Jesus says to love our neighbours, and includes enemies in his definition.  In this week’s story Jesus confronted the reality that Samaritans and Jews were neighbours yet enemies, and said that his followers need to love and serve one another beyond such divisions.

Elsewhere, he says it quite clearly: love your enemy.  Turn the other cheek.  Go the extra mile.  My favourite part is where he says, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”

Loving your friends is nothing special, but loving your enemies is special indeed.  It’s hard, it’s messy, it feels very risky, compromising and vulnerable.  But when we avoid loving our neighbours and enemies, we live in isolation, fear of the unknown and misunderstandings.

One mayor told a church leader: “The majority of issues that our community is facing would be eliminated or drastically reduced if we could just figure out a way to become a community of great neighbours.”

It’s hard to know what to say, do, when life gets messy, and especially when our love isn’t returned.  It’s easy to just give up and say Jesus’ command is too hard to follow.

But that can be explained simply enough.  We haven’t got enough practice loving those closest to us, who aren’t our enemies, in order to be ready for loving our enemies.  Loving our friendly, similar neighbours is good training for the big leagues.

So – start by just finding out – Who is my neighbour?

mapthumbDownload the attached Block Map.  You are in the middle of the grid, and think of the other squares in the grid as your neighbours across the street, beside and behind your home.  Or if it’s more appropriate, think of it as your workplace, and the squares as neighbouring cubicles.  Then write in each square:

  1. Their Name(s)
  2. One Fact About Them
  3. Something Deeper – A hope, dream, fear, challenge, etc.

Try and complete the grid as much as possible, and discuss with your group.

We meet for coffee every Wednesday night at Starbucks in the Chapters Store in Ajax, in Durham Region just East of Toronto.  Maybe we’ll see you there?

Ryan Sim - September 12, 2013

Thursday - Act On It - Neighbours Matter

Won\'t You Be My Neighbour?

Yesterday I asked you to define love. One common way people today define love is to be as tolerant and permissive as possible, as long as the other person does not to hurt others. See what a low standard that is? Jesus defines love to a much higher degree, he says to love one another as oneself. He knows we are self-centered…and Jesus uses that to teach us love for others. Between loving God with everything, and loving neighbours as ourselves, Jesus has declared self-salvation to be impossible. We may love God to one degree or another. But with everything? We can and should try, but we reach our limits since we are only human, and separated ourselves from God in sin. We need help. Equally true, we may make ourselves harmless and never say a word to anyone who isn’t harming another, but we can’t make ourselves completely love others as ourselves – we always want more for ourselves than to be tolerated and put up with. We can and should try to love others as ourselves, but we need the help of another to do this. Jesus made himself harmless, and willingly sacrificed himself on a cross in the ultimate action of love for God and others. He led the way, and did what would be impossible for humans, so we could follow him in love for God and love for others, rather than trying to trailblaze ourselves. We’ll look at this more in this upcoming series on neighbours. Challenge: How do your actions “hang’ under love of God or love of neighbour? Is there anything you’ve done in the last week that doesn’t fit one of those loves?

From Series: "Won't You Be My Neighbour?"

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