God in my neighborhood, who is my neighbor

Pastor Phillips' Sermon

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we begin a new season, the season of Advent. It's a portion of the church year that Christians for centuries have set aside to anticipate and celebrate the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus. Bless us now with your Holy Spirit as we meditate on your Word. Equip us, prepare us, and strengthen us in our faith. In Jesus' name, Amen.

As Pastor Burcham mentioned earlier, we are beginning the season of Advent, which marks the beginning of the new church year according to the church year calendar. So I should be saying, “Happy New Year!” But really I want you to think about something different today. Today, I want you to think about your neighborhood where you live, about the people with whom you live, those across the street, those down the way, those who you've known for a long time, and those who are new to your area. We're focusing on this idea of God in my neighborhood. This is the overarching theme for the next three Sundays.

Today, we're going to focus on one question, though. Who is my neighbor? In order to examine this in detail, we're going to look at the gospel reading which was just read, Luke 10:25-29. This is an interesting occasion where Jesus is teaching and there's somebody listening, somebody who's an expert with words, somebody who's used to presenting his case. In fact, in Scripture, he's called an expert in the law. Now the Jews had hundreds of different rules they had to live by, all kinds of rules that governed everything they did and said and how they conducted business and social things, all kinds of things like that. Well, this man was a trained expert in the law. He was used to presenting his case and winning his arguments and defending his position. So, as he listened to Jesus speak about the kingdom of God and God's love and all these wonderful ideas, he thought, “Ah, I'm going to stand up and embarrass this guy. He thinks He's something, but I'm going to show Him who's boss and I'll put Him in His place.” So this is what happens. “On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,' he asked, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus reflects the question back on him. He says, ‘What is written in the law? How do you read it?' He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.' ‘You have answered correctly,' Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.'” This man couldn't believe the opportunity that presented itself. Now he was going to ask the big question that would trap Jesus. He said, “And who is my neighbor?” Hum, that doesn't seem like such a profound question, does it? But, at the time, during Jesus' ministry, there was a wide variety of opinions about that question. Who is my neighbor? In fact, different groups held different opinions and those groups were at odds with each other and so this man posed the question so that, in his response, Jesus would anger one of the groups and it would undermine the credibility or the authority with which Jesus spoke. But isn't it fascinating how, rather than stepping into that trap, Jesus reflects the question back to the expert in the law. He asks, “How do you read it?” He lets the man interpret the word for himself and then, when He presents that question, “Who is my neighbor,” Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. And then, at the end of that, He asks him, “Now who do you think was a neighbor to that man?” You see how Jesus avoided the trap?

These are the four different views they had of that day. There was the saying, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” That was the first view, and that was widely held by many people of that time. But you remember in the sermon on the mount, Jesus reversed that, didn't He? He took that saying and He said, “You have heard it said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus was bringing the true meaning to God's Word.

The second opinion that was held only in the nation of Israel was “Love your neighbor, the Israelite.” You see how they kind of favored their own kind, as you might say? Kind of an ethnocentric view. Even within the nation of Israel , though, there was a lot of diversity and disagreement.

The third opinion of how that question could be answered, who is my neighbor, is love your neighbor, the Pharisee. Well, if you're not a Pharisee, you're out.

The fourth view is even more strict. This was held by those who were of the Kumran community. You might remember the Kumrans. Scrolls were discovered back in, I think, the 40's or 50's. And they were portions of scripture that could be used to authenticate the bible we have today. It was a very exciting discovery when those scrolls were found. In this community, however, they were very strict and they isolated themselves from the world outside and their view of this question, “Who is my neighbor?” was this: Whoever does not belong to our group is a son of darkness and must be hated. Can you see how ridiculous these interpretations are? Jesus didn't choose any of them, did He? He didn't choose the first one, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, or the one about the Israelites or the one about the Pharisees or the one about the Kumran community. Jesus sidestepped all of those and told that story of the good Samaritan.

Now let's put it in today's context. Think of your own neighborhood, the people who live on your street, the people who have lived there for many years and the new person who just moved in. These are the people who live in close proximity to you. And in our culture today, it's amazing the diversity you can have just within a few houses of your own, all the different backgrounds. We have people from Asia, Russia , Europe, China , Japan , Africa, all over, Central America, South America . We have people from all over the place living in our neighborhoods. Who are these people? Are these your neighbors?

There was a fund-raising effort going on in a church many years ago. A missionary had returned from his work, and he was promoting foreign missions and he was talking to a group from a congregation and, as he spoke, he could tell one of the older gentlemen was kind of getting upset with his comments. And finally, the older gentleman raised his hand and said, “I'd like to say something.” “Go ahead.” “I'm opposed to foreign missions.” “Why is that?” “Well, the bible says we're supposed to love our neighbor. And those foreigners, those people way over there, they're not my neighbor.” “Well, who do you mean by neighbor?” “Well, I mean the person who lives across from me, the person who lives on my right, the person who lives on my left, and the person who lives in back of me. Those are my neighbors.” The missionary responded, “Well, this is for the China mission effort. This donation is for your neighbors on the bottom.” I'm not sure if he persuaded the man to make a donation, but he had a unique way of identifying who his neighbor was.

