My name is Melissa and I have a confession to make I struggle with loving myself A third generation oldest daughter of an oldest daughter Trust me, there's a lot to unpack there I am harder on myself than any of my friends or family As a Midler Seminary student here in Austin from a rural diocese Balancing being a mother, studies, and working part time to pay the bills I sometimes have doubts if this is where I belong Why would God call me to a ministry in a church people continue to tell me is dying Why would God need me, a plaid-loving southern woman who grew up poor, survived abuse Sometimes slips into saying y'all too much Takes football way too seriously, sinner, to help preach the Gospel So when I went over the Gospel for today My eyes kept focusing on as yourself I sat in silence in my house, closed my eyes, and imagined sitting with Jesus I could see me raising my hand in the large crowd and asking him What do you mean as yourself? There are days I cannot look into the mirror without focusing on all my imperfections How do I love myself in a world where I have struggled to get ahead Felt shame in who I am and have worried I'd disappoint God I immediately acknowledged the tension in my body I could feel my forehead wrinkling as I squinted at the page An anxious voice in my head told me to move on But something in my heart kept nagging at me Why can't I see myself as beloved by God? Why has my identity and subsequent love of myself been strangled by societal demands on my personhood? Oh, that question has haunted me for years I've spent mornings having coffee with my husband, discerning my purpose I've sat across from my classmates at lunch and throw my hands in the air and said Why am I here if I'm struggling to see why God wants me here? I'd had flashbacks in my first semester of seminary where one of my professors wanted me to create a rule of life Encouraging me to focus on setting aside quiet time for prayer But it's hard to add one more task to my life I was so focused my first year seminary and arguing over the future of church polity or theological issues I also stayed up late studying scripture as I struggled to understand what it all meant I remember thinking when was it all going to unravel for me? When was I going to have my big aha moment? Which sounds awfully familiar with the conversations the Pharisees and the Sadducees were having with Jesus They too were looking for a big aha moment It's when I finally noticed that Jesus didn't quite answer their question How they wanted, instead offering something unsolicited The Pharisees asked him for the greatest commandment and Jesus gave them two The Greek word for like that Jesus uses just before giving the second commandment Means of equal rank We cannot truly fulfill the first commandment of loving God without fulfilling the commandment of loving our neighbor Jesus is an amazing teacher if you haven't noticed He's also redirecting these two groups back to the laws they should know passed down by Moses to his people from God Found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might And then in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 You shall love your neighbor as yourself This love that Jesus speaks about is not romantic love for our neighbor The Greek word agapo is a love in which we have deliberate active and conscious welfare for their Or conscious dedication to their welfare It's not a warm sentiment we can just pass off with a hallmark card But a conscious choice to actively seek the well-being of others Moses uses something very similar in Hebrew Well how then do we actively practice loving God? Well we read scripture, we pray, and we gather here every Sunday at God's table We take deliberate steps to have an intimate and personal relationship with God So that begs the question, how do we love our neighbors as ourselves? This past summer as part of my seminary requirements I reluctantly participated in clinical pastoral education or CPE An intensive course of action reflection model practice for me in a hospital setting I say reluctantly because I was nervous about meeting people outside of my comfort zone Complete strangers while they were going through perhaps very volatile moments in their lives I would visit with patients throughout the day practicing how to listen and be present And then compose a verbatim or a dialogue of my encounter to then reflect on with my classmates and educators At first I thought CPE was a time in which I got to know my neighbors Hear their stories and try to reflect that peace and calm during their time of need What I didn't realize was CPE is more about me than them I encountered patient after patient often reflecting back something similar to my own story One afternoon I sat with a patient who listed on their medical chart that they were not religious They were struggling with depression from some family troubles and sadly had turned to alcohol for relief This landed them in the hospital with liver issues I completely understood why they were sad as I've experienced distance with my family They had ventured into helping their family with a business and then that all fell apart Which destroyed their family dynamics They were sad and alone When I asked them if they found comfort in prayer they said, God doesn't listen to me I don't even know why I'm here My heart ached for this person Would they be able to see that they were beloved, that God wanted them here and they were made in God's image? Every day, encounter after encounter, I saw aspects of my story and the people I visited I would sit and listen for sometimes an hour to try and demonstrate patience, love, and kindness to them as their chaplain As I drove home and then decompressed on my couch in silence, I remember lifting up my thoughts about the day Lord, did I do enough? Please be with them during their time of need and let them know that they are loved And then I heard a piece of unsolicited advice prayed over me If you see yourself in them and you are making the choice to love them, well then Melissa, you need to love yourself I started to see myself differently in the mirror I didn't need to look a certain way, compare my life to others, speak in a certain manner, or put myself on some pedestal that didn't exist in the eyes of God Months removed from CPE, I'm finding joy in meeting new people at my boys football games, growing in community with my seminary cohort, and getting to know everyone here at Jubilee But sometimes, I still struggle with flexing that muscle Perhaps you've heard of him, but our former presiding bishop, Michael Curry, kind of knows a thing or two about love In his book, Love is the Way, he reflected on this call by Jesus Loving the self is a required balance. If we fail in that, we fail our neighbor too To love your neighbor is to relate to them as someone made in the image of God And it is to relate to yourself as someone made in the image of God It's God up, down, and all around. God is love Perhaps loving yourself then is forgiving yourself Maybe loving yourself is taking that time to just be present in the moment Or loving yourself is simply the understanding that you do not have to adhere to any societal expectations God has called you and loves you exactly as you are And maybe when loving ourselves gets hard, we can strengthen that muscle of actively loving our neighbors and then turn that love inward Amen