There Goes The Neighborhood
I. Introduction
It is one of those fond and nostalgic memories. The sweaters. The shoe change. The trolley. The life lessons. Mr. Rogers’ mild manner often disguised the fact that he was dropping truth bombs on children. In fact, unknown to many until recently as a new interest in this soft spoken man has brought it to light is that Mr. Rogers was a preacher. A licensed and ordained minister. He had simply moved his pulpit onto a quaint TV set made up to look like an inviting living room. His congregation had become little children all over the world.
The prevailing message from his show was about neighbors. The preaching was preceded by a special song that asked this question . . . "Won't you be my neighbor." He drove this message home by making statements like this . . .
"We all long to be lovable and capable of loving and whatever we can do through the neighborhood or anything else to reflect that and to encourage people to be in touch with that, then I think that's our ministry."
He was preaching! Where do you think he came up with the concepts that he taught? Mr. Rogers learned from the original Mr. Rogers . . . Jesus! Jesus may have never sung the goofy song or set on a stool and changed His shoes but He certainly taught us about neighbors. Perhaps one of His most important lessons was taught here . . .
Luke 10:25-37 (Message)
Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”
He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?” He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.” “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.” Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?” Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man. “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’ “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?” “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.
Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”
This famous and extremely rich account teaches us so many things that I could probably spend the entire series in this one account. However, there are some other things we want to drill down on so just quickly let me mention a few things that teach and challenge us.
First, the Jews were Neighborhaters. They hated the Samaritans because they were half breeds. They looked down on them. They avoided them. The Jericho Road was in fact a road that was used (there were quicker routes) so that Jews could bypass Samaria! The road that was used as a backdrop for the account was nothing more than a hiding place for hate. They literally went out of their way to avoid the Samaritans. None of us would go out of our way to avoid someone would we?
So, Jesus tells this story and the lessons are stark. He uses characters that should arrest our attention. The religious folks . . . those who are supposed to know and love God are the ones who fail to respond. A Samaritan is painted as the hero. An unexpected person in an unexpected place responds. He behaves in the exact opposite manner as the religious folks. Jesus shows us that real neighbors responds. Inconvenience themselves. He crafts this story to answer this question . . . "who is my neighbor?"
We know the story. We are familiar with it. But perhaps we need to ask this question again. Who is our neighbor?
Jesus redefines and expands our neighborhood.
We tend to define our neighborhood as those who live within reach. We tend to confine our concept of neighborhood to those on our block, in houses that look like ours, people who are similar to us, same zip code, same area code and those in cultures that resemble ours. But Jesus redefines and expands our neighborhood. He says neighbor is now anyone in front of us who may be in need. It has nothing to do with sidewalks it has to do with sickness. It has nothing to do with proximity it has to do with pain. It is no longer about a house but about hurt.
The whole concept of the Jericho Road is not crossing to the other side it is literally stepping over the one in need. Jesus says look there goes the neighborhood. There are people in our path that are in need and in pain. Those people are our neighbor regardless of anything about them that we think should divide us Jesus is saying that is our neighbor. There goes the neighborhood in the store. There goes our neighborhood in the mall. There goes our neighborhood across town. There goes our neighborhood across the country. There goes our neighborhood across the world. We must expand our idea of neighborhood. Jesus was trying to tell us that we are on same road even though we live on different streets. The walls we try to raise to separate us are nothing more than attempts to avoid assistance.
Mr. Rogers would have said amen to this idea . . . “All we’re ever asked to do in this life is to treat our neighbor—especially our neighbor who is in need—exactly as we would hope to be treated ourselves. That’s our ultimate responsibility.”
Jesus and Mr. Rogers are trying to get us to stop stepping over people in our path.
I think too many of us are like the religious leader who asked the "Who is my neighbor" question. He asked it for one reason and one reason alone. Maybe we are are guilty of trying to gain the same thing he was.
Close the loopholes!
I believe he asked the question because he was trying to find looking a loophole. The NIV says he wanted to justify himself. So, maybe the real question he should have asked and the one we won't ask but maybe should is . . . "Who can I hate?" He was hoping Jesus would give him an out for His hate. If Jesus would set the limits of my neighborhood to those who look, dress, behave like me, then I will have justification or permission to hate those who don't. Jesus slams the door on every escape route! His response to the question makes it clear that geography, ethnicity, culture nor anything else is an adequate reason to hate! So, there is no loophole that allow us to hate the gays, the muslims, the drug addict, the baptist, the one who did us wrong, the adandoner, the liar, the heart breaker . . . there is no loophole. Maybe the real question we need to ask this morning is not "Who is my neighbor" but "Who do I hate!" Why is that such an important question? What does it even matter if I hate someone?
John answers that in 1 John 4:7-12, 19-21
My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first. "If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both."
Did you catch it? We can't love God if we don't love man! And just like Jesus, John doesn't establish any escape clauses. We are required to simply love those we can see!
Jesus confronted the hate in the room. I am confronting it today too. Who do you hate? Have you justified or given yourself a loophole? Are we hiding hate? Are we a neighbor hater? Does our claim of loving God sound/look as hollow as the ones who stepped over a man rather than stepping to the man? If we want to love God we must also love man period. Everywhere you go is your neighborhood.
Back up one second. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. Some feel hated by God. You can experience His love.
