Next Door

Luke 5:27-32

August 27, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I have a confession to make: I’m a tech-aholic. And even worse, I’m an upgrade-aholic. The fact that I’ve had the same Mac sitting on my desk at home for four years is a testament to the growth of the fruit of self-control in my life! (Or something like that.) I love to try out new technology. The way my sickness works is this: as soon as I purchase something new, I’m always looking for upgrades, new ways to use it, new things to try. It’s a disease, I know, but thankfully I have a patient wife who gives me strength to say “no” every once in a while. Or tells me to say “no” more than every once in a while. Though, you know, this phone is two years old now…

What was I saying? Oh, yes, technology. It’s a blessing and a curse. Every time you get something new, something newer comes along. And it’s especially difficult in our world where so many different generations respond to technology in different ways. Show of hands—how many of you have the same sickness I do and want to upgrade everything as soon as it comes out? There’s some honest folks! How about those who like technology, use it, but don’t really care to have the newest thing? What about those of you who still have a flip phone? And how about those of you who wish this technology would all just go away and things could go back to “the way they used to be”? We live in a world where things change rapidly and we often find it difficult or even undesirable to keep up. Of course, sometimes it might be a matter of perspective. I read this week about a grandmother who decided to teach her granddaughter to sew, so she went through a lengthy explanation of how to thread the needle just so, how to operate the sewing machine and so on. And, after listening to the lengthy explanation, the granddaughter stood back, put her hands on her hips and said, “You can do all that but you can’t operate a cell phone?” Things change, and just about the time we get comfortable with one way of doing things, something else comes along to upset the apple cart and we feel left behind (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pgs. 62-63).

So imagine how the Pharisees in our Gospel story this morning must have felt. They had settled on a particular way of life, and it wasn’t a new way. Their determination to live a certain way went all the way back to the Exile, when God’s people had been conquered and taken away from their home land as a punishment for disobeying God’s law. Seventy years passed before they returned to the promised land, and at that point a certain number of them determined that they were not going to let Exile happen again. In that determination, they built a system of holiness to try to make sure the people didn’t break God’s law again. The Pharisees, the fundamentalists of the day, became the watchdogs, the guardians of the tradition. They felt it was their job to keep an eye on everyone, to make sure they didn’t do anything wrong and possibly get God upset with them again. And then along comes Jesus, who routinely did things the wrong way as far as the Pharisees were concerned, who was unorthodox in who he welcomed, and who still challenges us in the way we reach out to those around us.

This morning, we’re wrapping up our series “Next Door: The Art of Neighboring.” For the last two weeks, Pastor Rick and I have been laying the groundwork, the Biblical case for why we need to care about our neighbors, and also for who those neighbors are. We’ve learned that, according to Jesus, neighbors are not just those who live literally next door to us. They are also those who are in need that we come in contact with, as Pastor Rick shared last Sunday from the parable of the Good Samaritan. And they are those who might even be unlike us, maybe even radically unlike us, as we talked about two weeks ago. I think both of those ideas come together in a marvelous way in this story we read this morning from Luke’s Gospel, so we’re going to look at it briefly today, and then I want to give you some very practical ideas for practicing the art of neighboring. So, let’s dive into what’s happening in Luke 5.

