Tag Archives: Neighbor

Fear, Community and the Church’s Voice

Recently at a conference, my colleague shared her experience moving to a new community. As a pastor, she knew her community well – not only the people, but practical things like the clinic phone number, her dentist, the way around the grocery store. When she moved, she explained, she felt like she knew nothing. Nothing at all! Well, she went on, she did know things. But what she knew no longer applied.

Communities are unique. Like families, communities have a dynamic. The size of the community is irrelevant. Small towns or large towns can be connected or disconnected. Urban areas or rural can be progressive or resistant to progress. Medium-sized cities or big cities can be fun and exciting or dull. I’ve lived in a very small town, a big city, a really big city, a suburb and a large town/small city, where I’ve lived now for nearly 17 years.

Yesterday, my city approved a bond to renovate and expand the public high school (particularly to replace the 1960’s original boiler which has broken down and requires parts that are now obsolete) and enhance security in the city’s public elementary schools. Perhaps because my role with a Congregation Council is to steward an old property for generations to come, I am confused why this was a difficult question in our community. Would you replace the boiler in your own home if the people who built the boiler explained they can no longer repair it?

I’ve reflected on the uniqueness of my community, which is impacted by the not-so-unique toxic presence of fear. There was fear that passing a bond would raise property taxes. Maybe there was fear of admitting that our community has grown and is projected to keep growing. Growth means change and change tends to make us fearful. Was there fear that city leaders don’t understand financial struggles experienced by some in our community – do those individuals fear they are invisible?

A common phrase in the Bible is “Do not fear.” Spoken by angels to surprised and fearful recipients of God’s important message, spoken by Jesus to the disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27c) Jesus did not say this to one disciple, but to the community of disciples. If the community became fearful, it would break apart. Fear sends us in different directions and brings out our worst. Facebook rants and Thanksgiving dinner arguments generally stem from fear, when we have let our hearts be troubled and afraid.

Gil Rendl is a leader in the Methodist denomination whose latest book calls the church to attention. How might the whole church find its voice in this time of toxic fear and vulnerable communities? What, Church, do you have to say to a people who are being sent in different directions by fear? My colleague reflected upon what she knew, that it no longer applied to her new community. But the church has been here before. We’ve struggled through cultural divides over the centuries. We have heard Jesus caution the community not to be afraid. What we know applies to this moment, when the voice of fear bemoans the problems of a community without calling us to be caring citizens of that community.

I gingerly perused some social media last night, waiting for a word on the vote count. It is encouraging to see the courageous few speak truth into the untruths that enflame social media followers. The gift of truth is that it disarms fear. It invites all of us into a higher level of maturity to rely on facts and not fear. This, of course, is much less exciting. But best for a community, or even, it is the way we are a community built on hopes and dreams, facts and figures, refusing to let fear take the lead.

Photo by Riley Edwards on Unsplash

Watch Out, Neighbor

In “Big Daddy,” the 1999 comedy with Adam Sandler, there is a scene in which Sandler’s 32-year-old character and a five-year-old boy he’s caring for go to a park. In classic 1990’s Sandler fashion, the two roll in laughter when they toss sticks on a path and watch the oncoming rollerbladers trip and fall.

Throughout the movie, Sandler’s character matures. Later, he and the boy go back to that very spot with a sign warning rollerbladers not to trip.

Everyone trips, even those of us too clumsy to put on rollerblades! We all trip and then furtively glance around hoping we’re the only one who noticed. Unless we’re under the age of four, tripping is embarrassing, and tiny band-aids tend not to make it all better.

We would rather not trip, and as Sandler’s matured character portrays, we would rather our neighbor not trip, either. Perhaps this movie line was inspired by the Apostle Paul, minus the rollerblades.

Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother or sister. 

Romans 14:13

Chapter 14 of Romans calls people who follow Jesus to warn others not to trip. Jesus followers are charged with the responsibility to pick up the sticks on the path and keep an eye out for oncoming neighbors who may be vulnerable to a fall.

