Won't You Be My Neighbor - Week 1

Lets open our bibles together to Luke’s gospel and find with me chapter 10. Our service looks a little different this morning… Right? It’s beautiful here. Next week I believe we will be at the Twin Bridges in Orangeville just to give you a heads up to where we will be. We’re making an emphasis on being good neighbors, in our very own neighborhoods. So, were here in one of our neighborhoods to kick off this new series called, Would you be, My neighbor.

The entire series is based on the Great commandment from Luke chapter 10. One day, a lawyer asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The question was designed to trap Jesus into saying something that would get him into trouble with the religious authorities, but Jesus simply replied, “What does the law of Moses say?” The lawyer knew the answer as any devote Jewish person would. “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and you must love your neighbor as yourself”.

The lawyer was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The Great Commandment defines what’s most important in life: Loving God and Loving people. How do we do that? Loving God is more than feeling our hearts touched in worship or in prayer as beautiful as that is. We prove we love God by the way we love other people. If you don’t love people well, you aren’t loving God well. Jesus said to the lawyer “You really know your stuff.

Do this and you will live”. But the lawyer was satisfied, he wanted to justify his actions. What does that mean? It means he wasn’t interested in loving everybody; he was trying to justify why it was okay for him to keep his love circle small. So, he asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” So, Jesus told a parable. A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. It’s about a 15-mile journey and would take about 8 hours walking.

Along the way, the man was attacked by bandits, badly beaten, robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest came upon the half dead man. You would think the priest would run over to help him but instead he crossed over to the other side and passed him by. Then a Levite came along. A Levite was a temple assistant to the priests; like being on staff at the church.

Surely this man would help but he did the same thing as the priest. Then a Samaritan came along. When he saw the man, he didn’t hesitate. He rushed over to see if he was still breathing and realizing he was, he sterilized his wounds and put oil on them, picked up the man, put him on his donkey and took him to an inn where he could recuperate. The good Samaritan gave the innkeeper a pre-loaded debit card and said “If his expenses are higher than I’ll settle the debt when I return.

Jesus asked the lawyer “Which of the three was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy”. Then Jesus said, “Now go and do the same.” When we look at this parable. There are three questions we tend to wrestle with… First, who is my neighbor? Right.. How can I neighbor well if I’m not sure who’s my neighbor. Secondly, what about this question?

What keeps me from being a good neighbor? And lastly, How Do I neighbor well? So, lets dive into the first question. Who is my neighbor.. the answer is you’re neighbor is anyone in need. Now that’s a hard question to ask isn’t it? Because I’d ask, well then Who’s in need? I wanna say, I bet all of us here has some sort of need. Maybe you need help with something?

Maybe you need to just feel like you belong? Maybe theres an emotional need, or physical need. The truth is, I think we all have a need for something. And at Momentum Church, we believe the the holy Spirit draws us together, to meet the needs of one another. To fill the needs of others. One of my favorite cartoons that came out in 2005 forever changed my thoughts on how to neighbo well…

Its called Robots which was a cartoon made by the creators of Ice age and it had a star packed cast. Robin Williams, Haley Berry, Mel Brooks, Amanda Bines to just name a few… but the cartoon was about a young idealistic inventor who travels to the big city to join his inspiration's company. A typical story right.. and there was a famous line that this young investor uses throughout the movie…

Its this.. see a need, fill a need. And so, all throughout this movie this young robot recognized that this company was being taken over by greed, and the poor robots couldn’t afford the upgrades so they were obsolete and falling apart and no one was caring for them. And so, he keeps reminding himself, see a need fill a need. Which in this context was, see someone needing help, help them.

Its another way of saying, to love your neighbor as yourself, put yourself in their shoes. Ask those hard questions.. If I was in their shoes, If I were him or her in this situation, what would I need? It s really living a life having empathy for others. And heres something about that.. to love your neighbor as yourself, its about helping others who can’t meet their needs right now, for what4ever reason.

And it goes even deeper… its not just meeting needs for whatever reason, but also, its about meeting needs for anyone whois even different than you. Culturally different. Right now, think about this for the time we are in right now, someone politically different than you. Maybe even someone who is theologically different than you. The punch line for this story of the lawyer, priest and Samaritan is that the jews and the Samaritans had a great hate towards each other.

Each of them claimed to be the true inheritors of the promises of Abraham and Moses and both claimed the rightful claim to the land. And as Jesus was telling this story, the listeners were expecting the jews in this story to be the hero but ironically as Jesus was telling this story you can just read into it and feel the boos when the Samaritan comes onto the scene. But Jesus isn’t here to play favorites..

He’s; hear to write a news story of grace which includes everyone. And when I say everyone, I really mean everyone. Even those you may not like. Even those that may be your enemy. I always love it when I read the book of acts, and right in the beginning of chapter one, Jesus says, you will take the gospel to Jeruslamn, to Samaria and then to the world. Do you remember what that meant?

You’ll take the gosplel to those who first hated me… And then you’ll take it to those you hate. Before you go anywhere where they do not know you or me, I think it was Jesu saying, you need to learn to love first. Because what are you going to do when you go where they do not know Jesus or you, and you make an enemy? Wither they hate you or Jesus, would you be willing to love those who are hard to love?

And I think by learning to love those in Jerusalem, and Samria they can learn to love those anywhere. Jesus is writing a news story of grace and love, and he’s telling this story asking, the lawyer and the jewish people, do you really know who your neighbor is? Because, to neighbor well, this circle requires a wide circle of grace. How wide is your circle of grace? How many people are you willing to love, our care for, or give without question?

