Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.
Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)
Shirley Erena Murray (born March 31, 1931) is a New Zealand hymn lyrics writer. Her hymns have been translated into several European and Asian languages and are represented in more than 140 hymn books around the world. In addition to New Zealand, they are particularly used in North America. In 2001, she became a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for “services as a hymn writer”. In 2006, she became a fellow of the Royal School of Church Music. She received an honorary doctor of literature degree from the University of Otago in 2009. The same year, she was named a fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.
Her hymn ‘Community of Christ‘ begins “Community of Christ, who make the cross your own, live out your creed and risk your life for God alone.” The full second verse is “Community of Christ, look past the Church’s door and see the refugee, the hungry, and the poor. Take hands with the oppressed, the jobless in your street, take towel and water, that you wash your neighbor’s feet.”
This verse reflects Matthew 25:35-45 (NIV) which says: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Eugene H. Peterson, author of ‘The Message‘, paraphrases this same Matthew 25 passage: “Then the King will say, I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me — you did it to me. … Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me — you failed to do it to me.”
What have you done for your neighbor lately?
David Robert Lambert 