Rather than fall into a trap of choosing one of these different opinions about what our neighbor might be, let's turn to God's Word. Let's let God define who our neighbor is. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we know the story how the man was traveling. He was walking along. He was robbed and beaten. And different people came along and observed him lying there in pain. They saw a priest and a Levite. And then finally a man who was a Samaritan. Remember, Samaritans were always looked down upon so that always accents the point of the story even more. This Samaritan stopped and helped him, dressed his wounds, took him to a place where he could stay, paid all his expenses. And then, at the end of the story, Jesus asked that expert in the law, “Now which of these was a neighbor to the man?” And the expert in the law defined it himself and said, “The one who took pity on him.” The one who had mercy. So, in that story, a neighbor is defined first as somebody in need and, second, as somebody who helps. Interesting definition.

Another scripture passage we can turn to and hear what God says about our neighbor is John 3:16, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Who does God love? The whole world. Hum, that's a good indication of who our neighbor might be.

Another passage, 1 Timothy 2:4, we read this Tuesday and Thursday, “God who wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That's 1 Timothy 2:4. God wants everyone to be saved, not just people like me or people like you. He wants all people to be saved. He doesn't make distinctions and say, “Well, I want these people to be saved and, those people, who cares?” That's not the way God is. He wants all people to be saved.

2 Peter 3:9 continues in this way. It says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.” So God doesn't want anyone to go to hell. He wants everyone to repent and believe in Jesus as their Savior.

We're getting a pretty clear picture of who our neighbor is, aren't we, by the way God acts towards people. Roman 5 again brings out the idea of who our neighbor is, “You see at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man. Though, for a good man, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In this passage, our neighbor, the neighbor of God, the neighbor God loves, is a sinner. It's somebody who's ungodly, somebody who might be going to hell, somebody that needs help. This is the definition of a neighbor to God.

If you're wondering the answer to that question, “Who is our neighbor?” you can answer it with the question, “Who does God love?” We know the answer, don't we? God loves everyone and, if He were to exclude someone, it might be me, right? So God doesn't exclude people. God loves all of us the same, and He wants all of us to receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life we get from Jesus.

So today, we're talking about our neighbor, putting a face on our neighbor. It's not just a word or this idea or concept. It's a person, our neighbor. And as we go through Advent, we're going to think more and more about our neighborhood, God in our neighborhood and God working with our neighbors.

Before I conclude, I want to bring out an idea. And I think this is a great exercise for us for Advent. This is called being a lighthouse in your neighborhood. A few years back, I was made familiar with this evangelism tool, the Lighthouse Evangelism Program, and it involves a very simple process. First, you get the names of all your neighbors, the people on your right, the people on your left, the people across the street, the people in back, you can even do the diagonals if you want. You write those names down on a small piece of paper, and then you put them in a jar. And every evening, when you gather for dinner, shake that jar up, reach your hand in, pull one out, and you pray for that neighbor. That doesn't sound too hard, does it? Not too threatening or frightening. But think about that. Do you know the names of everybody right around you? In my own neighborhood, I know some of them but not all of them. How can I pray for them without knowing their names. Well, you probably can but it's better when you know their names. “Lord, please bless this family next door.” If you do that on a consistent basis, I know God's going to work in your heart and prepare you for a special ministry right where you live. You don't have to go to Honduras or anything like that. You can just begin your ministry right where you live. God has wonderful things planned for you.

You might think that's a little bit academic and it might not produce too much, but a story I heard about this evangelism process is this family was doing that. So they were drawing out names every evening at dinner time and they would read that name and then they'd all together pray for that person or that family. And the same name came up day after day after day, 3, 4, 5 days in a row. And they just thought, “Why is this name still coming up like this?” One of the family members went over and visited that neighbor. The father had left. The family was destitute. All kinds of hardship was on them because the father had abandoned the family. Isn't that something? God was directing that family to care for the neighbors. So they did. They continued to pray. They continued to help in whatever way they could. And God brought the father back, healed that family, and restored them. The power of prayer. That's what it means to be a lighthouse in your neighborhood.

God is present in you and, as you pray for the people in your community, as you reach out with love to the people in your community, you are putting a face on God in your neighborhood. They are seeing Jesus in you. Let's pray about that. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have called us into this wonderful relationship. We celebrate the gifts we've received through you and we know now that we stand in this right relationship, our sins forgiven, the guarantee of eternal life. We don't have to ask a difficult question like the expert in the law or what must I do. We know. We already have it. You've given it to us. Eternal life and forgiveness in Jesus' name. Bless us and guide us as we walk these steps through Advent as we think about all the things going on around us. Open our eyes to the world of our neighborhood to see the needs, to see the people, to see them as people you love, and guide us to love them as well. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church