This past week I had the privilege of preaching at my home church (Faith Community Church). We were wrapping up a series called A Seat at the Table where we had been examining what it looks like to commit ourselves to find practical ways to live out Jesus’ command to love each other through acts of hospitality, inclusion and service. (You can watch here)
I was eager to participate and offer a message as not only does it feel extraordinarily relevant to our world right now to be talking about how to love our neighbors but this message, this conversation, is so closely aligned with my own call and that of BFJN to help Jesus followers consider how to live out the Biblical mandate to radical and sacrificial love of neighbor in our contexts and communities.
Our response to the radical love that welcomes us into God’s family and makes us citizens of his kingdom should be a welcoming and radical love for our neighbor.
How were we invited in? How do we get our identity as members of the family of God, citizens of his kingdom?
This is what Paul told the church in Ephesus:
But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything. Ephesians 2:11-13(MSG)
Paul is reminding the Ephesians of the amazing gift of being brought into God’s family and that they (and we) do nothing to earn this! We were outsiders who were transformed into insiders not through our effort or work but because of God’s love. We now get to call the creator, sustainer and redeemer of the universe our father!
So what do we do with this – this radically welcoming love?
Our response to the radical love that welcomes us into God’s family and makes us citizens of his kingdom should be a welcoming and radical love for our neighbor.
I want to look at one of my favorite verses and the surrounding narrative to help us see how the early church tackled this.
Another letter of Paul’s was to the Galatian church who were dealing with their own challenges. One being some members insisting that non-Jewish Christians had to undergo circumcision and other Jewish rituals in order to be truly part of the church.
Paul was a Jew – he gives his credentials at other points, but he was a faithful Jewish man, but after his conversion, unlike many of the other early leaders, he felt called to a ministry to gentiles (non-jews).
Into this concern Paul reminds these new believers that:
There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.Galatians 3:28(NLT)
These were some of the most divisive categories that seperated people at the time (and to this day!).
For us these categories might include:
City dweller and suburbanite
Black and white
Rich and Poor
Gay and straight
Man and woman
Immigrant and citizen
Paul is not saying that is there is no significance and importance in the identity named. The goal is not to erase difference but to not allow it to create division, barriers and hierarchy.
People love to create the ins and the outs, the boss and the underlings – we are really prone to hierarchy!
We find 2 people in a room, in a story, anywhere at all and we want to know:
Who 1st and whose 2nd
Who’s gives orders and who takes orders
Who gets more and who gets less
Paul is reminding us what Jesus changed with his life, death and resurrection:
These are no longer the categories!
Following Jesus means we are welcomed by this radical inclusion – all one in Christ Jesus! That is our status now – in with God. So, we are no longer entitled to break people into in-groups and out-groups. There are no more out-groups!
Earlier in this same letter Paul explained about some of the challenges he was having with the other church leaders whose ministry had been mainly to other Jews and who bristled sometimes at Paul’s insistence on including gentiles and not requiring they adhere to Jewish traditions as part of their new Christian faith:
In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews.10 Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do. Galatians 2:9-10(NLT)
That’s it right there - one of my favorite verses – the very thing we were eager to do! I absolutely love that one of the first things these early church leaders could agree on in the midst of these significant disagreements is that being in Christ meant we care for those in need, that we are eager to care for those in need!
So we see again the truth that God has broken down a fundamental that between Jew and gentile AND that a manifestation of this radical inclusion is love of neighbor, caring for those in need because no one is outside God’s love!
Even as they sorted this division they agreed on the foundation of who they were – their shared identity means that they were: People who cared for those in need
Let’s do the thing Paul was eager to do & let’s be eager to do it!
The whole story
What does this look like? The whole story of the Bible tells us about God’s heart for the vulnerable and marginalized and is full of commands and stories on how to love others from leaving something in the fields after harvest for those without enough (Leviticus 23:22) to the earliest churches sharing possessions and meeting one another’s needs (Acts 4:32-35)
There are literally 1000s more verse like this. I’ll list a few here from the different types of texts throughout the Bible (law, prophets, poetry, history and epistles)
Deuteronomy 15: 7-8
Isaiah 58:6-7
Proverbs 31:8-9
Acts 4:32
1 John 3:17 -18
For this blog though I want look more closely at a story Jesus told in the Gospels of Luke. It’s likely a familiar story, or at least it has a very familiar title.
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”27 He answered, “‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Luke 10:25-29
So, this lawyer-person is asking first – how do I get into the family? What is the process for citizenship of this kingdom? As per his usual Jesus doesn’t answer directly but asks a question. Then when Jesus affirms what he already knows the lawyer asks what I think is a very reasonable follow up questions. Who is entitled to this extraordinary love from me? I’d be imagining a list containing people I know, maybe a map showing how far out from my home this love must extend or just a general picture of people I can relate to and connect with because that just makes sense.
Then again without directly answering the question - “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus tells a story.
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Luke 10:29-37
All of the men in this story SAW but only the Samaritan took pity on the battered and beaten man.
The words translated into our English Bible as – took pity on – is from the original Greek "splagchnizomai" (σπλαγχνίζομαι) which means moved with compassion – it “conveys a deep, visceral feeling of compassion or pity. It describes an emotional response that moves one to action, often in the context of mercy or aid. In the New Testament, it is frequently used to describe Jesus' response to the suffering and needs of others, highlighting His empathy and readiness to help.” (BibleHub)
To whom do we direct this radically welcoming love?
Who is our neighbour? According to the story of the Good Samaritan it is someone in need we SEE on our road.
Since most of us are probably not traipsing on dirt roads to get to our various destinations I think we need to think differently of what our road is. What places do we find ourselves in where God can show us people in need.
Maybe our road is . . .
The sidelines of the soccer game – the new Mom sitting on her own
The street we walk to the office – the man holding the sign asking for help
The story you see on the news – where our heart is moved
The actual neighbor down the hall (or the street)
This call to neighbor love is always relevant to our world, but it feels especially important in this moment for us in the parts of the US where there is an influx of neighbors coming here from different parts of the world. Stories of immigrants and the challenges they are facing in settling here seem to dominate the headlines.
What does the story of the Good Samaritan, and indeed the entire narrative of the Bible, tell us about how to treat immigrants?
We get to disagree on policy
We get to have opinions on who can come in and who can’t
We get to advocate for what we think is the right way to maintain borders
What we don’t get is the option of not loving our neighbor.
Before offering help . . .
The Good Samaritan did not ask to confirm the legal status of the man in need
The Good Samaritan did not require they speak the same language
The Good Samaritan did not insist the man in need do something to earn his help
The family/the kingdom we have been brought into is characterized by radically inclusive love and we are called to offer this to our neighbor – no exceptions.
Let us be eager to do it as were our Christian forefathers and foremothers
Let us go and do likewise imitating the Good Samaritan