Preached · September 10, 2017
Wars and rumors of wars
There's a lot of destruction going on in our nation right now. You'd wish the hurricanes and the wildfires would collaborate a little bit better. But it struck me, thinking about all of the wildfires and earthquakes and hurricanes, that there is something I wanted to read this morning. It comes from the words of Jesus, Matthew 24, where his disciples are asking, basically, when's the end of the world?
Jesus says, "Watch out that no one deceives you." And I just saw it in my Facebook feed yesterday, which is, you know, America's number one source of news, that yet again another self-proclaimed prophet has set a day and a time for the end of the world and the return of Jesus. So watch out, Facebook land, that no one deceives you:
For many will come in my name, claiming, "I am the Messiah," and will deceive many.
And I think that also includes many who will come saying, "Here comes the Messiah," and will deceive many. And this is the part that I want you to hear, because I don't think all of you are too dubious, too gullible. But the part I do want you to hear is this:
You're going to hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you're not alarmed. Such things must happen, and the end is still to come. Nation is going to rise up against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There's going to be famines and earthquakes — and, let's say, hurricanes and wildfires — in various places. And these are just the beginning of the birth pains.
People like to bring that up: "Oh, wars and rumors of wars must mean the end is near." But Jesus actually says the opposite. You're going to hear of wars and rumors of wars, but don't be alarmed. The end is still yet to come. This isn't the end. We don't need to have fear. God is still on the throne. Jesus is still the king of the universe. So we don't need to say, "Oh, the end must be near." What we do is we be faithful to what Jesus asks us to do and care for those in need.
The night we got home from our honeymoon
When Emily and I, my wife and I, when we first got married, I was still finishing up my senior year of undergrad at Bethel College, Indiana. So we had the privilege of living in the married student housing, which was just on the perimeter of campus, one road away. They were kind of these crackerjack box houses. We had four bedrooms, but each bedroom was about the size of a closet, because they were originally used for dorms. You'd stuff four kids into these little so-called bedrooms.
We had a really beautiful campus, reflection ponds and giant maple and oak trees. Gorgeous campus. But it was on the rough side of town. It was right on the edge of South Bend. South Bend is not necessarily known for being the safest place in the world. And it's the kind of side of town that has the closed-down Kmart in it, if you know what I mean. It's that side of town.
Our neighbors to the north were the college itself, and fortunately really close to the campus safety office. That was nice. But the neighbors to the east, south, and west, we either didn't know or, for lack of a better word, they seemed kind of sketchy. Some homes were empty. Part of the neighborhood was a really run-down trailer park. Our own house was old and drafty. When the furnace kicked on, it sounded like there was a little dynamite explosion under it to get it started.
I have been and continue to be a little bit of a sissy. If the wind blows the wrong way through the trees and makes that howling sound, I'm not sleeping all that well. And I'm not the gun-owning sort. I've never lifted a weight on purpose. So if a burglar were ever to come into our house, the only thing I can disarm them with is my charm. That's it.
So the night Emily and I get home from our honeymoon — we got back maybe a day early or something — we crawled into bed. It was late. It was a really cold night in January. And not much longer, we hear the sound of somebody at our front door. And then the sound of the door opening. And then the sound of someone coming into the house. Emily's like, what's happening? What are we going to do? And, inexplicably, I jump out of the bed and head towards the living room. And Emily hissed, what are you doing? What if it's a robber? But for some reason, I thought I would go check it out. Probably just some honest mistake or something. Assuming the best out of the robbers.
And so I flip on the light to the living room, and I scare the living daylights out of the campus safety officer who was assigned to check our house to make sure that the furnace was turned on. Because we had told the campus that we would be gone. They wanted to make sure that the pipes didn't freeze. So this poor guy gets assigned to come to our house thinking that this couple is gone for their honeymoon. I flip the light on and, boo, here I am. They had no idea that we were back. It was a nice neighborly thing for them to do, but he had no idea he'd be running into us. And to this day, I still don't know why I thought it was a good idea to go check it out.
Two questions
So, speaking of neighbors, we're embarking on a new series today. And to begin this new series, I want to ask us a couple of questions.
Question number one is: if our church disappeared, would anybody care? If our church vanished, closed its doors, shut down, would anybody care? This is a change from a question that can be tempting for churches to ask, especially church pastors or staff or leadership. And that question can be: are we the best church in the community? There can be this unspoken and silent competition between churches in the community. Who's got the best kids programming? Who's got the best worship team? Who's got the best preaching? Are we the best church in the community?
