My Neighborhood
My husband is from a small town in Louisiana. He is in his mid-fifties. He has fond memories of the tight-knit community of family, friends, and neighbors. There are other memories that are not so pleasant. His very small town did not have a diverse population. He recalls knowing of only one Hispanic family and an Indian family that owned a convenience store. Other than those two families, the town was black and white—even the cemeteries.
When he began his kindergarten year, schools in his town were still segregated. About halfway through the term, desegregation finally reached his school system. He shared with me how scared he was as a little boy hearing his older brothers and sisters recall the racial fights that occurred nearly daily at their junior and senior high schools. Although the signs of “colored” and “white” had been taken down at restaurants and department stores, no one dared cross those invisible barriers.
One of his most frightening experiences happened around age four. A downpour came as he, his father, and his mother were almost home after shopping in a city about forty minutes away. His father pulled the car into a church parking lot close to their neighborhood to wait out the storm. There was no sign out front, but it was understood that it was a “whites only” church. My husband recalled how terrified he was of his father being hurt or put in jail for parking at that church. He fixated on the church doors, hoping no one would come out.
Part of his parents’ driving lessons for him and his siblings was “the talk” that they were never to drive through certain neighborhoods, even if it was the shortest route to school or to the grocery store. That kind of counsel did not come from overzealous, misinformed parents, but from their experiences of living in a racially divided town.
My husband shared a story his dad told him about a night that as a child, his family slept in their cornfield. Word had spread that a white man had been shot and it was rumored that a black man had killed him. Law enforcement was going through the rural black neighborhoods collecting their guns. My husband’s grandfather was so fearful of the anger toward blacks that he took his family and fled their home to spend the night in their cornfield, hoping the rage would have subsided by the next day. Even though everyone was born in America, my father-in-law was a World War II veteran, and his father was respected in his community as a faithful deacon who physically helped build the black church, their family was not treated as part of the neighborhood. By God’s grace, my husband did not internalize those horrible experiences to the degree that they damaged his view of God or the mission of the Church.
What kind of neighborhood did you grow up in? What are your first memories of neighbors? Were you the kind of person who would reach out to the neighbors? I confess, although I am very comfortable with public speaking, I am overwhelmingly an introvert. I lived in a neighborhood for about thirteen years and did not know anyone except an older lady who lived to the left of my house. That neighborhood to me was more of a collection of houses than a community of people who had at least a moderate concern about one another. Unfortunately, it never felt like a real neighborhood.
It is an entirely different experience in our current neighborhood. We love it! It is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in our area of the city. We affectionately call it the Texas version of the United Nations. Although I am still an introvert, there is something that draws me out of my cocoon. I have come to know more people in the short time that we have been here than any other place I have lived. What my husband and I sensed shortly after moving in was the atmosphere of neighborly concern and oneness of purpose. As people walk their dogs, they greet us or even stop to talk when we are working in our yard. Because of that introduction into our neighborhood, we feel safe and welcomed. That warm welcome has given us a sense of responsibility to extend that same welcoming spirit to those new families moving into our neighborhood.
In Matthew 22:38–40 we read, “This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Luke 10:27–28, gives us deeper insight:
He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
It is fascinating to look at the two side by side. Together they teach us not only that loving God and our neighbor are God’s commandments, but also that they are matters of life and death for us, not for the neighbor!
Be Ye Holy, Neighbor
When we think of a holy person, we tend to think of people such as the apostles and prophets—Mother Teresa or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—but the Bible tells us that you and I are not only to be holy, but we are holy. It is God who has made us holy by the work of the Spirit through Christ. Now, the holiness that has been credited to us is also the holiness that is to be made visible to the world around us through our words and actions. Being a good neighbor is one of the biggest and brightest demonstrations of holiness.
The command to love our neighbor is not something that Jesus offered as a new tradition. This commandment is found in Leviticus 19:18. A broader explanation is found in Leviticus 17–27, a passage that scholars call the “Holiness Code.” These verses explain how the people of God ought to conduct their lives in such a way that they align with the holiness of God. Leviticus 19:2 provides the reason: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” In this portion of the scripture, God constantly reminds the Israelites that the reason they are to be holy is because of who God is: “I am the Lord.” In light of Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross, understanding the connection between who God is and “love your neighbor” becomes a powerful expression of “holiness.” Ephesians 4:14 and the need to imitate Christ finds a new significance considering this background.
Someone may be challenged to equate loving our neighbor to living in God’s holiness. We know from the scripture that, apart from God, we are not holy nor can we make ourselves holy by acts of righteousness. The Bible tells us that no one is holy (1 Samuel 2:2); “there is no one who does good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:3); “there is no one on earth so righteous” (Ecclesiastes 7:20); nor is there anyone who does not sin (1 Kings 8:46, James 3:2, 1 John 1:8). We know that only God can make us holy, which allows God to dwell with us. “And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22).
When Leviticus 19:18 tells us, “Love your neighbor . . . I am the Lord,” we see how loving our neighbor is an extension of God’s holiness into the world through us. In other words, if we have a saving faith that authentically transforms us, our desire to love our neighbor will be as natural as breathing. Notice I did not suggest it will also be easy. If you are a non-smoker dining on a restaurant patio where several people around you are smoking, you will find it difficult to breathe normally, but the natural desire to breathe is still there. As Christians, it will not always be a simple and comfortable effort to love our neighbor, but the spirit of God will produce within us, like breathing, a desire to find ways to do it.
Consider the myriad of conflicts, dissensions, bickering, and splits that happen daily within the Church across denominations. The frequently prevailing attitudes and actions of the Western church are more in line with cultural individualism, personal faith, and narcissistic Christianity, which make “me” the center of the faith rather than the person of Jesus Christ and God’s commandments. As we make a close examination of the Ten Commandments, we find the commandments to love God and to love our neighbor are the fulfillment of the Law. The first three Commandments are about God. The rest is about the neighbor. They instruct us to do or not do things to other people. Even the Commandment to keep the Sabbath provides rest not only for the individual, but for the entire family, including servants and animals. In light of the slavery and oppression the Israelites themselves experienced in Egypt, Sabbath is a way of lessening the burden and bringing the rest of justice into the lives of the servants (Deuteronomy 5:12–15).
It seems like we cannot call ourselves faithful to Jesus and to the Bible unless we love our neighbor.