Title: Love Thy Neighbor
Author: Emily92
Pairing/Character: Elliot
Rating: T
Summary: Elliot has something of a faith crisis while driving with Olivia.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: I do not own SVU, nor do I claim to be the oracle of religious authority. Please keep in mind that I'm not trying to offend anyone with any of my personal views that may have seeped into this.
Love Thy Neighbor
He's quiet that morning. They're in the car, on the way to a crime scene, and he's sitting there in silence. Just sitting, contemplating. Another day, another terrible crime. He's Catholic, very religious. He wonders if his God knew beforehand, truly knew, constantly-see-on-a-daily-basis type of knew, the types of awful atrocities people committed, the atrocities people subjected others to; he wonders if his God knew of them beforehand, if he still would have done it all. Created the human race. Constantly witnessing those atrocities and the hurt that stems from them, he sometimes harbors a strong hatred for his fellow humans.
But it wasn't right to hate; he was supposed to love his neighbor. The bible tells him that. Sunday sermons tell him that. But sometimes, he finds it impossible to do. Forty-five year old man rapes his twelve year old step-daughter. Wife kills husband in cold blood. Pedophile murders five year old boy. How was he supposed to love them?
He knows that his God is known as loving and forgiving. The Lord readily offers forgiveness to all sinners, if they truly repent. But even they were truly sorry, that doesn't erase what they did, the scars that they inflicted on their victims. Sometimes apologies can end up being nothing more than hollow words; they don't do anything constructive.
He thinks about the Parable of the Lost Sheep. A shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one gets loose. The shepherd leaves the other ninety-nine sheep to go look for the lost one. The shepherd likes the found sheep more than the other ninety-nine. Last week during Sunday mass, his pastor likened the single lost sheep to a sinner, that there would be more rejoicing over one repenting sinner than the other ninety-nine who have no need for redemption. What if the sinner was a rapist? He doesn't think "rejoicing" and "rapist" ought to ever be in the same sentence, unless that sentence also involves the word "death." That isn't love; he is not loving his neighbors, but often he just cannot. He can't do it. He can love his family; he can love Liv. He cannot, however, seem to love the people he puts behind bars. Sometimes, he doesn't even want to try.
Trying to choose a stance on the death penalty gives him a headache. His faith tells him, thou shalt not kill. Sometimes, though, he likes the idea of the death penalty. Scum like that, scum who had hurt and killed and raped; scum liked that deserved death. Look what they did to their victims; they stole childhoods and robbed people from their happiness and made people experience things that nobody should ever have to go through. Wasn't the death penalty justice? In cases like those, he liked the Old Testament view of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; but there is always this little voice in the back of his mind saying Elliot, Elliot, thou shalt not kill. More often than not, his faith and his idea of justice just don't seem to match up. He doesn't know what to do, how he can reconcile the two. Sometimes, the idea of loving his neighbor makes him sick, yet it is something that he needs to do. How? He wants direction, the ability to do so. He wants to live in a world where he can easily love every last one of his neighbors.
He wants to do the right thing, but he doesn't know what that is anymore. Is it right to forgive rapists and murderers and the like? To forgive the forty-five year old man who raped his twelve year old step-daughter? The wife who killed husband in cold blood? The pedophile who murdered the five year old boy? Would his forgiveness really do anything for the step-daughter, the husband, or the little boy?
The bottom line of the entire situation is that Jesus preached a message of love, and he doesn't know if he can answer the call.