This question is getting at a different, probably a better question: are we the best church for the community? The first question, are we the best church in the community, really only matters to people who go to church. It only matters if you're already the church-going sort — if you're church shopping, you move into the area, you just got saved, whatever, you're trying to find the best church in the community. But if you're trying to be the best church for the community, this question matters for those who don't go to church yet. Because the best church for the community, they're meeting needs, whether or not you know Jesus.
So our question, if this church disappeared, would anybody care, is basically asking: does this church matter to anybody who isn't already a Christian or a church person?
Now, here's the good news. I feel like we have done an okay, a decent, a good job at answering this question in the affirmative. And sometimes on our worst days — maybe I'll speak for myself, on my worst days — we can pat ourselves on the back about this. We've become missional. We've become externally focused. We've got a food pantry and we're doing a mission trip. You can list all of the things that help answer this question in the affirmative. But then I have to ask myself the question: who's the last adult that you've met, that I've met, who just turned their life over to Christ? Anybody? Anyone at all?
So we say we're doing okay with this. We've got programs and things for you to get involved in to help people, regardless of whether or not they're part of Good News.
I'm going to ask a second and probably a much harder question. It's a lot harder for me, anyway. Question number two is: if you left your neighborhood, would your neighbors care? If I left my neighborhood, would my neighbors care? This one is really hard for me to get anywhere close to patting myself on the back about, because I can't answer it as quickly in the affirmative.
The church — speaking about the individuals and the families that the church represents — we are given a mission by God to represent God to people, friends and family and coworkers. But what about the folks on our cul-de-sac, the folks on our street? What about the person who owns the property next to yours, or the acreage down the gravel road? If you were to move away, if I were to move away, would our neighborhood, would our street, have a sense of loss? Or would your neighbors be thinking, huh, there's a moving truck down the street, what were their names again? Because I know I've done that.
Remember, the church's mission is to show the world what it would look like if God were in charge. Because guess what? God is in charge. And so there's the church that looks like this — sermons and songs and baptisms and buildings and potlucks and pastoral search teams. And then there's the church that lives at 408 23rd Street and 808 26th Street and 2105 Hill Avenue and Chicago Avenue and everywhere in between. There's the church that has homes and apartments and machine sheds.
The gathered church and the scattered church
These two questions are getting at two sides of a spectrum, or a tension.
Question number one, if our church disappeared, would anyone care, gets at a side of the tension that's all about the gathered church, the organized church, or, in kind of an old-fashioned word, the parish — the square mile or acre around our property. This has to do with the idea of being missional. Our church, the organized gathered church, is going to be on mission together. We're going to put our resources, our money, our time into things that help our parish.
But the other side of this tension — and I like to imagine it like a bungee cord, where you need both sides hooked in for the bungee cord to have any meaning or purpose — if you left your neighborhood, would your neighbors care, has to do with the scattered church. Once we leave this building, once we read the sign over our exit that says you're entering into your mission field, once we're scattered, how are we doing at that? This tends to be a little bit more organic. It's not as organized. You don't have a board that sits over your family or over your household. You don't have mission statements and all of that. It's more organic. It's in the neighborhood, and it's incarnational. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became human. He incarnated himself. He took on flesh.
Here's my observation. We are growing pretty well on the left-hand side of this bungee cord, of this tension, of this spectrum. Our gathered meetings — we're in the middle of renovations and we're adding lights and we've got children's programming and we're adding classes. We're doing okay. And we also have the food pantry and Cain's closet and the community table, things like that. We're doing okay on the left-hand side. But on the right-hand side of this bungee cord, I'm not so sure that this is our strength right now.
What the Reveal survey told us
To give you an idea of why I think that, I'm going to take you back to the Reveal survey, the survey that we all took back in the spring. We asked you some questions.
One of the questions: "I gave away my time to serve and help others in my community." 30% of you said yes to that. Now, believe it or not, that 30% is well, well, well above the national average. So if you want to compare yourself to the national average, that's fine, you're doing great. But that means that 70% of us read that sentence and said, I'm not so sure.
"I feel equipped to share my faith with people who do not attend church." 5% of you said that you feel equipped to share your faith. That means 95% of us feel like we don't have the know-how, the skills to share our faith. We're not really sure how to do it.
We asked if you've had at least six spiritual conversations with non-Christians in the past year. 36% of you said you had. But that means that 31% of you had no idea what you were talking about, because you didn't feel equipped to talk about your faith. That's a joke. It's a joke with a stinger on the end of it, but it's a joke.
These are areas that we want to focus some of our preaching and teaching attention towards over the next couple months. We talked about adding the core classes, things like that, to help you feel like you have a spiritual pathway. But in terms of how we're equipping you, what skills we're equipping you with — that's what we want to spend our time on. Equipping you to share your faith. Equipping you on that right-hand side of the spectrum: if you moved out of your neighborhood, would your neighbors care?