Paul had tough words for people who had already begun to follow Christ and were getting in the way of new followers’ faith. The already-followers were creating stumbling blocks for those who were new to the Christian faith by instituting old laws related to food and drink. Jesus’ death had changed the importance of those laws. Instead of watching your neighbor trip, Paul offered:

Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbringing.

Romans 14:19

In order for the Christian faith to grow, Christians had to stop getting in their own way with judgement and rules that had been overshadowed by Jesus’ death. The cross Christ died on had become the path on which all are welcome. The further down the path we go, the better we need to be at watching out for the followers around us; the more determined we must be to pursue peace and mutual upbringing.

I suspect this is an important reminder in a time when the Christian faith has failed to pick up the stumbling blocks and lovingly clear the path for our neighbor to follow Jesus. As Christians, we are charged with the enormous responsibility of meeting each and every neighbor with mercy and not judgement, to clear the path particularly for the neighbor whom you may not like – perhaps because it is the neighbor whom you do not understand.

Together, let us clear the path for the person who will enter the church for the first time in a long time, or who will log onto worship because it feels safer to join from home. Christians, let us pursue peace and mutually build one another up. Is someone missing from worship? What stumbling blocks have gotten in the way of that person’s faith? You might be the very one to clear the path and invite them back.

Everyone trips. By the love of Jesus Christ through you, everyone has a way back up.

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Last Minute Ketchup (and a book recommendation)

We were moments away from a dinnertime-disaster. Special guests who had accepted a last-minute invitation were soon to arrive. The hot dogs and brats were finishing their sweat session on the grill. And we…had no ketchup! A key ingredient was missing.

After double and triple-checking for a sneaky bottle hiding in the pantry, I texted my lovely neighbor who replied, “I don’t have an unopened bottle but you can have the open bottle in the fridge.” Deal. Neighbor to the rescue.

Neighbors can be the way to avoid disaster, at least the dinner-variety disaster. Neighbors can offer ketchup, a friendly wave, a kind word, and understanding when your teenager plays his music at an un-neighborly volume. Like ketchup makes a hot dog, neighbors make a neighborhood, or something like that.

I’m nearing the end of the book: “Start with Hello (and Other Simple Ways to Live as Neighbors)”, by Shannon Martin. I have really liked the audiobook, even more because her voice sounds exactly like Angela Martin from “The Office.” This would be a fun book to read in a group and form neighborhood experiments from her stories.

Martin (not Angela, but Shannon), provides an honest picture of what happens when we get to know our neighbors. She names the awkward parts, the fear of rejection, the reasons we talk ourselves out of it.

I appreciate how she explains the “toxic independence” of our culture, which would first encourage a quick trip to the store before texting a neighbor for ketchup. In truth, I am dependent upon my neighbors for more than ketchup.

  • I need my neighbors if my kid is home alone and suddenly requires help from an adult.
  • I need my neighbors to let me know if something fishy is going on.
  • I needed my neighbor this endless winter to scrape the mountain of snow off our driveway with his blessed tractor.

Living independently is not neighborly and also not good for hot dogs. Or for the guests who will be eating them. A neighborhood of neighbors needing and caring for one another looks a whole lot like God’s dream for the world.

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The Real Invitation

During their afternoon naps, Cornelius and Peter had unsettling dreams.

In Acts 10, Cornelius, who was not a Jew, envisioned an order from the Lord to seek out Peter, a Jew who was part of the new Christian movement. It was unsettling for Cornelius to imagine seeking out Peter.

In his dream, Peter envisioned an invitation to eat what his Jewish dietary laws forbade, which was extremely unsettling.

Cornelius sent for Peter to come to his home, both of them unsettled.

Together in the same room, Cornelius asked Peter to tell him the Jesus story. Peter did, preaching what he called “peace by Jesus Christ.” (10:36) The problem posed in this story is this: peace by Jesus Christ can be unsettling.

Peace by Jesus Christ invites very different people together. Let’s imagine.

