There is something fascinating about the way relationships shape us, that no person really is an island. The people with whom we spend our time, the conversations we engage in and the perspectives we allow to influence our thinking all contribute, often imperceptibly, to the people we become.
This is particularly significant when we hold positions of power. For those entrusted with authority, personal relationships are rarely without consequence. The values we absorb and the attitudes we come to accept can gradually influence not only how we see the world, but how we treat those within it.
We are, after all, formed by our relationships. By the conversations we entertain, the behaviours we excuse, the presence we circle back to, the people whose approval we seek and the voices to which we give authority in our lives.
Even the most pastoral of people can become captivated by someone whose world revolves around appearances, status and self-importance. And when admiration becomes infatuation, discernment can quietly give way to imitation. What was once recognised as vanity becomes attractive. What was once considered unkind becomes acceptable. And the dignity of others becomes negotiable. Yet the opposite is equally true. When we surround ourselves with people whose lives are grounded in compassion, humility and genuine concern for others, we are challenged to become more compassionate ourselves. Their generosity invites our own, their kindness challenges our indifference, and their humanity reminds us of the kind of people we are called to become.
In Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 22:34–40), Jesus is asked which commandment is the greatest.
His response is deceptively simple. Love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. And love your neighbour as yourself. But there is something deeply challenging in what follows. Jesus tells us that the whole Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.
Everything.
Not simply our private faith or our personal relationships, but the way we exercise authority, make decisions, speak about others and determine whose voices matter. Jesus does not suggest that love is reserved for those who flatter us, fascinate us or make us feel important. Nor does he allow us to choose which neighbours are deserving of our compassion.
The commandment is not to love the people who make us feel good about ourselves. It is to love our neighbour. And that includes the inconvenient neighbour. The challenging colleague. The person who has nothing to offer us. Even the person whose presence disrupts the comfortable world we have created around ourselves.
Perhaps this is where power becomes its greatest spiritual test.
When someone already holds authority, the people they allow to influence them matter enormously. Their private admiration becomes public consequence. Their personal attachments begin to shape how others are heard, valued and treated. And when vapid vanity is given influence, compassion can become selective.
It is easy to speak of love. Far harder to practise it when doing so threatens our own comfort, our attachments or our carefully cultivated sense of importance. The tragedy is not simply that a person in power might become vain. It is that they might lose sight of the humanity they were once so committed to protecting. But it is not simply a challenge for the powerful, but for every human person. We are all called to love.
Jesus offers us no complicated measure of a faithful life.
Love God. Love your neighbour.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether the company we keep is enlarging our capacity to love or quietly diminishing it. Because the true measure of power and of character is not who captures our attention or whom we choose to admire, but who we forget to love.