Who is your neighbor? Who is in your sphere of influence right now at work, or in your own neighborhoods, or even in your own home who you know is in need/ Jesus says, go meet there needs. There is a quote by a Bible teach named Tom Wright, who writes about this story in Luke, and he writes, “No church, no Christian can remain content with easy definitions which allow us to watch most of the world laying half-dead in the road.” Which leads us to the next question..

What keeps us from being a good neighbor? As Jesus was telling this parable, those who heard it must have thought when the priest came onto the scene, what luck! If there’s one person you would think would step in and do something it would be a religious guy but he didn’t. Let’s as a question, Have you ever been surprised at who didn’t help? Has there ever been a moment where we’ve been let down when we needed help?

I know I have. And I know the feelings of feeling let down, or maybe even alone when I’ve put my own pride aside and asked for help and no one was there. But what keeps us from neighboring well?? Well.. what about being too busy? Have you ever been deriving down the road and seen a car on the side of the road with a couple kids in the back seat and thought to yourself, maybe I should stop to see if they are ok.

Did you stop? Or did say, I got to get to where I’m going? I think we’ve all done it. How hard would it have been to stop and offer a few bottles of water and some snacks for the kids? What about fear? Fear can keep us from welcoming people into our circle of grace. Maybe if we see someone on the side of the road, and you’re like, I’m not stopping and helping.

You never know these days. Maybe it’s a trap to lure people to stop to harm them.. The truth is, we watch way to many movies where people are harmed for doing the right thing. And maybe the priest and the levite had the same thing in their minds too. Lets not forget, traveling was very dangerous in Jesus time. It s dangerous road to anywhere. Someone could be hiding in the weeds, or the brush to jump out to attack you.

Then theres this one, its goon gt o require to much and become messy and complicated. Let’s face it.. helping people can get hard and messy at times. It is. We want our love for others to fit within a 30 minute sitcom which ends with every one getting better and learning some new life lesson. Maybe there was a time you did help, and you got burned.. Maybe someone took advantage of you.

Lets face it, it can happen. Messy people bring messy situations and loving on people can become messy and complicated. And in full disclosure… I know first hand of all of these. Busyness, fear and messiness. Just a few weeks ago, a friend and I were at Cape May teen camp, andthewse two guys showed up sweaty and tired. They were talking to some of the ladies who were a little uncomfortable and ask for a couple guys to come and talk with them.

When we arrived, we saw these two men, all tattooed up. Baggy pants and dirty clothes. They were sweaty and dirty. So we learned that they had been walking for some time, and were asking if someone could give them a ride. We got the van, and loaded it up with them and the two of us. Then we went to McDonald’s and got them dinner. There was change to the $50 I had, so I gave that to them incase they needed something else.

And then they began to direct us to where they needed to go, but they wouldn’t give us the exact address. We were scared. He thought he was going to get stabbed in the side, and I was afraid that I was going to get my throat slashed, while they robbed us. The drive kept getting scarier and scarier. Until finally, we pulled into a house where they were staying, and we prayed and let them out, and told them Jesus loved them.

On the way home, we asked the question, did we have faith even in this moment where we needed to be the samaritan in a story where it was, scary, took our time and could get messy. What we determined was that they needed grace just like we needed grace. We all need grace. You and I do not need to save the world because there is already a savior, but the savior invites us to join him in his work and that means he puts people right in front of us to neighbor.

Its complicated right?? There so many questions like, how? How much? When? When not to? What is helpful and what is not helpful? We need dot ads those questions. Yet, they can also paralyze us to the point and numb us to all of the great needs that are around us. Each and every day. Where we walk this world, watching all these people around us dead from their sin. So how do we neighbor well then?

Well, here are some tangible things we can do.. First, walk across the street. If the priest and Levite walked across the street, they would have discovered the man wasn’t dead and could have helped them. Walking across the street for you may mean walking across the street to your neighbor and getting to know them better. It may be throwing a neighborhood BBQ or a hot dog night around the fire pit.

I remember the first time I saw someone from this church singing on Facebook… I was scared to ask her because I didn’t know her, but I could sense she knew Jesus. One invitation and conversation led to the last two years of watching her grow in her faith. Take that time to get know those around you… and maybe that could begin by getting to know those you church with. Make an effort to get to know those around you.

Invite them to dinner or lunch. Start a Bible study together. Make the effort to walk across that boundary, or to let others in to your circle of grace. Secondly, be you. We talk about this a lot in our Christina circles. Don’t be a Christian at church, and someone different at home. Be authentic, and to be authentic takes people being honest. Most of my friendships grew when I was willing to be honest about myself to them.

When I am at the fire hall, these guys cuss. They get excited.. and they always say, sorry Matt… I forget you were here. And I’m ,like, its ok. Be you. Be authentic. It’s easier to show you the gosple when you’re being the real you… when they take off their mask and show their real heart. It helps me see where they are. Lastly, and this might be one of those..

man that is so easy moments for you… Be consistent in going to the same places. I intentionally go into the bank just to speak with the tellers face to face. Now, they know me. They know where I pastor, and I get to know their lives a little more. Just the other day, I walked into the bank to make a deposit and the teller began to speak about her kids, and she opened up about seeing me at other community events.

When it comes to intentionally neighboring, it means being consistently going to the same places. To the same grocery store. To the same laundry mat. To the same gas station. To the same garage. To the same restaurants. Our family goes to buffalo wild wings almost every week and we know the waitreses there and they know us.. so much so they know I always order two waters. We know their names, and have prayed for them.

As we close, I want to encourage us to really think about these questions… who are we neighboring to… Even in this moment, we are out of the walls of the church among people.*