Imagine you are part of the gathering of very different people. Imagine the gathering as the meal of Holy Communion. Imagine at your right is the person with political views the extreme opposite of yours. This is that outspoken, obnoxious, Facebook commenting person. The person you would rather never see, let alone commune beside. And that’s not all!

On your left is the family member you avoid all year long except that one holiday where you are forced to see that person in order to please your mother. The old hurt that exists between you and this family grows like mold. The scene you are imaging gets worse.

Across the table from you are the kinds of people you demean with your friends. They are wrong in every way, an insult to an otherwise orderly society. You curse these kinds of people because your favorite news source has conditioned you to see them as a threat. And now here they are, unsettling you at the table.

Who the heck created the invitations to this meal, you wonder, unsettled? How could this group of people be expected to sit together, eat together, pray together? Ridiculous, you mumble under your breath, along with other words.

And then you remember the invitation, which didn’t seem unsettling until the moment you found your place with these people, who have also found their place at the table, at the invitation of the dark skinned and shaggy haired host.

The invitation is not to people who look or live like you. The invitation is to people who are broken like you. Mercy is the equalizer at this table, Peter discovered when his unsettling encounter with Cornelius became peace by Jesus Christ.

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Giving Up Christian Radio for Lent

This morning on the drive to school, my daughter and I turned the radio to a Christian station. We like some of the music and it is one of the few non-country stations in my corner of the world. In the 90’s, country music was awesome! Perhaps I’m getting old.

A moment after we started listening to the Christian station, I switched it off. As soon as the person giving the mini-sermon described “godless people” who are trying to raise kids without values, I turned to my daughter and explained that isn’t true. It is not true that parents who believe in God have better values than parents who do not. I did not add that there are plenty of Christian parents whose values I would question. Our commute is too short. And who am I to distinguish parents or anyone by their values?

It is a dangerous Christian faith that sets itself apart by speaking words of judgement. In an age when abuse in the church is finally being uncovered, the judgements related to values are also misplaced.

I am giving up Christian radio for Lent because I do not want to judge my neighbor by their values, but by their need. Where there is need, there is my neighbor whom I am called to love. Where there is any kind of human, “godless” or not, whatever that means, there is brokenness. Where there is mercy, there is Christ.

Where there is music, may you be moved to love your neighbor with the mercy of Christ.

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Logs, Specks and Blame Validation

We all know them: Christians who bubble over with judgement, who hold people to impossible standards, whose words of criticism set a bushel basket over the gleam of Christ’s mercy. Not only do we know them, we are them.

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”

Matthew 7:5

Ugh! It might be the disturbing image of a log lodged in a person’s eye that makes this verse unforgettable. How careless must a person be to end up with log in the eye? The logistics baffle me.

Sure, Jesus is being hyperbolic. Stretching the illustration to ridiculous proportions, he wants you to realize that at the very moment you are judging someone, you are ignoring the many reasons you could be judged.

I know, I don’t like it either!

Today I learned a new term: “blame validation”. It means that first we find someone to blame and then we create reasons to justify it. We live out our toddler years again and again when we point blame and judgement far away from our own selves.

  • The country’s deficit dilemma? It’s those politicians on the other side.
  • The murder of Tyre Nichols? It was ___ fault. Not my problem.
  • My own home state is facing extreme legislation related to gun laws and abortion. Blame validation fills the space between each line of the bills.
  • The toaster waffles are gone? It’s my brother’s fault.

While it may appear to make our lives easier to point blame and judgement, it actually makes our lives more complicated. Judgement is corrosive to our hearts. Where compassion is needed, we paste over the corrosion with self-righteousness. Practicing blame validation, we continue to come up with reasons to justify the blame. This is particularly dangerous if we hang around people who agree with us.

This is always a good question for self-reflection. Who do I visit who does not agree with me politically? Visiting with people who are willingly to challenge you in a respectful way will always make you wiser. They will help you see the log you somehow got stuck in your eye. If you are courageous enough to keep the conversation going, you will then help them see the speck in their own eye. The following week, the roles will be reversed: you with the speck and your conversation companion with the log.

