“Good Neighbors”

What is it that makes a good neighbor? In “Mending Wall” the poet Robert Frost reflects on his relationship with his neighbor beyond the hill who believes, Good fences make good neighbors. A quick Google search reveals that line is taking on a life of its own these days:

There is a tragicomedy with this title set in Arabia about a writer whose arm is amputated after being struck by gunfire, only no one will believe his arm is gone; a commentary on the conflict in the Mideast, this play examines how the fear that terrorism generates can pollute people’s hearts and be almost as debilitating as the carnage of terrorism.
There is a news article under the same title about the fence built by Israel to protect their land and people from being polluted by their perceived enemy; security is the goal the author wonders if more fences are planned.
Taller, wider, stronger fortifications are seen by some as the only way to protect the U.S. borders from those who want to terrorize this country, or proliferate drug trafficking, or take our jobs, or ….

Jesus was no stranger to fences. In his time and his tradition one fence was called the law. The law was given the chosen ones to guide their living into the way God and tradition taught was faithful. The law defined who was worthy and who was not; who was clean and who was not; who was in and who was not. Jesus came not to eliminate the fences, but to remind the world that fences exist for a penultimate purpose – what matters most is being good neighbors.

In his poem, Robert Frost reflects on that neighbor’s mantra:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

In today’s lesson the keepers of the law (scribes and Pharisees) were quite upset when they saw some of Jesus’ disciples not obeying the law. Actually they were already quite upset by what Jesus was teaching, and by the size of the crowds he was attracting. Mark the gospel-writer tells us that the offense had been building for some time. Healing on the Sabbath caused particular offence – “The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired…against [Jesus], how to destroy him” [3.6]. Here was just another nit the law-abiding folks could pick as they added to their arsenal of accusation against Jesus: his followers were eating with dirty hands making themselves dirty according to the law. Why do they not live according to the tradition of their elders? It was a fair question from those who lived according to the way things were, a fair question from those threatened by anything that would go against the grain, that would raise the refrain, “We’ve never done things that way before.”

To this fair question Jesus gave a more than fair response: it’s about more than the law. It is about relationship. It is not what goes into a person – whether dirty food or dirty hands handling it, not the circumstances of their life but rather how they live with what they have that matters. What comes out of a person is what defiles – hatred, slander, anger, malice; all the things that manifest themselves in selfish hoarding, line drawing, knotted fists, turned backs – these are the things that defile a person, and a people, for these are the relationship-defying actions that go against God’s will for life. These are the things that give offence and reduce people to less than the gift God created them to be.

During a recent outing together my husband and I passed by a voter registration booth. My husband, a U S Navy veteran and registered Republican, read the sign – “register to vote, change name, address or party affiliation.” Responding to the same tensions that grip you and much of the rest of the world in these days, he quipped: “Maybe I should register as a Democrat.” There are many policies of our current administration with which I disagree, going back to the preemptive strike against Iraq that in no way could be considered “just war” policy. Yet political party affiliation or party politics is a fence that will never produce the good neighbors we need to be for the sake of our future and our country’s future. Faithful listening and dialog, open hands sharing the struggle together at food banks, town hall meetings, places of work and family dinner tables – all informed by open Bibles and open hearts yearning for the word of Life – this is the way to develop a shared understanding of what matters in life, and a shared commitment to following the Jesus path as we walk the journey of this life together. There will always be challenge, there will always be change – life is like that. Sometimes it happens gradually, like aging; sometimes with the violence of a hurricane. What matters is how we relate to one another – to those walled in and walled out -- how we relate with one another in the midst of it all.

I’ve had some computer problems at home and at work in the past two weeks. So it was a relief for me to get a note from a friend reminding me that Jesus was no stranger to computer difficulties. It seems that Jesus and Satan were having an argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering. Finally, fed up, God said, “THAT’S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results I will judge who does the better job” So Satan and Jesus sat down at their keyboards and typed away. They e-mailed. They e-mailed with attachments. They downloaded. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They created labels and cards, charts and graphs. They did some genealogy reports and some mail merges. They did every job known to man. Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than – well, you know, very fast.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and of course the power went off.

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed.

Finally the electricity came back on and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming: “It’s gone! It’s all GONE! I lost everything when the power went out!” Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work. Satan saw this and became quite irate. “Wait!” he screamed as God collected the results of the test. “That’s not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don’t have any?”

God just shrugged and said, JESUS SAVES.

In Baptism we are washed into a life with God in Christ. Once for all time Christ meets us in our baptism, alive and kicking as Danish theologian Nikolai Grundtvig said. No fences here – all are freely and wonderfully polluted by God’s grace. In Baptism Christ meets us, letting himself be born in us; now Christ lives through us. Being a good neighbor begins here, in the heart of who we are as ones who are alive in Christ and called to be “little Christs” to our neighbor. Good neighbors know the times and seasons for good fences; these are always fences with gates that honor the other while providing opportunity for community and connection, for change and growth. Good neighbors are defined not by their external qualities. Good neighbors are defined by God who shapes our souls, by the One who stewards us to be faithful with relationships as well as resources.

Martin Luther didn’t much care for the letter of James – Luther thought it had too much emphasis on works (what we must do to merit God’s grace); that was a major theological concern in his time. The emphasis must shift somewhat for our time – we do well to remember that the heart of neighborliness is to be doers of the word and not merely hearers. Otherwise it’s too easy to deceive ourselves into thinking we’re good neighbors, for faith is active in love. God gave us birth by the word of truth, James says, so that we could be the first fruits – the faithful offering God gives to the world – to establish a relationship with others rooted in the heart of grace, forgiveness, and acceptance; following the Jesus way of wholeness and peace. My good neighbors, that’s quite a gift! It is the only way to Life.