Being Neighboring

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

            Five years ago, a dear friend and professor died on the lawn of my seminary while playing frisbee with students.  Jannie was a tall man from South Africa and was nothing like our other professors.  I admit to hating him at first because he assigned reading BEFORE class started and he even sent the email on Thanksgiving Day!  Before then, we’d never had a professor assign work before class started and I thought, “Who does this Jannie guy think he is?”

            I found myself equally challenged in Jannie’s class because he ran his class so democratically.  Everybody’s voice mattered to him and he allowed people to talk and ask a lot of questions.  I preferred a lecture-based class and I’d have to take a long walk before his class every morning to mentally prepare for all the conversation.  My friend John would often shout from his bike as he rode to class, “Hey, aren’t you headed in the wrong direction?”

            But something about Jannie drew me to him and I found myself signing up to take another class he taught on new church development, something totally out of character for me since I’ve always been a fan of old church.

            Jannie always opened his classes with a practice he called Dwelling in the Word.  In it, you listen to a short piece of Scripture for things that jump out at you, then you and a partner share your thoughts, with the emphasis on listening to your partner, then share what you heard from your partner with the larger group. 

            The anniversary of his death was this past week and I was grieving on social media with some of my seminary friends and we swapped stories, continuing to make sense of Jannie’s short time with us at the seminary.  We talked about him being a Christ figure and how we felt like disciples left changed in his wake, but we also talked about how sharing stories was how the Church started and that by sharing our stories of Jannie we were really continuing that tradition.

            Jannie gave me a glimpse of what it means to be a neighbor and I’ve been trying to be faithful to the vision he shared through his life.  The disciples, the first leaders of the Church, are instructed to put themselves last and to be servants to all.  Is this even possible?!  I know I’m terrible at it and I have a small orbit.  I’ll have days where I think I’m doing okay, only to fall flat on my face in a fit of selfishness. 

            When I think about the task of being a good neighbor, I feel paralyzed by the task. But then I have conversations with friends about a lost colleague and I’m reminded that our ordinary encounters CAN change things and that the power of the Gospel shines through our stories of lives being changed by a listening ear or an encouraging word precisely because this is how Jesus worked.  Remembering these things give me the courage to try to keep believing, even though what I really want to do is give up out of hopelessness.  Jannie was the counterexample to the rule-following lawyer in this passage.  He loved people because he’d been changed by Jesus and each encounter with him reflected that reality.

            Each time we practiced Dwelling in the Word, Jannie would have us go and find a “reasonably friendly-looking stranger” to reflect on the passage with and it always made us laugh.  Here we’d been in class together for several years, we almost knew what people were going to say before they even opened their mouths, but somehow it was fitting, and I always found myself surprised by what people said and heard.  It was as if scripture became alive in our midst (imagine that!).  During these challenging days in the Church and the world, all I can do is disarm myself and try to live with open ears to see what God is up to in the world and how I can join with others to be part of Jesus’ upside-down vision in my neighborhood, where the last come first, and where God comforts those who are mourning.  Lord, may it be so.  Amen.

43 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. 45 Then Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.” 47 When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. 48 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

            A few years ago, I was on the phone with my grandmother.  She mentioned that she was leaving the next day to visit her friends in Atlanta.  “Who do you know in Atlanta?”  I asked.  My grandma is a woman who hadn’t been on an airplane until my father moved to Alaska in the 1980s and even after that, she mostly traveled to visit my family in Alaska  or my uncle’s family in Baltimore.  The one exception has always been the annual women’s bowling tournament in Reno with her daughters.  She lives in northern Minnesota and her life has revolved around her very large and local family, with little time or money for travel.  “Well,” she said, laughing, “We met on a flight when I was visiting your uncle in Baltimore and we became friends.  They’re having a 90^th birthday party for their mother, so they invited me.  I got a good deal on a ticket, so I’m going to the party!” 

            In some ways, this made me shake my head laughing, but in others, it was classic.  My grandma is a practicing Christian, but she wasn’t really active in the church until she retired because she worked full-time in the mines and raised seven children.  To grandma, people matter to God.  That has always been the idea guiding her life and actions.  Years ago, one of my cousins took advantage of her generosity in a pretty terrible way, so she doesn’t allow them in her home, but for years she bought their children shoes for school.  When asked about it, she said, “The kids still need shoes.”

            For my grandma, people come first.  Not her to-do list, not her housework, not her own personal growth journey.  People.

            I like to think my grandma would have stopped to talk to the woman in the story.  She wouldn’t have been able to heal her like Jesus did, but I think she would have noticed her and talked with her and seen that she got some help.  She wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get to her next appointment and would have noticed her pain.  And she certainly would have looked her in the eyes and talked to her.