In Matthew, chapter seven, it helps to keep reading. Jesus follows up the log and speck illustration with instructions for prayer.

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock; and the door will be opened for you.”

Matthew 7:7

And a few verses later, the “golden rule”.

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

Matthew 7:12

Jesus moved from warning against judgement, to instructions to pray persistently, to the ancient law to love your neighbor as yourself. We may want to rephrase that verse to say, “judge your neighbor as yourself,” but that would put us out of bounds. As much as we feel drawn to the judge’s seat, we do not belong there. Ever.

Notice yourself today when you slip into blame validation. Then check your eye for a log.

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Yep, It Is That Simple

Humanity has a way of complicating the simple. As if anything worth doing should be difficult. Christians are currently in the second millennium of overcomplicating two simple instructions: love God and love your neighbor.

Love God. Well, I’m busy. My kids are busy. My grandkids are busy. There is a new season of my favorite show.

Love your neighbor. Who, precisely, is my neighbor? How much do I really need to care? Will it cost me money? Can I draw a border? Do I have to? Can’t the neighbor meet me halfway? Isn’t it someone else’s job?

My life as a wife, mom and pastor may appear complicated and is when I overcomplicate it. But really, it is simple. I am to show up with Christ’s love. Nothing more, nothing less. I am to be present one person at a time, one moment at a time, not worrying too far ahead, and letting go of what has been done.

In Matthew 6, Jesus demonstrates how prayer is also simple, providing words to guide our way. We need not overcomplicate a conversation with God. Pray for justice on earth, basic needs to be met, forgiveness given and received, and protection. Pray to the one whose name is most holy, with assurance that your meager words are enfolded into God’s eternal love story with God’s people.

The Lord’s Prayer is a guide that not only offers you words, but offers you community. Billions of people have prayed this very prayer for over 2,023 years. These particular words have been spoken by believers and doubters, the living and the dying, at kitchen tables and hospital bedsides, by people under the thumb of dementia, by nearly ever flavor of the Christian experience, and by martyrs for whom these words were their last. The words of the Lord’s Prayer might be the most unifying words ever spoken.

These words, simply put, are your guide whenever you need them.

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Gratitude Can Be Dangerous

Gratitude can be dangerous.

When gratitude becomes one way to recognize one person or family as more blessed than another, it is dangerous.

Gratitude is not meant to open our eyes to how good we have it and how bad others have it. “At least we aren’t him,” Job’s friends said in the pitying look they exchanged. Gratitude is not eye-opening, but heart-opening. It is the moment our hearts open up to the hard truth that life, at times, can be too much for any of us. Gratitude recognizes that even a moment of peace is a gift from God.

Gratitude is meant to turn our attention away from ourselves to the hand of the giver, who gives not unjustly, but in hopes that all we have would involve a borderless we – a we that stretches and expands like the pantyhose that left all women itchy and irritated.

Gratitude is never dangerous as long as covers the bold and the meek, the haves and the have nots with the same sheer delight that somehow, somehow, a planet full of broken human beings keeps spinning.

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An American Advent: What Does Justice Have to Do with Advent?

Fighting for justice is the daily work of a mom of young kids.

While the word justice addresses big concerns such as hunger, poverty and racism, justice is also a concern at the Lego table. Years ago, the 19-month difference in my little boys’ ages nearly did me in, especially when Legos were involved! The more aggressive brother hoarded the Legos or disassembled his brother’s creation. Whatever each one had was never fair enough and the tantrums that erupted were Vesuvian. My job as a mom was to advocate for justice at the Lego table by asking questions of my two little boys:

  • Why can’t you at least let me shower before you fight?
  • But seriously, why are you so angry?
  • Can you tell your brother what you want?
  • How can you share what you have so the Lego table can be a fun place for both of you?

Justice is what happens when people work toward the same equitable goal. Justice is two little boys sharing Legos, even though it lasts only long enough for a mom to take a shower.

