I don’t think Jesus is saying anything at all about self-esteem in the second Greatest Commandment. And it worries me a lot that churches are leading with messages of self-love. I don’t think Americans need to hear a message that starts like this: “The first thing you need to do is work on loving yourself. And when you’ve got that down then you can turn to loving others.” Because, as best I can tell, a lot of Christians are spending their whole lives just working away on the first part of that equation. Year after year American Christians are spending all their spiritual formation energy on learning to love themselves. And that seems a bit screwy.

What I actually think Jesus is trying to say in the second Greatest Commandment is that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As I argue in Unclean, Jesus is trying to blur the boundary between Self and Other. Jesus is trying in the second Greatest Commandment to form an identity relationship between Self and Other, to see our lives as intertwined. The hallmark of this fusion is empathy, the ability to stand in another person’s shoes and ask a simple question: “If this were me, what would I want?” Basically, “love your neighbor as you love yourself” is just another version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The above passages come from the Experimental Theology post entitled Loving Your Neighbor as You Love Yourself: A Comment on Love and Self-esteem. Richard Beck raises great points here about what Jesus has to say about loving self and loving others.

This second greatest commandment (Mark 12:31) is an important one for many people. Although I whole heatedly agree with Beck’s interpretation of Mark 12:31–Jesus is trying to convey a message of self-emptying Kenosis, not imploring folks to seek self-help psychotherapy–I do think matters of self-esteem and personal well being are of great significance to the spiritual life. In fact, I’d say it’s common sense that without properly loving and honoring the Divine image within oneself, it hardly seems possible to honor it properly in anyone else.

As a matter of fact, I’d argue that the entire Gospel of John is somewhat dedicated to matters of looking within oneself to find life. Over and over in the Gospel of John, Jesus encounters people who are fixated on external things which they feel will bring them life, and again and again Jesus invites them to look within.

For instance Jesus says this to the Samaritan Woman at the well after she again mistakenly thinks he is referring to the actual water in the well before them: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

So as we can see, Jesus does care very much about loving oneself, but I’m with Richard in affirming that the second greatest commandment is not to love yourself but to die to yourself so that you may truly love.

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Painting above by Ryan Browning

Tags:Jesuslove of otherpsychotherapyRichard BeckRyan Browningself-esteemWoman at the Well