What if the neighbors are weird....

"Why don't they just learn English?"  I hear it, I use to say it.  That is until I started teaching English as a Second Language.  And maybe it was challenging because I had an hour training session and was given a class to teach!  Baptism by fire is what I believe it is called.  It ended up being the adventure of at least this part of my lifetime, an adventure that changed my heart and my footsteps.  An adventure I never intended to take, but was drawn by the desire to walk where Jesus walked.  To walk in faith that Jesus was with me and to walk in the love Jesus desires us to have for our neighbors. 

I discovered a few things, the first thing was how difficult learning English really is.  I was taking a foreign language class at the same time I was teaching English.  The foreign language has rules that it follows.  If you can read it, you can pronounce it.  English is full of exceptions and silent letters.  It takes a child, whose minds are like sponges, four years to be textbook fluent in another language.  English is hard.  As I have entered adulthood I have recognized that my mind is less like a sponge and learning and retaining something new is difficult, and at five years of studying this language, I am still not textbook fluent. 

The other thing that hit me was that maybe the neighbors were not so weird after all.  Language barrier seemed to be the biggest fear and the biggest obstacle.  I was surprised to find that it is overcome-able.  That, yes, there were moments where I had to take a deep breath and dive into the unknown, but smiles, laughter, and large hand gestures can be very effective.  Now, I might not have been able to discuss politics, but maybe that is for the best.  I also discovered that I had far more things in common with my students than I would have ever considered.  And they were the important things.  Love of family.  Faith in God.  Hope for a better future.  The best for their children.  A job to work at.  Food to eat.  Clothes to wear.  The love of laughter.  Curiosity.  The love of music.  All the things that make us human.  I began to appreciate more and more the fact that my neighbors and I were all created in the image of God as the fear melted away and I began to love my students and experience my students loving me through kind words and acts of kindness.   

Let's call it like it is.  Jesus told us to do it.   "Love your neighbor as yourself."  As with his parable of the Good Samaritan, we do not actually get to choose our neighbors.  This is difficult for us in a world of neighborhood associations and gated communities.  Who is my neighbor?  That is the questions we continue to ask, trying to stall and get some leverage or control.  But, like a shepherd he wants to lead us, away from what is less than God's best intentions for us and into experiencing the decadent love of God for us and through us. 

Facing Nineveh.

The call to love our neighbor sometimes tests us to what we perceive to be our very limits.  Jesus has other dreams for our potential in furthering His Kingdom.  Love God and love your neighbor as yourself, he says.  This is the greatest commandment.  Everything hangs on this He says.  Jonah is a story of someone God called to love some neighbors that he did not believe deserved the mercy of his God.  God had another opinion of this group of people he created in His very own image.  And even though it was the One True God who had invited him on this mission to Nineveh, Our friend Jonah did not change his mind. He chose to go his own way.  Apparently it is not always a matter of saying no to God and walking away.  On this occasion, God just let him go.  No, he continued to pursue Jonah, to “persuade” him, if you will, to go and speak truth and extend mercy on these people Jonah decided were undeserving.   After three unpleasant days, Jonah, by all accounts a man of God, a prophet even, grudgingly decided to go and do what God had called him to do.  And to his dismay, the people repented and turned to God and were shown mercy. 

I believe we all have our Ninevites.  I certainly was faced with neighbors that were hard to love in my tenure as a Social Worker.  Some of the people in my Nineveh were adults and youth who sexually abused others, who abused children, who had given up on their children, who exploited their children for the sake of gaining ground in an ugly custody battle.  Sometimes, through the grace of God I was able to overcome my rage over the evil that one person had inflicted on another with compassion that was able to recognize the brokenness that motivated their actions.  Sometimes, I grudgingly gave them fair treatment solely for the sake of “doing my job.” 

The truth here is that it is not our determination of a person’s worthiness or value, not as someone who has decided to follow Jesus.  He has placed a value of priceless on every last one of us.  Each one is someone to pursue and welcome into His Kingdom.  It is we who create the barriers and the distance between one another.  We allow education, income level, race, language, profession, and even appearance to create miles between us when the truth is we are cut from the same cloth.  The same threads of the canvas have been woven together with great thought and intention to create a beautiful masterpiece for the Creator to enjoy.  Love, laughter, and our sacred relationships supercede culture and are the common thread of who we were created to be.  This is the power of the gospel, of living in the Kingdom Way. This is what has historically gotten people killed.  The way of the Kingdom turns everything upside down, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.  The security we had in moving up any sort of ladder to increase our status is meaningless.  In the Kingdom we are all on the level.  Broken, yet loved, confident, but with nothing to boast about, for we are in the Kingdom by the same mercy and grace we have all received from our One Savior. 