In America, justice is a touchy word. Currently, Americans are rather possessive of their notion of justice, applying the word only to their own political party – blaming the opposing party for threatening justice. But justice is not a partisan word, it is an Advent word.

The Narrative Lectionary reading for the first Sunday in Advent is spoken by the prophet whose name is pronounced more than one way. Habakkuk (HAB-ah-kuk or Hah-BAK-kuk) is advocating for justice. He is waiting for God to bring about equity for God’s people caught between the superpowers of the day: Babylon and Egypt. The future for God’s people is grim, so Habakkuk turns to God and says, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?”

This is the faithful cry of Americans today, waiting for justice. How long, Lord, will our nation cling to their political parties? How long will we stand for the news to be delivered without integrity, deepening the divide between neighbors? How long will everything that’s wrong be the fault of everyone but our own selves? Lord, how long?

Next week, I will share the story of someone who believed it was her responsibility to advocate for justice. It was not the responsibility of the political powers of the day, or even the more powerful gender. She believed it was her own work to advocate for justice, which changes everything.

This week, consider your own understanding of justice.

  • In a journal or a conversation with a person or the Lord, what would justice in America look like and how much does your own political preference shape your understanding of justice?
  • Turning back to the questions at the Lego table, but seriously, why are you so angry?
  • Can you tell your brother and sister in Christ who may disagree with you how you want justice to look?
  • How can you share what you have so the Lego table America can be a fun place for both of you?

Eventually God responds to Habakkuk. In 2:1-5, God’s response threatens anyone who depends on wealth and pride. Wealth and pride do not bring about justice. Justice requires as much giving as getting, which is very difficult to teach both at the Lego table and in America. May justice begin in our own nation with your own honest reflection.

Photo credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Has Neighborliness Lost its Value?

(Photo by Nick Hawkes on Unsplash)

A couple of years ago, Marcus and I planned a neighborhood get-together. We know most but not all of our nearest neighbors and we both believe neighborhoods are safer when we know one another. And familiarity with neighbors makes it easier to locate a cup of flour at the last minute for cookies.

Because delivering invitations is a thousand times easier with a cute 8-year old, Karis and I left invitations in a dozen of our nearest neighbors’ doors. They could RSVP to my cell to host part of a progressive party or simply attend. Two neighbors responded (who also happen to be members of St. John) that they were bummed they would miss it. A week or so later, another neighbor asked if anyone responded to me. When I told him no, he knowingly said, “I didn’t think anyone would go to something like that.” (At least he was honest!)

I am so curious what it might mean when neighborliness loses its value. When we are less inclined to gather, what are we missing? When we do not need our neighbors in the same way as the first generations in the Midwest, what is lost?

It has always mattered to me for our kids know at least some of our neighbors so they have trusted adults if something happens when Marcus and I are not home. In my head, we do actually need our neighbors. And if I need those neighbors, I also care for their well-being. I care that my kids are safe and I care that my neighbors are safe.

“And who is my neighbor?” the first century lawyer asked Jesus to clarify. Anyone who needs help, Jesus began to explain, making the answer more broad until it became specific. Your neighbor, Jesus zeroed in, is anyone who needs help whom you would rather not help.

Humanity has never been great at following Jesus’ command to love our neighbors, especially the ones we would rather not help. It is not new that neighborliness demands more of us than most of us can give. However, what does it mean that bearing arms seems to be easier than neighborliness in particular corners of our nation? Have we become so suspicious and even fearful of our neighbor that someone may be more inclined to purchase an assault weapon than attend a friendly neighborhood gathering with snacks? Are we failing at neighborliness?

Let me be clear, I am not advocating for gun control. I am part of a family who hunts animals. We can have conversations around gun laws without extreme solutions. I am more interested in conversations around neighborliness, which I suspect are just as hard but yet more productive.

As we move through this devastating time of mass shootings in my own country, I promise to pursue discussions around neighborliness. I promise to practice inviting my neighbors to gather, even if it may seem a ridiculous idea to some of them. If Jesus was ridiculous with his mercy, I can lean in that direction, too.