Pulling the String on "Love Your Neighbor"

josephholubsermons
September 7, 2008 Pentecost 17

Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20

Pull The String on “Love Your Neighbor”

For most of our married life Marcia and I have “shared” our house with cats. (notice I said “shared”; for those of you who are “cat people”, of course you know we were guests in their house) We don’t have cats now, but when we did, one of my favorite activities with the cats was to play the game of “pull the string.” I would thread a very long string all around the house, weaving it around chairs and furniture, from one room to the next, and then I would slowly pull on one end of the string and watch the cats “go nuts”, stalking and pouncing on the other end as the string made its journey through the house.

This morning we will play “pull the string”, and I will be the operator of the string. Only the “string” I am referring to is this little verse that appears in Paul’s letter to the Romans, “(The commandments) are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Romans 13:10) I invite you to follow the string of this verse as I pull from my end.

This is a most remarkable verse that sent me on a journey this week threading me through the Bible. It’s a verse that ties together pieces of an astounding biblical imperative that is scattered throughout the Bible. Let me attempt to illustrate as succinctly as I can.

Let’s pull on the string of this verse a little. When we pull, of course we see that these words were not original with Paul. Jesus also implored his followers to “love your neighbor as yourself.” The gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) report a leader coming to Jesus and asking him which commandment in the law was the greatest. (Matthew 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-28) Jesus responded, “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

But let’s pull on the string a little more. The words were not original with Jesus. In fact, the words appear in the Old Testament, specifically the Book of Leviticus. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (19:18) Those words are from a section in Leviticus that describes a life of holiness expected to be lived by the Israelites in response to God’s saving deliverance from their slavery in Egypt.

Now it’s important to note that originally in Israel “neighbor” meant next-of-kin or fellow Israelite, but most significantly we see an expansion of that definition even in Leviticus. Just a few verses later it says, “When an alien resides in your land, you shall not oppress the alien… you shall love the alien as yourself… for remember you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Lev 19:33-34)

In other words God’s word to the Israelites was that when an “alien” was among them, they were to treat the alien not as they were treated when they were aliens in the land of Egypt, but rather love the alien as they loved themselves. That was to be the way they were to honor God in response to God’s saving activity on their behalf. The point is when we pull the string on Paul’s words it takes us as far back as Leviticus, where already we see a broadening of the definition of neighbor, beyond next-of-kin, beyond fellow Israelite, beyond friend, beyond the next door resident, beyond the person(s) who look, and act, and hold the same values as we do - the “alien.”

But why stop there? Let’s tug on the string even more. In Luke, when Jesus said “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the religious leader continued the conversation with another question, “And who is my neighbor?” It was then Jesus told the familiar parable of The Good Samaritan. You know the story. A man was mugged by robbers and left in the ditch along the side of the road to die. Two religious leaders passed by, a priest and a Levite. These guys, for sure, were familiar with God’s command in Leviticus to love neighbor and alien as much as self. Even so, they passed the dying man by – ignoring his suffering and his pain. But ironically in an incredibly clever twist of the Leviticus imperative, it was an “alien,” a despised Samaritan, who stopped and rendered compassionate aid, thereby fulfilling the commandment of God to love both neighbor and alien as himself. The story drips with irony.

A favorite question I like to ask Bible study participants is which character in the Parable of the Good Samaritan looks most like Jesus? Most people immediately say, “The Samaritan.” I don’t disagree, but if you look deeper than the surface of this story, the mugged man in the ditch looks even more like Jesus – the Jesus who was flogged, beaten, hung on a cross and left to die; before whom all sorts of people, religious and profane, paraded by shouting scorn and displaying indifference.