What my neighbor said about Jesus.

Wednesday night was registration night for ESL classes.  We are approaching five years of holding these classes and the last year has been quite different.  Last year we went from a 3% non-Hispanic group of students to a 30% group of non-Hispanic students, and on Wednesday, the students that registered were a pretty even mix of folks from Nepal, Iraq, Iran, Mexico, and Central America.  One of our new students had a lot to say while we were testing to see which level would be most appropriate for him. 

His English was quite advanced for someone who had been in the country for a mere four months as a refugee from Bhutan.  He talked about being born in Nepal and living there until the government started persecuting the people who were practicing Buddhist rather than the Hindu religion.  At that time his family was relocated to a refugee camp, where he spent the next twenty years of his life, and where he met Jesus.  He talked about having to meet in secret and having to hide his Bible when he carried it with him.  And he talked about how Jesus is the reason to live. 

His passion brought me to tears, as I thought of him taking risks so he could grow in his knowledge of Christ, and meet with his fellow believers.  I thought of all the seemingly trivial excuses I had come up with over the years to put off reading a Bible that I have never had to hide to ensure my physical safety.  I thought about the times I just didn't feel like driving over to church and gave up opportunities to be a part of the community of faith, a community that is like a family to me even.  There has been no cost for me to be a Christian in the United States and I have missed so many opportunities to sit at Jesus' feet and be challenged by my brothers and sisters in the faith.  And here sitting in front of me was someone who was 100%.  It is all about Jesus, he kept saying.  His actions screamed, Jesus is worth taking risks. 

I thank God that I had an opportunity to spend time with a neighbor who loves Jesus enough that he shined that light into my heart and life.  I pray that I will have the courage to do the same inside and outside of the doors of the church building I walk into every day. 

What kind of "church people" am I?

Jesus chastised the rich and pious and sought out the orphans and widows, the poor and those stumbling around in the darkness of sin.  Jesus chastised the church people that felt good about themselves because they avoided the people they deemed “dirty.”  Jesus’ mission was to seek and find those the church folks had ostracized and offer them the kingdom.  This theme is all over the New Testament.  And the church needs to be asking an important questions.   Are we the pious church folk, or are we the ones seeking to follow the Way of Jesus?

“Woe to you...for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These things you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” -Jesus in Luke 23: 23

Why is it that it is easier to tithe than to role up our sleeves and get into the middle of the controversy that is involved with justice and mercy?  There is a trial concluding this week in Nashville that involved an immigrant woman, pulled over for speeding and then subsequently arrested and held in jail for a traffic violation.  This woman just happened to go into labor at this time.  How was this handled?  Juana Villegas delivered her baby in shackles. I have had some experience with shackles, during my time as a Juvenile Probation officer.  They are handcuffs that snap around your ankles, with a chain connecting each cuff so that you are not able to easily walk or run.  As a seven-month pregnant woman, I would have to say that shackles would not be necessary for me at this moment.  I had a difficult time keeping up with the retired folk of our church at a luncheon yesterday.  Let alone considering the research surrounding the danger this is to mother and child at the time of a delivery.  This is not the justice that I would expect to receive due to a traffic citation.  Is there no room for mercy? Why have many churches and so many church people remained silent in light of what is happening to our neighbors? While it is easier to keep a comfortable distance and distract ourselves with the busyness that is life to keep us from some of the reality that is around us, and while it is more difficult to face the complex issues of immigration and the more basic question of at what point is it okay to stop treating people like people, and better question of, is there ever a point when it is okay to treat a person that God created and Jesus died for as less than human, it seems as if the call of Jesus to the “church people” of his day, and to us as His church today, is to pursue justice and mercy.  To be faithful to the call of Jesus is to be aware of what is happening not just to our loved ones, but also to our neighbors, some who have lives similar to ours and some with lives very different.  In our communion liturgy, there is a time of confession; we pray together an honest and beautiful prayer…. We have failed to be an obedient church, we have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy. Forgive  us we pray.  Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Graceful...

