Text: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Matthew 22: 34-40
Next week is the premiere of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the new movie about Mr. Rogers. I grew up with Mr. Rogers welcoming me home in the afternoon from school. We entered the land of make-believe and I heard him speaking to me and my child-like worries and curiosity. But I also saw Mr. Rogers walk around and interact with his neighbors.
Growing up on a farm in the country, I never felt like I was part of a neighborhood. At least not in the way I saw it on television. After all, there was only one house within half a mile of our own.
But we did know our neighbors. We would help one another mend fences or bring in crops. The neighbor kids and I rode the bus together. We’d do the farmer wave as we passed by … and sometimes even stop the cars in the middle of the gravel road to catch up on gossip.
Throughout this month, we are exploring what it means to be grounded in God through the relationships of our lives.
We looked at the ancestors who have grounded us in a sense of persistence, strength, and identity.
David helped us think last week about our homes and families and the sense of belonging and love we find there.
And today, we are turning back to Diana Butler Bass and her book, Grounded, and thinking about how God shows up in our neighbors.
When we think about neighborhoods today, fewer people feel like they belong in the same kind of way. Even if we live closer in proximity, we feel more and more isolated. As Butler Bass writes:
“Although we live near to one another in neighborhoods, we do not feel that we necessarily belong to one another, that we have neighborly relations with either place or people. We might live in a particular location, but it is hard to sense that our lives are with others. In a way, a neighborhood is simply the space where people reside near others; the challenge of re-creating vibrant, healthy neighborhoods is building connections between people and, in the process, turning isolated individuals into neighbors. Thus the meaning of “neighborhood” is intimately caught up with an important question, one fraught with spiritual and ethical implications: who is my neighbor? “ (p. 204).
I actually have a question for you.
Who is your neighbor?
Literally.
Do you know their names?
Do you know their stories?
Each of you, when you came in today, was handed a map. And we are going to come back to that, but I want to invite you to turn it around and grab a pencil or pen or crayon… whatever is handy.
Draw a box to represent your home… whether it is an apartment or house or condo.
Now, draw a box to represent the neighbors to your left and right.
Draw a box to represent those who are across the hall or across the street.
Draw a box or two to represent any who might live behind you.
Here is my drawing.
Now… who lives in those homes?
Who are your neighbors?
Take a minute and write down as many names as you can
I must admit, I began working on this exercise and felt a bit of shame that I didn’t know all of the answers.
I could think of at least one person on those homes, but not the whole family. I couldn’t remember Cheryl’s wife’s name. Or Chad’s. Or Mitch or Rusty’s.
And to be honest, Mitch and his family moved out a couple of months ago and I still haven’t met the new couple that moved in.
I have no clue what the names are of the people who live behind us.
And if I don’t know their names, how could I possibly know their stories?
How could I possibly begin to pray for them, much less love them as Jesus commands me?
There is a strange phenomenon that has impacted our neighborhoods architecturally. Our homes used to have front porches on them and parking was on the street. Now, neighborhoods like mine have large two car garages. We open the door, drive our cars in, and never really have to get out and interact with our neighbors.
Apartments or condos can function the same way.
We don’t take the time to get to know, or spend time with, or open our lives to the people around us.
There is that old adage that good fences make good neighbors, but the truth is, maybe good tables make good neighbors.
Hospitality and open doors make good neighbors.
In a world of increased tribalism, where we live in echo chambers and online digital communities of people who are just like us, maybe we need to go back to our scriptures and explore how ancient tribal societies interacted with one another.
Over and over again in scripture, we hear the call the be neighborly.
To be hospitable.
To open our homes and our tables to others.
To reach out the immigrant, the widow, the orphan.
To provide help to those who are in need.
Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and theologian noted that our society tends to look at the stranger with suspicion, expecting others to do us harm.
Instead, he talked about how our world needed to convert hostility into hospitality and turn the enemy into our guest.
Then, “guest and host can reveal their most precious gifts and bring new life to others… [hospitality] as a fundamental attitude toward our fellow human being.” (p. 220)
This is the spirit that Jeremiah invited the people of Israel to embody in Babylon.
Their nation had crumbled. Their temple was destroyed. Their identity was gone.
And their enemy had carted his people off to a strange and foreign land.
How would they live in this new place?
What would they do?
Jeremiah has incredible advice for those who are finding themselves living in the worst moment of their life…
Dive deep into your new neighborhoods and keep living.
As he wrote to these exiles who had been dragged from their homeland to a faraway place, instead of this being a letter full of lament or sorrow or anger, it is a word of life.
In this strange land, in this place of exile and hopelessness…
Build houses.
Plant gardens.
Fall in love.
Have babies.
Make yourself at home.
Don’t let this time of chaos and turmoil keep you from thriving.
Jeremiah’s advice focuses in many ways on what individuals can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but he closes this passage with one additional piece of advice.
Work for the well-being of whatever new place we find ourselves in.
He was asking the exiles to focus not just on their own well-being… but that of their oppressor, Babylon, as well.
Because their future depended upon its welfare.
He was asking them to be good neighbors.
He was asking for them to invest their time and energy into making that place the best it could be.
Not just for themselves… but for all who share this place with you and whomever might come after you.
Keep on living.
And keep on creating space for life and life abundant to happen for others.
I want to invite you to pull out that map again.
Because this is a map of our neighborhood.
This is where this congregation has been planted.
We might not all physically live here anymore, but our future depends upon its welfare.
And we are called, as a church, to invest our time and energy into making this corner of the world, our corner of the world, the best that it can be.
And so I have a challenge for you this week.
I want you to pray for this neighborhood.
I want you to pray for the people here.
I want you to pray for the businesses that share this space with us.
I want you to pray that God’s will might be done in this place
And I want you to ask God how we can better invest our lives in these people and this place.
There are a couple of ways you could do this.
After church today or later this week you could physically walk around in this neighborhood and pray for the people and places you pass.
Or, you could take this map and sit in a quiet place and run your finger slowly along the roads.
Imagine in your mind the houses and the people and pray for them as you journey along.
Choose a different route each time you sit and pray.
You can do the same thing with the neighborhood you live in.
What would it be like if you not only got to know them… their names and what they worry about and what makes their heart sing… but also if you prayed for them.
What if you prayed for your neighbors every day?
So many of us have superficial relationships with these folks.
We are afraid to talk about the things that matter to us, thinking we might offend or put them off. But what if saw our neighbors as beloved children of God who might be yearning for the same kind of spiritual connection that we are?
How might we have different kinds of conversations?
How might we share God with them in new ways?
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