So in October, we're going to do a series called Sorry I'm Not Sorry, which is all about apologetics — defending and sharing your faith in a way that's relational and caring. But this week, and for the next six weeks, we want to focus on the scattered part. So we're introducing the series, The Neighboring Life: Growing at What Jesus Said Matters Most. Because we want the answer to the question, if you moved out of the neighborhood, would anybody care, to be yes. If Emily and I, if you or your family moved out of your neighborhood, we think the answer should be yes. The neighborhood should care. Not because the neighbors are so excited to see you finally be gone — we want them to care because Christians showing up to the neighborhood should be good news to the people living there.
The greatest commandment
Now, the idea of neighboring — so we're making "neighbor" a verb now, we're adding an -ing, hope you're okay with that, grammarians — the idea of neighboring comes straight from the lips of Jesus. So if you have your Bibles, I invite you to join with me in the book of Matthew, chapter 22.
We're heading towards the end of Jesus' life and ministry, before his death and resurrection. He's in Jerusalem and he is getting grilled by all the religious authorities. They are trying to put him in some sort of trap so he can be disqualified or discounted as a teacher. Matthew 22, starting with verse 34:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
So Jesus has just had this conversation with the Sadducees. They don't believe in resurrection. Jesus has just Bible-smacked them down with the fact that resurrection is true. Now the Pharisees are up to bat. It's like one of those scenes in movies where the hero gets to fight one bad guy at a time. Pharisees are the next bad guy up.
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"
Pause here. Brief reminder: the law, or what Judaism calls the Torah, was what Moses received while on Mount Sinai. The Torah was the covenant that God gave the nation of Israel. The covenant revealed what God was like. It showed the Israelites what righteousness and justice were to look like. By the time of Jesus, there was a large oral and the beginning of a written tradition about the law. There were about 613 commandments in the Torah. And it was a common question for teachers and rabbis to get: which one's the best? You would ask a rabbi like Jesus, which one is the most important commandment in the law? You were asking to get a flavor, an idea of their values, their personality. It's like asking somebody what their favorite car or their favorite restaurant is. You're going to take that answer and, maybe a tiny bit, use it as a judgment about their personality. So what Jesus says next is going to be very important.
Jesus responded, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."
Pause here. Love God with all you've got, basically. Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6, known in Judaism as the Shema, which begins, "Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad" — "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. Love him with all your heart, soul, mind." And to this day, it is a crucial text of Judaism. So this is a standard, maybe almost borderline boring answer for the Pharisees to get as they're trying to test Jesus. There's no way they're going to get him on the hook for this kind of answer.
But then Jesus keeps going.
And the second, Jesus says, is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."
Now, this is unusual. Jesus didn't just stop with love God, which would have been a perfectly adequate, somewhat vanilla answer. He goes on to include a somewhat obscure couple of verses out of Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19:18 says:
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
And then this "as yourself" language is used just a few verses later, in verse 33:
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.
And unfortunately, our own immigration laws have yet to reach this level of justice. But we at least have a standard to reach towards.
So Jesus has these two verses, Leviticus 19:18 and Leviticus 19:33, in mind in Matthew 22. These obscure verses in the middle of Leviticus, that nobody reads anyway, Jesus says are like the first commandment to love God. The Greek root here is homo- — same, similar, like, same as. One translation says "as equally important."
Our love for God is measured by our love for people
So the way I read this, and this isn't particularly controversial, is that our love for God is measured by our love for people. This is actually pretty standard biblical thinking. 1 John 4 puts it this way:
Whoever claims to love God, yet hates a brother or sister, is a liar. He has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Or perhaps some of the most haunting and important words of Jesus, Matthew 25:
Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger, and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes, and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison, and you did not look after me.
And these people are going to say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or needing clothes, or sick, or in prison, and didn't help you?" And Jesus is going to say, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me." If you didn't do it for the least, it's like you didn't do it to God. Therefore, our love for God is measured by our love for people.
Jesus, the best neighbor
Now, the good news of the gospel, the good news about God and his character, is that Jesus lived this out as the ultimate example of this concept. John 1 says that the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. The Greek says that the Word tabernacled, put his tent, with us. And Jesus was the best neighbor that you could possibly hope for. He was the Mr. Rogers of neighbors. He was great at it. Because Jesus only ever did what he saw the Father doing. And what he saw the Father doing was going to weddings and turning water into really, really good wine, and defending sinners from people who would stone them, and throwing parties on hillsides for like 4,000 or 5,000 people at a time. Jesus would make breakfast on the seashore to invite his friends. He would take boat rides across the lake and take naps, and then the friends would wake him up, and he would say, "Oh, Storm, calm down." Jesus sounds like a great neighbor. And moreover, the way that Jesus showed his love for the Father was by the way that he loved people. So our love for God is measured by our love for people. Jesus showed us the way in this.
