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.