Wednesday, September 3, 2025

“For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14, New Living Translation)

                “And who is my neighbour?” a man once asked Jesus. Well, so far, I can name Linda, Don, Wayne, Stephen, Jackie, Justin, Jacob and Ryan.  I now know more names of my neighbours in 3 months here in Whitby than I ever did in Peterborough in 20 years. I could name our neighbours’ dogs better than I could name the neighbours themselves. But I am discovering that our apartment building is a very friendly and close neighbourhood in its own right. Nobody is ever nosy but everyone keeps an eye out for each other. I am working hard trying to remember all their names. There are a lot of dogs in our building, too, but I haven’t learned a single one of their names, yet. How times have changed!

                The population of our apartment building is richly diverse. There are many retired folk like us. But there are children, too.  It is very multicultural. There are singles and mixed families and same sex couples and many others sharing our building.  Very different personalities and characteristics.  I know all this by watching and listening and talking to my neighbours. As one of my neighbours said to me, we’re all different and there is no point in judging others.  Life is too short for that. Amen to that! Everyone seems respectful and considerate of one another. (It’s kind of like one would want a church to be.)

                We are living in a perilous time where powerful political and extreme conservative social forces are creating a very unfriendly and unneighbourly society. Outsiders, i.e. people not like us, are being targeted as unwanted. People who don’t look like us talk like us, act like us are unwelcome. Conservative Christianity, sadly, is sometimes at the very vanguard of this movement. Neighbourliness is taking a beating out there in the world. We are more like to accuse our neighbour of something than to befriend him or her. Jesus pointed to such troubled times as this as a portent of the end of the world: “A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed.” (Mark 13: 12)  We give little heed to God’s declaration: “I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors. I will not endure conceit and pride.” (Psalm 101:5)

                It may take a Second Coming of Christ to restore civility, tolerance, mutual concern, compassion, justice, grace and peace in our neighborhoods. Perhaps, it can only be Christ’s Love that can fully and completely re-establish the Kingdom of God in all its fullness where one neighbour really does love another neighbour. Let the rapture begin if it means we can treat each other with Love again. At the very least, “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.” (Matthew 7: 1 -5, The Message Bible)

                Proverbs give us some clarity on neighbourliness. “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them. If you can help your neighbor now, don’t say, ‘Come back tomorrow, and then I’ll help you.’ Don’t plot harm against your neighbor, for those who live nearby trust you. Don’t pick a fight without reason, when no one has done you harm.” (Proverbs 3: 27-30)

                And just maybe, if you and I can begin to get it right again, then the world leaders will pick it up and stop their warring madness. But I am getting way ahead of myself. Let us consider what Jesus and then Paul had to say: Love your neighbour as yourself. Blows your mind, doesn’t it? It sounds so simple. We don’t need to complicate it with conditions, exceptions, restrictions, qualifications, etc.  Just love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus gave us the Golden Rule as a good start: “Do to others as you would like them to do to you.” (Luke 6:31) How hard can that be? This is not complicated, sophisticated theology. It’s practical, down-to-earth. Love your neighbour as yourself. A child can do it. Why not us?

                Who is my neighbour? You are!

 

Dale