In Luke’s telling of this story, it’s early in Jesus’ ministry, and he has been inviting the men who will eventually make up the twelve disciples to follow him. In the beginning of chapter 5, he invited Simon Peter, James and John (all fishermen) to follow him. Now, here near the end of this chapter, Jesus approaches a tax collector named Levi and invites him to come along as well. Levi was probably his Hebrew name; in the other Gospels, he’s known as Matthew, and if we’re going to understand how radical an action this was, we need to know a bit more about the man and his occupation. Our English translation says he was a “tax collector,” still not a popular profession today, but in Jesus’ day there were two kinds of tax collectors. One was an income or poll-tax collector, who collected a portion of everything you brought in. These might be the closest to what we understand tax collectors to be today, and they were slightly less hated than the tax farmers, which is what Levi was. Tax farmers made their living by placing a tax upon the tax. In other words, let’s say Rome asked them to collect 5% of a person’s possessions. Rome didn’t really care how much they collected as long as the Empire got its 5%, so the tax farmers would come to you and say you had to pay them 10%. The extra money, then, went into the pocket of the tax farmer. That’s how he made his living. The records of the time indicate they were more dishonest and more arbitrary than income tax collectors, and the Jewish law ranked them with robbers and murderers (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 80). Or, as one commentator has put it, they were “despised as snoops, corrupt, the social equivalent of pimps and informants” (Green, NICNT: The Acts of the Apostles, pg. 246). Now, picture this: Jesus has in his company Simon, James and John—fishermen—who may have just been legally robbed by Levi when he collected their taxes. Can you imagine their reaction when Jesus goes up to this man whom they probably already knew, this hated extortionist who regularly rubbed shoulders with Gentiles (cf. Wright 63), and said to him, “Follow me”? They might just be questioning Jesus’ sanity at this point.

Now, watch what happens next. In what is the first of several meals in the Gospel of Luke (cf. Green 244), Levi invites Jesus and the other three disciples to his home (which was probably a pretty nice home for those days), and then he also invites a whole bunch of his tax farmer friends to come meet them. These were probably the only friends he had; since he would have been hated by most people, he had to band together with other tax collectors (Wright 64). These were his friends, and so that’s who he invites to what, Luke indicates, is a formal banquet. This is the equivalent of a coat-and-tie affair. This is a place for fine food and deep conversation. And this is another place where I wish Luke would have written down what they talked about. Good heavens, the Son of God is engaging in dinner conversation, probably doing some teaching along with the meal, and no one is taking notes? Nevertheless, this dinner party gets the attention of those Pharisees who, along with the “teachers of the law” (the religious lawyers of the day), feel a need to call Jesus out. They seem to interrupt the dinner party to ask, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (5:30).

From their vantage point, it’s an excellent question. To share table fellowship in the Mediterranean, even to this day, is a sign of a shared life. It indicates intimacy, kinship, unity (cf. Green 246). One of the coolest experiences we had while traveling in Jordan this past summer happened in the town of Madaba, near where Mount Nebo is located. Our guide said he wanted to take us for lunch to a unique restaurant called the Food Basket. Always ready to try something new, I said that sounded great. What we learned is that the Food Basket is really just one woman’s home kitchen that she has opened up as a small business. There was no menu; our guide had asked her to just make us a typical Jordanian meal. So she made us a huge pot of what they call “Upside Down.” It’s called that because that’s the way it’s served—upside down out of the pot. Rice, chicken, vegetables—it was so good, though it doesn’t look all that good in the picture! But all throughout the meal, this woman, who had welcomed us into her home, was constantly near the table, making sure we had what we wanted, asking if the food was okay (we couldn’t answer because usually our mouths were full), and caring for our needs. We were welcome guests in her home, even though she didn’t know us before that day. That’s the essence of Middle Eastern hospitality, to welcome guests, no matter who they are, no matter where they have come from. We immediately felt a kinship, a unity with the Jordanian people (and this family in particular) because of this woman’s welcome. That’s a picture of the meal Levi is serving and the Pharisees are despising: a family meal—kinship, unity, intimacy. And the religious people ask, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus’ answer is very simple and direct: this is who I came for. Isn’t it fascinating that Jesus, when given a choice, chooses to hang out with the sinners (Card 81). As he says, he is like a doctor who can’t do his work unless he hangs out with the sick (Wright 64). These broken people are the ones he came for—and aren’t we glad? I know I am. Every time I face my own brokenness and the places in my life that aren’t quite right, I am thankful Jesus came for the sick and broken and not those who think they are healthy. Because, let’s face it, we’re all broken in one way or another. The Pharisees were broken. The tax collectors were broken. The disciples were broken. You and I are broken. And Jesus shares table with all of us. Even as we hear the Pharisees’ question, we have to recognize that we share table with “such people” every time we gather here and especially when we gather at the Lord’s table. The problem is that the longer we are in the faith, the longer we are in the church, the more likely it is that we only hang out with other Christians, with other church people. Our main support system naturally comes from those who think like and believe like us. This story and Jesus’ entire life, however, calls us to think bigger. Yes, we need good, solid Christian friends, but we also need to be people who are practicing the art of neighboring in similar ways to how Jesus does it in this story. We are those who are called to extend the equivalent of table fellowship to those around us who are not yet at the table—the sinners and tax collectors of our world.

