To love our neighbors

In a recent dialogue with a Brother, the question came up, “If one has God in the centre of his life, this would address the first part of the Great Commandment, but what about the other part; to love our neighbor as ourselves?”  First I was taken aback by the question as I had not thought about it, but then I realized that our love for the neighbor must flow from our love for God.  (Ref. to James 3: 9)

If God is at the centre of our lives (which none of us can do perfectly and consistently!), then we no longer put ourselves in the centre.  This may sound self-evident, yet it has radical consequences.  We are all programmed (by nature and by culture) to claim and defend our own personal worthiness.  Even humble people usually take pride in their humility!  As a teenager I was a perfectionist: I sought to please my parents, my teachers, and my God with doing all the right things.  This gave me a sense of moral superiority and pride.  I was not aware of this, but in being hard on myself (to “keep the law”), I also became critical of others, looking down on those who seemed to care less or had a slightly different law of acceptable behavior.  Consequently, in my criticism of others around me, I suspected they would be just as critical about me.  This made me very self-conscious, which made matters only worse.  My adolescent life became a roller coaster of pride and despair!  (Himmelhoch jauchzend; zum Toden betrübt!)  Only as God’s Spirit broke through could I apply the Gospel to my life.  Christ had fulfilled the law for me to set me free to follow Him!  There was no use for boasting now; neither was there any need for despair.  As Tim Keller puts it so well: The Good News of Christ is this: I am so more sinful (self-seeking) than I had ever wanted to admit, and yet I am more loved (in Jesus’ sacrifice) than I could ever have imagined.  When I hear bad things said about me now, my gut response may still be anger or disappointment.  Yet, by the Holy Spirit I can overcome such reactions.  If Christ defends me before the throne of God, why do I need to fight to defend myself?  Sure, I listen to and learn from others, but when there is criticism, it can no longer produce a crisis of self-worth as if my ultimate worth should depend on the beefs and bouquets of other people!

Ultimately, when Christ is in the centre, we are released from the pressure to compete with others.  By His Spirit we are empowered to take on the attitude of Jesus Christ, who did not cling to his status in Heaven but humbled himself to live with people like you and me.  (Philippians 2: 1 – 11)  He accepted the greatest abuse: He was rejected by God and humankind: despised, rejected, mocked, and eventually tortured and stripped of all his dignity in order to pay for our sins.  When I begin to grasp this amazing love, it must transform me and help me to consider others better than myself!  When we appreciate the Gospel, then there is no room for boasting or for pride, not within the Christian community and not towards our secular community!

For we may not hide away from the world around us!  In the Old Testament we find many purity laws that stress the need for separation.  Even in God’s work of creation we see him creating order by making separations: light from darkness, water from water, sea from dry land, creatures according to their kinds!  When God gave his laws to Israel, he reinforced the laws of separation.  Israel was supposed to be the Kingdom of God, drawing the nations to their Father-God.  Yet, when the Hebrews got too comfortable with Canaan, they readily abandoned their God to adopt all kinds of evil practices and other gods.  And still, God returned to keep his promises to Abraham and David. Those who had been called ‘Lo Ammi’ (Not-my-people) were now called (My-beloved-people), yet they were not to be the only ones: now Jew and Gentile are gathered together into the Kingdom of God. And, since the day of Pentecost the church is commissioned and empowered to go into all nations.  While we keep God in the centre of our lives and walk by his Word and Spirit, we are called to engage with the culture around us so that they may see and experience that there is a righteous yet loving God! 

Are we ashamed to share the Good News?  Are we actually afraid of “the big bad world” as if Christ had not overcome the world?  He has not given us a Spirit of timidity, but a Spirit of boldness to promote His Kingdom!  Are we actually afraid of unbelievers?  Perhaps it is our communal pride that brings us fear for those who don’t know God!  If we hope to share the Gospel (and this is what we are called to do!), we must first understand our neighbors’ gods.  What are they living for? What is their greatest joy?  When they learn to trust us, they may share with us their real worries and their fears, and it is then that we may be able to point out a better way: The Only Way! 

Did you ever wonder how our unbelieving neighbors look at us?  If being a Christian just means going to church a lot and not shopping on Sundays, what does this tell them about the Gospel?  During the sixties, the pop group Lobo sang about the “Jesus freaks” in town,

“I sneaked up close and watched them work.  I found that actually they laughed a lot and sang out loud.  The way they walked made them look kind’a proud: a little different from you, a little different from me: a lot like the man who walked through Galilee”. 

Do the people in our street see us first of all as people who walk and talk as Jesus’ did?  Do we give them a chance to come to know Jesus through knowing us? 

Or, are we indeed different?  Do they see only external differences (in what we do on Sundays, for instance)?  Do they see first of all our efforts to protect our privacy and safety, our possessions and our pride?  Or can they learn from us about sacrificial love?  Can they see the fruit of the Spirit in a real gentleness, kindness, patience, and forgiveness? If we pray, “Your Kingdom come”, we must first make Christ the King of our own lives, before we can hope to promote His Kingdom among our neighbors!  And if we refuse to respect our neighbors or listen to their concerns to understand their lives, how can we hope to point them to the Gospel?

I remember one time, helping our children roll a big snowball through the yard so that they could build a snow fort.  And I thought, “The kingdom of God is like a snowball!  If we sit still (like the ‘chosen frozen’!) and refuse to connect with the world around us, snow cannot stick to snow and the snowball cannot grow!”