Pentecost 8C

Love Your Neighbor
Faith in Action

When the Israelites reached the border of the Promised Land, Moses gathered the people together to review and renew the covenant God had made with them when God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Moses tells the people that even though they will soon be settled and no longer wandering, everyday they will still have to wake up and choose which way they will go.

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• Will they follow the God who claimed them as their own, rescued them from slavery and set them free to live forever as God’s people by choosing to remember and do all that God commanded? Or
  
• Will they go another way, following the false gods and empty promises of this world and doing the things that every other nation does?
  
• Will they choose the way that leads to life or the way that leads to death?
  

Moses counsels the people to begin each day remembering who God is and what God has done for them so that they can order and arrange what they do that day according to God’s will. By doing so they will reflect the glory of God in all they do. At the end of day, Moses advises they once again call to mind again God’s steadfast love and mercy and reflect on each day in light of God’s teachings. What’s more, this habit of recalling God’s salvation and remembering how God wants God’s people to live and behave is to be taught and passed on to their children so that they might know the story of God’s love and how to walk in God’s love, goodness and mercy and claim their inheritance as God’s children – eternal life in God’s kingdom.

When a lawyer comes up to Jesus and asks him, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He asks a question that sounds very much as if it were pulled from a type of catechism. A student might ask a teacher this question; or a child their mother or father; or a person their pastor. What must I do to inherit life in God’s kingdom? Or, to remember Moses’ instruction, what must I do to continue in me the path that leads to eternal life in God’s kingdom?

Jesus welcomes the question and asks this lawyer to share his understanding and interpretation of God’s law. The lawyer responds by saying that the way of life in God is the way love: We are to love God with all that we are and with every power and faculty we possess, and we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This is how we summarize and teach the Ten Commandments, even now.

• The commandments direct us to fear, love and trust in God above all things, to praise God and to pray to God, and to take time away from work to clearly hear God’s word and to rest in God’s grace in worship. That’s our relationship to God, how we grow in love for God.
  
• In light of that relationship, then, the commandments go on to show us how to love our neighbors as ourselves – love and respect parents; preserve and protect people’s lives and property; family and relationships; reputations and livelihoods.

So, it’s possible for us to reflect on what we say and do each day in light of the Ten Commandments by remembering this summary of God’s way of life – did we, this week, love God with all our faculties and did we love our neighbors?

Jesus agrees with the lawyer’s reading. It’s a sound reading and good teaching. Yes, do that, Jesus says echoing Moses, do that and you will live. Yet, it’s not that simple is it? Let’s reflect on our day today – did we love God with all that we have? Did we love our neighbor? That all depends on who’s my neighbor, doesn’t it?

There’s a pitfall of self-examination in light of God’s law. We can twist our interpretation to justify ourselves.  God’s law is not distant or too hard. At least at first glance. We perform pretty well at a certain level, but we fall short, we sin, at a deeper level. We’ve never killed anyone, but we certainly hate and nurse the grudges and prejudices that lead people into murder, and even constitute a type of spiritual killing because we cut people off from us and from our lives. We are passionate about our love for family, but violent and vengeful toward any who might cause them even the slightest pain or inconvenience. All depends on who’s my neighbor … and who’s not my neighbor. That’s the question the lawyer asks next.

Jesus responds with a story. Let me retell it like this. You’re traveling through a dangerous area and you’re attacked, robbed, beaten and left for dead. As you lay dying, a clergy person of some type comes down the road. She passes by on the other side. Next, a lifelong church member, a dedicated and decorated churchman comes down the road. He too passes by the other side. Finally, someone – a type of person you usually regard with suspicion and contempt -- comes down the road, stops, treats your wounds and takes you to the hospital, registers you and pays your bill. Which one was your neighbor? Well, of course, the one who acted as if they knew you, loved and cared for you. That’s what neighbors do.

Jesus shows us neighbors as God’s gifts, and God works through our neighbors to rescue, restore and preserve our life. 

But that’s a change in the way we understand neighbor. When we talk about loving our neighbor as we love ourselves we often think of neighbors as the objects of our good works and charity. But in this story, Jesus shows us neighbors as God’s gifts, and God works through our neighbors to rescue, restore and preserve our life. Our neighbors are those generous people we depend on to love us as God loves us. When everything goes wrong, who are the people who stand by us, love us, care for us and help us as best they can? God wants us to be people like that: people whose actions demonstrate their faith and love for God, and people who show others God’s love  for them. Neighbors.

Think about it. Are we the type of people we want as neighbors? Look at the way we live and what we live for, the way we regard and treat people. Would we be happy if we moved in next door to us or would we say, “There goes the neighborhood?”

Don’t worry about who’s worthy of your love and generosity, Jesus says. Instead, be the neighbor you have always needed in your life; be the neighbor God has called you to be – a person who loves, following the example of Jesus.

Jesus found us dead in sin and death and gave his own body and blood that we might have life; he paid for our sin with his life, generously gave himself to us as the neighbor and friend we so desperately needed. “Go, and do likewise,” Jesus tells the lawyer. Go, put your love for God into action by being the good neighbor.

That’s what we seek to do not only in the individual lives we live, but also as a congregation. We run a food pantry, because neighbors help neighbors when money gets tight and food runs short. We cook meals for people in Ozanam Shelter or in the FISH program or for people doing Sandy Relief; we collect gift cards and other items for Lutheran Social ministry; we give generously to this congregation and its work in this community and to the New Jersey Synod and to the ELCA; we give generously to Lutheran Disaster Response and to efforts to end Malaria; we give and serve and love because we are, by God’s grace, neighbors in God’s kingdom in Jesus name. Amen.