There is a difference between performing and giving out of the gratitude that is in your heart.  In our culture of self-sufficiency and rewards based on performance in school, in athletics, in the workplace, it can be easy to mistake more performing for true service and true fellowship.  There is nothing wrong with hard work placed towards a noble goal.  It is not the way of grace; grace is unearnable.  This is a hard shift to make.  I liked school, in preparing for taking a test I would set out to conquer.  I wanted nothing less than 100% and I could usually get at least very near to this goal.  I was rewarded with a big A.  It makes sense, work hard for it and then receive it.  Now, there is a place for hard work in our spiritual lives, for setting goals about how to live and how to love our neighbors.  Our relationship with Christ is one of commitment (covenants even) and faithfulness to His voice.  Yet when it comes to receiving and extending grace, this is a different part of the journey.  Grace is the open door; grace is the reason for responding to the Father and Son whose love is so great; a great sacrifice was made.  The rest of the journey is for acts of love with the help of the Holy Spirit and out of the heart of one who is debt free and full of gratitude.

This realization has helped me come to terms with the parable of the vineyard.  The one where the employer basically pays the workers the same whether they arrived at 6 am or a half hour before quitting time.  Yes, initially, something inside me screamed, “it’s not fair!” But as I am taking my small, sometimes unsteady, sometimes one step forward-three steps back on my journey towards my goal of coming nearer to the path Jesus would have me walk, I can see that the point is, He loves all of us and wants all of us.  His grace allows us to come, and to come, as we are, when we are ready to come. 

God of Grace and Love, I pray that I may remember the grace that pursued and wooed me.  I pray that I may remember to extend this grace to those I bump into in your world today.   Amen.

Who is my neighbor?

This question is age old, at least a couple thousand years old.  There is an old story told by the One I follow (or attempt to) that is a response to this very question.  A story about an outcast of sorts, not one that in the eyes of the very pious or the clergy of the time to give a second thought to.  Not a thought more than how helping a person dying on the side of a rough road could damage their "holiness."  Yet, the moral of this story is that the "irreligious" one, the one who was not worshipping at the right church in the right way.  The one that the religious would say was headed down the wrong path with no chance of redemption.  Not from that side of town, not with that ethnicity, not from that church.  Yet he was the one who showed kindness to a stranger.  Not even just a small act of kindness, rather he went with the big sacrificial kindness, a delay on a business trip, a large financial sum, and follow up. To read the whole story you need to go to Luke 10:25-37.  

This is the road Jesus has called us to follow Him down.  There is a cost.  The reward is not usually tangible.  And if it were, it would not be a sacrifice.  It is not an easy road.  Getting involved in the lives of other people gets complicated and sticky and sometimes it can be painful and frustrating.  And sometimes our intentions to "do good" or "meet needs" are not what the person on the side of the road wants or needs because we, in our high position to give out help,  can fail to listen or really see the other person. 

Seeing the other person is what I am learning how to do as we have opened our church doors to English Classes to refugees and immigrants.  Each has a story about getting to Nashville. Some came out of desperation to feed their family, some came out of curiosity, some were captured by the allure of the "American Dream," some were persecuted in their countries and were forced to come and be separated from family and friends and culture." Each of these children of God has a unique challenge in acclimating to a brand new country with sometimes drastically different customs from their country of origin.  Challenges of learning a new language, operating in a different type of governmental system, navigating a school system, and sometimes learning to drive, even shopping can be overwhelming. 

What a time in someone's life it must be to live in this much chaos, confusion, and for some fear.  What an opportunity we have to be neighbors to these on the side of the road of life, trying to merge into our American culture.  Some of them are literally walking on the side of the roads we drive on our way to Hillcrest.  Sometimes I meet them in the parking lot on their way to English class, or to their plot in the Community Garden.  

What an opportunity we have to shine the light on the hill and to walk alongside our neighbors as they face their many challenges.  Maybe we can offer them kindness in a world that is confused by their presence here.  Maybe, we can even offer them friendship or an invitation to be a part of our spiritual family.  Maybe, we can take the courageous steps that we are called to take and recognize our neighbors all around us.