"Neighborhood"

Isaiah 32:16-20; Luke 10:25-37

(I took this photo at the recent Open House at the Islamic Center of Boulder) 

I don't know why it often takes tragic events to make us feel like we need our neighbors, but often it does.  Over the weekend, many neighbors from all faith traditions gathered outside the Islamic Center in Fort Collins after news reports of its being vandalized. They were all there to show their Muslim neighbors their support.  "It's what neighbors do," I heard someone say on a news report.

Many of us can recall stories about how in the days after tragic events like wars or mass shootings or 9/11, people found ways to connect with their neighbors to 'do good' in ways they hadn't before.  

Many of you can recall such experiences, perhaps in more distant years,like the JFK assassination or the war years of the 1940s.  Times of intense public unity are often times of intense public trial.  We realize that we are not in it alone and that someone else is going through the struggle with us.

It's why people in communities tie yellow ribbons on trees to remember those gone to war, or when a child goes missing from the neighborhood, etc. It's a way to show the tie that binds a neighborhood. A common purpose.

But what constitutes a neighborhood? Is there an actual borderline on who is a neighbor?

In Grounded by Diana Butler Bass, she says, "People create neighborhoods when they gather together beyond family ties, live close to others, and choose to share certain resources (in the contemporary world, those resources include, for example, electricity, schools, roads, places of worship, stores and often a park or some other commons)."

And what of the idea that God is a part of the neighbor and the neighborhood around us?

"If we understand that neighborly relations are woven into divine love, then we can grasp that God is, essentially, a near-dwelling God." --Diana Butler Bass

It is worth noting that we say that God abides with us and that abide and abode are essentially the same word. Our home has God in it and God is also in the neighborhood.  It is important in a world that feels ever more isolating that we see the command to love our neighbors as probably the most important part of being faithful to God. Many religious leaders agree. In fact, Pope Francis has made the command to love God and love neighbor a centerpiece of his papacy.

And in this day and age of isolating lives and garage door openers and social media neighbors, the question "Who is my neighbor?"  is more complex and difficult to answer than ever.  Because of technological advances in who we connect to, our neighborhood is no longer tied to simple geographical proximity. And ironically, perhaps, it is that vast global neighborhood  that has led us to retreat to our homes. We are intimidated by the vastness of our neighborhood in today's terms.

The word neighbor comes from Old English roots and it means "near dweller"  Someone dwelling nearby, But in today's world, does that mean physically near? How has technology changed what a near dweller might be? Neighborhoods are made up of real people who already are, in one way or another, intersecting our lives. Whether they live near or far away.

"All of the world's religions make neighbors the central concern of spirituality and ethics.  Love of God and neighbor are absolutely intertwined."--Diana Butler Bass

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all have passages in their sacred texts that point to an expanded definition of who we think our neighbor is.  In the Good Samaritan story, Jesus expands the idea of neighbor to include someone who is shunned by his own group. An outsider. He presses the point of neighborliness being tied to kindness and mercy, rather than what we have in common or what group we belong to. In the Qur'an, there is a scripture that says "Worship God and join none with HIM in worship, and do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, the poor, the neighbor who is near of kin, the neighbor who is a stranger, the companion by your side, the wayfarer that you meet. (Qur'an 4:36).

Who is my neighbor is an age-old question that people struggle with in each generation, despite the commandments of their faith traditions to love neighbor as self.

"Home"

Exodus 6:1-8          Acts 2: 38-47

"To transform home is to transform the world. Domestic revolts are spiritual and political ones as well," --Diana Butler Bass

The transformation of what a home is and who lives in a home is changing.  In some ways, it is a return to the past... people are starting urban farms, learning to butcher meat,  raising chickens, etc. And in some ways it is a leap into the future. Skyping or FaceTiming so that you can join one another for dinner though miles away, creating economic alternatives like multi-family households, etc.

But what does "home" mean, really?  Home is not really a place. It is more of a feeling. A sense of belonging and purpose and identity that grounds you to who you are.  That is why the old adage "you can't go home again" often rings true.  When we move away from our childhood homes we often change in ways that alter our sense of belonging and identity and purpose and so 'home' can never feel the way it did when we were younger.  And yet, rootedness in that way of life will continue. Meaning your roots will never leave, but your sense of what 'home' is will forever be landing somewhere else.

The Exodus story is filled with painful and longing images of home.  Home that was ripped away from the Hebrews when they were forced into slavery by the Egyptians. Home as a promised land as they were led away by the pillar of cloud toward Canaan.  Home as an unsettled place during the diaspora.  And yet in Acts 2, we have such a beautiful sense of what Peter sees as the image of home for the earliest of Christians.  Home is people who devote themselves to a common purpose. Home is people who believe in sharing what they have with one another. Home is giving to everyone who needs it. Home is meeting together around the dinner table and discussing the ordinary with one another.  Home is a place that all are grateful to find.