So how do we do that? Well, the first step for many of us is this: we have to get to know those around us. And while our “neighbors” are a much broader category than just those who live around us, we can at least start there. In your bulletin this morning is a worksheet that I invite you to pull out at this time, if you haven’t already. It’s time to do some work as we think together about how to neighbor. In the center of the worksheet is a townhouse, and for the sake of this exercise, we’re going to say that’s your house. Using your house as the center, take a moment and write the names of those who live around you. Now, I realize that not everyone lives in a block that’s as orderly as the worksheet, so do the best you can. If you don’t know the name of at least one person who lives in the eight houses closest to you, then that’s where you’ll start—get to know their names. The next step: in each box by the letter “b,” write something you know about your neighbor that you can’t observe just by walking by their house. An interesting fact or something about their lives. For one of my neighbors, I would write, “Attends Temple UMC.” For another, I would write, “Has a dog named Marley.” Those are things you don’t get without talking at least on a surface level with your neighbors. Then, at the “c” in each box, you’ll write something you learned by connecting on a deeper level, in a real conversation with your neighbor. That’s something that, for many of us, we probably won’t be able to fill out yet. So, take some time, just a few minutes, and fill out your neighboring worksheet. Then I’m going to give you some very practical ideas to help you fill out “b” and “c.”

MOMENTS TO DO WORKSHEET

Okay, you’re not going to be asked to turn that in, but it gives you a vision of the work you have to do just in your own neighborhood. So how can you go about reaching out to your neighbors? Let me share a few ideas, knowing that you can’t do all of them, and some of them will depend on your personality and the way God has wired you. But my hope and prayer is that there is something here that will spark an idea in you and a passion for reaching those who live near you. You will probably even come up with better ideas based on what you know of your own neighborhood!

The first thing all of us need to do is make time. We pride ourselves on being so busy, running from this activity to that meeting. It’s easy for us to never even see our neighbors. I remember a pastor I know who was outside talking to her neighbor one afternoon and the neighbor’s daughter came out. She looked at the pastor and said, “I know you.” The pastor smiled and said, “You do?” “Yes,” the girl replied. “You’re the lady who leaves.” Suddenly, that pastor realized she was always hurrying off to this or that to make an impact on the city but had failed to engage those who were closest to her. We do that, too, don’t we? Our home becomes merely a place to put our stuff because we’re never home long enough to breathe, let alone get to know those around us. What if we just stopped? What if we refused to fill every minute with some activity? What if, for the sake of the kingdom, we set aside at least one night a week to engage our neighborhood? No other plans than to engage with those who live near us, to be present. One thing I notice about Jesus is that while he is always focused, he is never in a hurry. He’s never too busy to engage the people around him. Even though he was on earth for such a limited time, he always had time for everyone, including children who just wanted to play around his feet. We have to stop and make time.

Because it takes time to build relationships, which is really what neighboring is all about. And it’s not just about us building a relationship so we can tell them about Jesus. Certainly we want our neighbors to know the Savior, but if we just treat our neighbors as an evangelistic project, our neighboring will come off as incredibly fake. We need reciprocal relationships, two-way streets (cf. Pathak & Runyon, The Art of Neighboring, pg. 120), neighbors who genuinely care about each other. And to get to that point, we have to spend time connecting, in conversation, getting to know each other. My friend, Ed Fenstermacher, decided one way to get to know his neighbors was to engage them when he walks his dog every morning. So part of his routine is to be aware when people are out, to greet them and, as it becomes possible, to check in with how they are doing. Obviously, this builds over time because people aren’t likely to engage you very deeply the first few times. But often, I’ve found as I’ve tried to do the same thing, people will engage in at least small talk and something about being out walking a dog draws people in. If the dog likes you, you might be okay. You can also prayer walk your neighborhood, praying for each house and its occupants as you pass by. You don’t have to know anything about the people who live there to pray for God’s blessing on them, and that they would come to know Jesus if they don’t already.

