in humility, kindness, or patience, then I am a fool. I have missed the point.
Mercy Requires Sacrifice
Jesus asks, who was the real neighbor. The answer is the one who showed mercy. Mercy is always a sacrifice. The Good Samaritan had to change his schedule, inconvenience himself, carry the man, take him to an inn, and pay his expenses. It cost him something to love his neighbor. Meanwhile the Levite and the priest likely avoided the man so they could quickly get back to temple sacrifices while neglecting mercy.
The entire point of sacrifice to God is to teach us to love God in other people.
Saint Paul speaks about his infirmities and hardships. Virtue is revealed only in deprivation. Obedience is not a virtue unless you obey when you do not feel like it. Chastity is not a virtue if no one desires you. Patience is not a virtue unless there is someone there to annoy you. Generosity is not a virtue unless you give out of your need.
Jesus teaches that there is no spiritual credit in loving only those who love us. Even the gentiles do that. Real virtue stretches us. Real love requires sacrifice.
The prophets teach the same truth. Malachi says the sacrifices of the people were a stench to God because they neglected justice, mercy, and humility. Every spiritual practice becomes rot if it is not joined with virtue.
Who is our neighbor. Anyone God places in front of us at any moment. The Gospel expands the idea of the tribe to the edges of the universe. There is no one to whom we do not owe mercy.
This is what makes Christianity difficult. These are the hard sayings of Jesus. They show us how far we have to go.
The Path of Repentance and Spiritual Growth
The measure of a saint is not the person who sins the least but the one who repents the most. The saint is not the one who never falls but the one who always gets up.
A person may look holy, put together, and free of addictions, but that does not make them the holiest person. Some people begin life halfway down the fairway. Others start deep in the rough. God judges by the heart and the distance each person travels from where they began.
If I am starting from the bottom, I may have even more opportunity to become a saint because grace abounds where sin abounds.
Paul’s sufferings reveal the depth of his love for God because they tested him. His trials exposed his devotion.
When we fast, increase our giving, and deepen our prayer, we voluntarily enter hardship. In this chosen weakness we can grow in virtue and love.
The aim of the fast is simple. We are fasting so that we can love more truly.
Glory to Jesus Christ.
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