It’s right at this point in the pulling of our string, seeing the man in the ditch in Jesus’ parable as the Jesus figure, if we yank on the string real hard one more time, another passage pops out into view that is tied into this whole scenario; a passage from Matthew 25 where Jesus said “I was hungry and you gave me food… thirsty and you gave me something to drink… a stranger and you welcomed me… naked and you gave me clothing… sick and you took care of me… in prison and you visited me… just as you do it to one of the least of these you do it unto me.” (Matthew 25:35,36, 40) This is one of the most deeply mysterious verses in the entire Bible, for it is declaring that God’s solidarity with human pain and suffering is so total and so complete that when we minister to those who suffer, in some unfathomable way, we minister to the Lord Jesus himself.

You see, if we pull on the string of “Love your neighbor as yourself”, a whole new radical way to live and love opens up before us. We begin to see that it is not merely a sentimental imperative to do nice things for our neighbors, but it is nothing short of an astounding and scandalous invitation to encounter the living Jesus in the lives of the most desperate, suffering, lonely, and pained souls of this planet.

When we pull on the string of this verse and see all the many biblical connections that “Love your neighbor as yourself” ties together, including other teachings of Jesus I haven’t mentioned like, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” We see that the definition of neighbor is broadened to the radical point of even including our enemies!

Even in today’s gospel “love of neighbor” takes the shape of an intentional, caring and respectful procedure outlined to effect reconciliation with between estranged members of Matthew’s church. And if you think you are let off the hook of neighborliness when you get to the verse, “if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector” (Matthew 18:17), then think again, because all you have to do is remember how Jesus related to Gentiles and tax collectors – with love, grace and acceptance.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is the most concise, yet profound description there is of what it means to live the Christian life; to live Jesus’ life; to live your life in a way that honors God and is faithful to the life of our Lord Jesus.

If we can trust that in and through Jesus, the boundaries of neighbor and neighborhood have been pushed far beyond our narrow and parochial boundaries, it literally changes everything about how Jesus people are to live out their lives. It changes everything radically and scandalously.

It means that God’s neighborhood is so much bigger than the neighborhood and tribal boundaries that we draw, maintain and we fight to defend. It means God’s neighborhood includes the whole blessed and profane world; and every blessed and profane person in it.

It means that our neighbors include even those we dislike and despise; and especially those who dislike and despise us.

It means that if we are looking for the presence of Jesus in this world, we need to look into the faces of the suffering and oppressed, the least and last of this planet.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” So who exactly is my neighbor? If I take seriously all the biblical connections that this verse ties together, it’s the ones who look a little or a lot like Jesus, that’s who! The ones who are lonely, lost, imprisoned, thirsty, starving, frightened, oppressed, poor, homeless, disenfranchised, sick, displaced, grieving, refugeed, rejected and dying. The ones who look like Jesus on his way to the cross: the victims of devastating hurricanes; those dying of HIV/Aids; starving and orphaned children in sub-Sahara Africa; the unemployed and under-employed; the lonely teen-ager; the abused woman; the forgotten aged, and also the “aliens” among us, who have been branded by our culture with a disparaging label – “illegal”.

At my previous congregation, at VBS this past June, our theme was “God’s Big Backyard.” Each day we talked about serving our neighbors in an ever expanding circle from family, to friends, to community, to world. The last day a little girl (about 7 or 8) came up to me and showed me a drawing she had proudly made. She had worked on it at home the night before and obviously had put a lot of time into it. It wasn’t a required activity, but rather it was her chosen labor of love. It was a drawing of the world, with the oceans and continents – and all around the edge of the circle of the world she had drawn in people. Among her people were people of different colored skins; a person on a stretcher being carried by two other people; people of different colors all holding hands. Some of the people had long distorted arms that reached across the globe to join hands with people way on the other side. At the top of the drawing she had entitled it, “God’s Neighborhood.”

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is a verse that ties all things and all people together in the heart of God. It’s a verse, that if take seriously in Christ, will distort us; distort us with love. It’s a verse that ties all humanity together into one neighborhood. It’s a verse that ultimately brings us to Jesus to be led into a fuller humanity, beyond our lack of neighborliness, and empowered to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Amen.