Who is my neighbor?
So if this is all true, if what Jesus says is the most important thing — the best, highest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor — we're left with one last question. And that is, who is my neighbor?
I think there are two answers to this question. There's a Christianese answer, and there is a Christlike answer. The Christianese answer is, well, everybody's my neighbor. We think of the parable of the Good Samaritan, of Jesus' call to love everyone, and we want to be like that. Love everybody. Be kind to the grocery cashier and give a wink to the gas station attendant.
Here's a quote from a book called The Neighboring Church:
We have the audacity to define neighbor as anyone, anywhere, at the exclusion of those next door. We have heard the following objections to loving our neighbors: "Well, my neighbors are the people I work with, the people at the gym." We want to define neighbor in a way that fits into something we are already doing. We do that, or at worst, we overgeneralize. But by making everyone our neighbor, nobody is our neighbor. We don't just love the neighbors we choose, but the ones God chooses for us.
The book of Acts says that God set, before the history of the world, the exact times and places where his people shall live.
I actually found another quote this morning that I wanted to read for you. This is from The Art of Neighboring:
If we say "everyone is my neighbor," it can become an excuse for avoiding the implications of following the great commandment. Our neighbors become defined in the broadest of terms. They're the people across town, the people who are helped by the organizations that receive our donations, the people who the government helps. "We don't have to feel guilty," we tell ourselves. "After all, we can't be expected to really love everybody, can we?" The problem is, however, that when we aim for everything, we hit nothing. So when we insist that we're neighbors with everybody, often we end up being neighbors with nobody. We become like a lawyer looking for a loophole. We tell ourselves that we've got a lot going on in our lives, so surely the great commandment applies only to the wounded enemy lying beside the road. And since we haven't come across many of those lately, surely we're doing just fine when it comes to loving our neighbors.
Or maybe not. So when we're trying to answer the question, who is my neighbor — what if, and this might blow minds for a second, what if it were like your actual neighbor? Like the person who lives next door? What if we became just as literal with this commandment as we do with all the other commandments that we like to use to shame people that we don't like? What if "love your neighbor" really meant love the person who lives next door as yourself? Treat them like how you would want to be treated.
Now, some of you are thinking, I hate it when my neighbor talks to me, and so that's the way I want to be treated. I don't think that's what Jesus meant. Love them as you love yourself. Care for them. Give them the best of intentions. Give them the best of yourself.
The road ahead
That's what we're going to be talking about. That's what this series, the next six weeks, is going to be talking about. And it's not just a series. Your staff, your elders, your leadership are going to be going through a book called The Neighboring Church, and it's meant for church leaders. We've got our own video curriculum, our own books that we're going to be going through, because we want this to be a DNA shift in how we do church, how we think about the church. If Jesus says that this is the most important commandment, then it might need to be reflected in our vision statement, and our values, and all of what we do.
And then for those of you who want to dive deeper into this, there's not just going to be the Sunday morning sermons. There's also going to be a Wednesday class at 6 called The Neighboring Life, which is its own video curriculum, its own books. What's super cool is that one of the co-writers of that curriculum is our own Krista Petty, which is really exciting to have her as a resource to us. And this is just the beginning. If Jesus says this is the most important thing, then this is the kind of thing that we're going to keep revisiting as a church.
So here's the roadmap. Next week, Pastor Brandon Morrow is going to be doing his candidating sermon. He was gracious enough to continue on in this series, so he's going to be preaching on one of the four neighboring practices, and the first one is called Stay.
By the way, next week — I'm just going to say it again and again and again — next week, September 17th, is the Candidating Sunday for Pastor Brandon. Please be here. Your voice is important. We want you to be able to experience that. Be part of the potluck. Meet him and his family. And then there will be a vote. That vote is by the membership of the church. So if you've become a member, gone through that process, then you vote. And that vote is then given to the leadership team. The leadership team gets the ultimate authority of whether or not to invite Pastor Brandon to be our pastor. But they are going to take your vote into deep, deep consideration. So please, please be here for that.
There are three more neighboring practices. So it's stay, pray, play, and say. And we'll talk more about what those all mean. Week six is the conclusion. And then following that, on October 22nd, is the Sorry I'm Not Sorry series, equipping you how to share your faith.
So I'm going to stop there. I think that's given us enough to chew on. What if our neighbor is our actual neighbor? What if what Jesus said is the most important thing is actually the most important thing? I think that's going to be enough for today.
