What we all owe to each other

The last of “The Table of Duties” from Luther’s SMALL CATECHISM:

THE YOUNG
You younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. 1 Peter 5:5-6.
 
ALL CHRISTIANS
You shall love your neighbor as yourself….I exhort…that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Romans 13:9; 1 Timothy 2:1.

Being young is a vocation, though like others it doesn’t last. Here the relationship dyad is within the Bible verse: the young and the old. But already the Apostle Peter generalizes his point to fit all of the vocational relationships that have gone before: “All of you be submissive to one another.” And avoid pride, the bane of all relationships and of all vocations.

The final instruction is also for all Christians, summing up the point of them all and the purpose of all vocations: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And so endeth our series on the Catechism.