Enlarging the Neighborhood

It’s interesting that when Jesus talks about eternal life he begins by talking about something else.

When Jesus speaks about living into eternal moments he gives us stuff that we can do before the day is up.

An example is found in Luke’s gospel. It’s the Good Samaritan story. A lawyer asks, “What must I do to get into eternal life?” Jesus, being used to people trying to pin him down, deflects the question. “Well, you’ve passed the bar exam,” says Jesus, “what is written in the law?” “Love God with all you are and love your neighbor as yourself,” the lawyer answers. “Correct. If you do this, you will live,” Jesus says. This attorney gets the God part OK, but then he wants to know who his neighbor is and who his neighbor is not.

This summer’s theme is “Enlarging the Neighborhood.” Jesus enlarges our neighborhood by making a noun into a verb. To Jesus, “neighbor” is something you do, and not a “someone” whose status you debate.

Jesus then launches into this story we are all familiar with. The story, of course, focuses on a Samaritan whom the Jews of Jesus’ day despised, because of their different heritage and religious views. But in this story, the Samaritan is the one who let his life get mixed up in the messiness of somebody else’s life.

He didn’t know where the robbers were. Maybe they were hiding in the ditch on the other side of the road, or hanging out around the next bend. But this Samaritan got involved, got mixed up with a life in need; just like those of you who week in and week out, help with our PADS shelter, or work over at the PRC, getting mixed up in others’ needs.

John Wesley, founder of the UMC says, “Loving the neighbor begins in the heart.” Wesley believed that a right heart marked the beginning of loving neighbors. He believed that over time Christ gets formed inside us within that center of choosing and wishing and hoping. Just like mannerisms get shaped inside us from living with others, so, too, a life with Christ shapes and forms Jesus into your center or heart.

In our lives today, many think that “Good fences make good neighbors.” We live lives that seek to reduce our risk of involvement with one another. We think that we have progressed so far, but often we have become trapped by our fears, the fear of involvement, and the fear of risking our lives on someone else. Clarence Jordan once said: “Fear is the polio of the soul that keeps us from living by faith.” In 1969, the year Jordan died, a tiny interracial Christian community that he started began a housing development program we now know as Habitat for Humanity.

Jesus says to the lawyer in the other story: “Go. Take a risk. Cross the road.” Go, be a neighbor to someone else, especially someone who is up against it, who is poor, lonely, hurting; we might even discover the healing of our own loneliness.

Deep down, there is only one answer to our own loneliness, and that is community. It always means taking a risk, opening the circle to someone else. Jurgen Moltmann said “the opposite of poverty is not property. The opposite of them both is community.” The Levite and the Priest went on down the road, on their side, isolated and alone. But the Samaritan took a risk, and in the process, found the cure for his own loneliness -- he found community. Jesus says he found life.

Jesus takes a risk, on us, pushing his way into our lives, getting down in the ditch with us who are wounded and hurting, coming at us in bread and cup and neighbor, inviting us to get involved. Wherever you are this summer, make it bigger with your heart. Jesus says go with this love to the ends of the earth. I believe that the earth ends wherever God’s love is not heard or spoken. Maybe the ends of the earth are across the kitchen table, maybe next door. Maybe it’s in that summer outreach program two states over. Go and enlarge the neighborhood. Watch your life get as big as you love. Witness these moments becoming eternal.