Neighbor's
After two-thousand years Jesus' extension of the title of neighbor to the wide worls remains some of the most radical political speech. I believe that one of the hallmark's of the gospel is the breaking down of in group/out group status and the dissolution of boundaries. I have been watching alot of TV lately (I'm not proud of it but there are worse vices to have) and in almost every show there is an idea that there are somethings that are okay for those in the in group and somethings that are okay for those in the outgroup. In Rome Ceasar creates a great sin by moving his army across the Rubicon thus moving the means of Rome's conquest from "out there" to within the heart of the empire. Romans would prefer to keep themselves seperate from the dirty work. It is fine for foreigners to live under the watchful eye of the army but not citizens.
This is just one example of a logic that I have seen but in the face of this Jesus proclaims the expansion of familial and neighborly boundaries to include all. It becomes the task of followers of Jesus to treat others with the same diginity and humanity usually reserved for their family and tribe. But have we taken this too far? I mean that geographically. We have taken this thinking to far from our neighbor(hoods).
I think that Christians have allowed the global scope of this thinking to distract from the desire to love our neighbors-the ones that live next door to us.
I need to think more about this but I think I'm on to something important. If you have comments pleases leave them and maybe we can get a discussion going.
posted by Matt Lyke at 7:18 AM
3 Comments:
Jesus also tried to limit his ministry to the Jewish population, and had pretty specific foci, the poor, for example. So there is this balance of taking care of your own, while still loving your enemy.
Ross
8:55 PM
This is something that I think about having traveled across the world to help some poor kids while I know perfectly well there are poor kids in, say, Harrisburg Pennsylvania. I thought about this particularly when Katrina hit- here were Egyptians showing concern for poor Americans! All that to say I'll be a proud resident of the U.S. again soon.
It seems there is the need for both some kind of global understanding of neighbors AND local understanding of neighbors which I think is probably also where the body of Christ comes in. I'm at peace (or whatever) with my decision to be here. I'm also at peace with your and Sarah and Ross and Angela's decision to be in Harrisburg. You know?
There is also the differece between what I'm doing- trying to daily be a neighbor to specific people in a specific location that is "cross cultural" to me- and being globally conscious from afar, or in a bigger, systemic sort of way. I.E. I hope that I'm being a help in a situation of poverty but I'm not looking at the big picture of where that poverty comes from. You know?
-andrea
2:36 AM
I think I know what you mean. What I'm mainly concerned with is kind of thinking that lets christians convince themselves that if they think of the people the missionary oversees that they support evangelize as their neighbors than they don't actually have to know the person who lives next door to them.
I think it is a Christian calling for me to love the neighbor in the Pakistani earthquake or in Cairo by praying, sending cash, going in short term relief if needed, and working for a more just system, but I think it is just as radical for me to love my neighbro Leonard the man who lives next door to me.
6:22 PM
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