            Is that what I would have done?  Am I too busy, scared, indifferent to make myself available to be interrupted?  Henri Nouwen, the great spiritual writer, is famous for saying, “I used to complain about all the interruptions to my work until I realized that these interruptions were my work.”  Is that how I view interruptions in my life?  What would things look like if I did?  I think this is the essence of being a good neighbor, though.  If we’re too self-focused to notice other people, we’re not really open to the world and we’re certainly not being the kind of person who would buy a plane ticket for a birthday party several states away like my grandma did a few years ago.  Jesus was constantly interrupted, in part, because he was out in the world a lot.  Do I make myself available to be interrupted?  Am I too tied to my ideas of how to be a Christian or am I committed to treating people the way Jesus did?  People matter to God.  Do I live my life, really live my life, like I believe this?  This is the ultimate question, isn’t it?  It looks different for all of us, but is the central tenet of being a good neighbor.  May we live lives of welcoming interruptions so that grace is visible to those around us.  Amen.

5 All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,

“God opposes the proud

    but shows favor to the humble.”

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

            Last year, the La Leche League posted a graphic saying, “Pass the baby, not the gravy” with an explanation of how young moms can stand up for their baby’s need to be with mom during the holidays so they wouldn’t feel guilty for saying no to requests from doting relatives (even grandparents).  This message was indicative of a larger trend in parenting that calls for banishing the parenting advice of recent generations.  When I was pregnant, I went to an event to meet a group of doulas I’d be working with during my birth.  A doula is a person hired by parents to provide support during labor like pain management, encouragement, and knowledge outside the medical aspects of birth.  During the question and answer time, almost all the other women sought advice on how to deal with overbearing family members.  They wanted guidance on how to set up boundaries to avoid unsolicited comments about their parenting preferences.  I myself have never had this problem since my family members live far away and aren’t very forthcoming when it comes to conversation of any kind, so I was surprised that this was such an issue. 

            A few years ago, though, a mom friend was talking to me about her mother-in-law’s concern for her son’s weight gain and the ensuing suggestion that perhaps she should supplement his breast milk with other foods.  My friend said, “She’s so uneducated!”  I tried to be sympathetic, but I took issue with her calling her mother-in-law uneducated.  I said gently, “Is she?  I thought she was a teacher.  That requires some education, right?”  My friend was clearly annoyed with me and said, “I just mean that she hasn’t raised kids for over 20 years, so she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about.”  I said, “Ahh.  Well, I try to take a long view.  I mean, lots of parenting advice from the past sounds silly, so maybe the advice we’re getting will seem ridiculous in the future, too.  Maybe feeding babies on demand will produce obese teenagers or something, you know?”  My friend suddenly had somewhere else she needed to be, so that was the end of that conversation. 

            But I’ve continued to think about the conversation these years later.  I probably should have been a better friend.  I definitely should have been a better friend.  But I still think about our collective impulse to think we’ve got things figured out and to write off those who don’t.  In the case of my friend and the parents at the doula gathering, we’re disregarding the wisdom of more seasoned parents, but I think this issue goes on all over the place and the church certainly isn’t immune to it.

            I’ve been skeptical of new church plants, so I’ve mostly been involved with established churches, which means I’ve heard the old saying “We’ve always done it this way” quite a bit. And I’ll be honest, I mostly like things done the way they’ve always been done.  I enjoy old hymns, I like church suppers full of rich food I never cook at home, singing by candles at Christmas is one of my favorite things, and I love buying altar flowers in memory of my loved ones.  I feel grounded by these old traditions and I’m not one to break them open in favor of new ones.  Many new church starts feel to branded, too hip for me.

            However, since I’m a younger person I’m often viewed with suspicion.  Will I fit in or demand changes?  One of my pastor friends once said that his church wanted to grow, but what they really wanted was for the church down the street to close and for the churches to merge since they already knew and liked the people at the church down the road.  They wanted what they thought would be painless growth.  Not the kind of growth where old things necessarily die or change. 

            We humans get attached to our ways.  We tend to elevate our preferences and don’t always leave room for those wanting to join in, especially if changes will be necessary.  And we so often just don’t get it.  For this reason, humility is brought up time and time again in scripture as being critical to the life of faith.  From the story of Adam and Eve, through the heroes and prophets of the Old Testament, in the life of Jesus, and in the early Church, God is constantly calling people to humility. 

            I think humility can lead us to a place where we see others in their humanity, rather than as a threat.  It can lead us to a posture of openness, which allows us to listen and welcome others where they are.  I think humility might just be the most important attribute of a good neighbor.  If we aren’t humble, how can we begin to be a welcoming presence to our neighbors?  But it’s hard.  So hard.  Adding new voices to the table takes so much work and sometimes it seems like it isn’t worth it.  But we’re called to it as people of faith and I think in our current reality, it’s more important than ever.  May we have the courage to listen to others in humility and in humble strength, be brave enough to share our reality so our neighbors can feel the love of Christ.