The old hymn says it best... Home is not a place, home is God.
"O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home."

No matter how much life changes, our sense of home in the presence of God and God's people remains constant.

What are your favorite stories of 'home?" Would you come and share one with us on Sunday?

Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment by clicking on the comments tab below.

"Roots"

Job 14:7-9, Romans 11: 13-21

There's a great story in the book Grounded by Diana Butler Bass of feeling connected to a place you've never been before. She tells of taking a vacation with her husband up the eastern shore of Maryland to visit historical sites, on of them being the Third Haven (Quaker) Meeting House outside of Easton.  She describes her experience there and says she wanted to stay there forever. She later learns, during some genealogical research, that she has ancestors connected to that church. 

from the website: http://www.thirdhaven.org/index.php

Our roots form us. Our ancestors breathe our lives into future existence. They create who we are, even if we don't know who they are. When I read this chapter last year, I knew instantly that I wanted to have an experience like that.  I was writing a grant proposal at the time to take a sabbatical leave and added to it some travel to Northern Ireland and England to explore my ancestral villages.  Unfortunately, I wasn't awarded the grant and therefore, my travel plans were halted, but I do hope one day to be able to explore those villages and see if I, too, can have a connection like Bass does in that meeting house in Maryland. Some of you have told me that you have felt connections like that upon finding a great grandparent's house or visiting a European city that once was home to your ancestors.  I am anxious to know that feeling, too.  

There are reasons why the book by Alex Haley and later TV mini series Roots became so popular in the 1970s. And why sites like Ancestry.com has become so popular.  There are reasons why the Mormon Church has one of the world's largest genealogy collections.  There are reasons why the lineage of the Kings and Queens of England is steadfastly protected and why the line of Catholic popes traces itself all the way back to Peter.  Human beings wish to be connected to who we were and who we are.  Of course, there are other less-than-appealing reasons also, like maintaining patriarchy or racial or tribal purity.  But there is something profound about the way a story of our ancestral heritage affects us that is undeniable. We DO feel grounded in that knowledge.

Paul writes in his letter to the Romans in chapter 11

If a root is holy, the branches will be holy too.  If some of the branches were broken off, and you were a wild olive branch, and you were grafted in among the other branches and shared the root that produces the rich oil of the olive tree, then don’t brag like you’re better than the other branches. If you do brag, be careful: it’s not you that sustains the root, but it’s the root that sustains you. --Romans 11:16b-18

It's not  you that sustains the root, but it's the root that sustains you.  We are not the sum total of who we have created ourselves to be, rather we are part of a larger equation that began being computed long before we found ourselves in it and will continue to be added to long after we are gone.  And all of what comes after is held to the same roots that have always held us to one another.  

That is true not only of our biological genealogy, but of our chosen families like the church and our neighborhoods.  What roots of church and neighborhood are holding us together now? What roots are influencing what we do and don't do in our locations even now?

Thoughts? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment here by clicking the comments link below.

"Sky"

Psalm 115:1-3, 16
Matthew 4:12-17

The conventional thought on God is in the heavens and man is on the earth is that God is somehow separate from man, living somehow above the world.  In the chapter entitled Sky in the Diana Butler Bass book Grounded, she describes her encounter with the deep dark night at Ring Lake Ranch in Wyoming and how the dark sky and its millions of stars affects her thoughts on sky.  I think this suggests we think of sky not as something separate from us, but as something that is enveloping us, all around us, part of all we are, but also much more infinite than we can ever imagine.

She writes of sky also being water in the clouds and light from the sun.  Sky encompasses all of life. So why wouldn't the psalmist describe God as being in the heavens?

The words of Jesus also remind us of this God both infinite and right in our faces.  He often talks of the kingdom of heaven as something we create here and now, not something we aspire to.  In the Lord's Prayer it says, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" which means the 'heaven' we speak of is something we are to aspire to create right here on earth.  In this scripture above, Matthew 4, we read of Jesus' relocation from Nazareth to Caperneum as fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, which also says that those who have been sitting around in darkness need not do that any longer because now the sun has come up.  We have here the belief that a new day has come through the message and witness of Jesus.  Jesus says, "Change your life. God's kingdom is here."
The heavenly perfection you desire to reach.... just look around you, it's right here.

I have a children's book called ""I've Never Seen the Wind."

"I've never seen the wiind, but I know it's there.
I know it's there because it lifts my kite into the sky. the wind blows my hair and chases off the dark clouds when the rain is over."

Sky is both a concrete concept that can be explained by science and an abstract one that encompasses much of our very being.  What if we stopped thinking vertically about our faith... thinking of God (and sky) as something way up there above us and started thinking more horizontally about our faith... God (and sky) are all around me, a part of all that is and all that has been and all that will be.

Thoughts? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment at the comments link below.