If someone is out, if you get a chance to talk to them, one way to connect is to ask them if there is any way you can pray for them. I don’t do this consistently, but there have been times when I’ve even done that in a restaurant with the waiter or waitress. A couple of weeks ago, I was meeting with another pastor, and we offered to pray for the young lady who was waiting on us. In that moment, she shared a lot about having moved to a new town and wanting to connect with a faith community. She even stood there while we prayed for her. You never know who is just waiting for someone to show even a small amount of care for and genuine interest in them.

Another set of ideas centers around something we Methodists do very well, and that’s food. I don’t know what your neighborhood is like, but I find that in mine, people are rarely out in their front yards because at some point in the past fifty years, we stopped building front porches and started building back decks that we then hide behind privacy fences. But if we want to engage our neighbors, why not move the grill to the front yard or the driveway? When we were in seminary, one of the best ways we got to know our neighbors was to light a grill in front of our apartment. It wasn’t long before people were coming out of their teeny tiny apartments (which had no air conditioning) and throwing food on the grill. We would share side dishes and have an impromptu picnic—and those days built friendships that have lasted all of these years later. Some of our best memories center around those cookouts. What might happen if you moved the grill to the front yard and welcomed anyone who wanted to participate to bring food? The first time it might be a bit awkward, but it won’t be long before people come to know that your yard is open when the grill is on. And that gives you a chance to get to know people around the common denominator of good, grilled food.

A variation on this idea is to do what Levi did in this morning’s Gospel passage. These are more commonly called “Matthew Parties,” because that’s the name he goes by in the other Gospels, but the idea is this: invite some Christian friends and a whole lot of folks, perhaps from your work or from the neighborhood, who don’t yet know Jesus. Now, Pastor Rick may not appreciate this, but I’m going to say it anyway: don’t invite the pastors. We’ll be glad to come to your house another day for dinner, but when you’re trying to get to know and reach folks who are nonreligious or nominally religious, having a pastor in the group is really a buzzkill, honestly. Once the “secret” is out that someone is a pastor, people get on the defensive and it shuts down any sort of open communication. The idea of a Matthew Party is to allow nonreligious folks to rub up against some who are Christian, to be able to see that Christians aren’t the way they are portrayed to be in the media or what they might have heard or thought about believers. And then the goal is to open up honest conversations in small groups. I had a friend who did this a few years ago and was amazed at the conversations that took place. Levi must have experienced this in his home, too. What might happen if you reached out to people, fed them, and let the conversation go where it may? What might Jesus do in the midst of such a gathering?

There are other simple acts we can do that will enable us to connect with others. For instance, think about this: if you’re making a cake and you have everything in the bowl but discover that you’re out of eggs, what do you do? When I was a kid, Mom would send me across the back yard to Jennie’s house and ask her for an egg, which she would gladly give us. We would have done the same for her if she needed an egg. Today, I’m more likely to get in the car, drive to Kroger, and buy another dozen eggs. What about you? When is the last time you borrowed a cup of sugar from your neighbor? (We always said “borrowed,” but I don’t think we ever paid it back directly.) Just walking next door and asking can be a connection. So can baking cookies for a neighbor. When we arrived in town, I met one of our neighbors at a South basketball game. She said to me, “I saw your moving truck and I baked cookies for you, but two or three times I brought them over, you were gone.” She paused, then went on: “So I ate the cookies.” But a few weeks later, she stopped by again, caught me at home and delivered cookies to us as a neighborhood welcome. It’s an act of kindness that costs us little but makes a big impact. Or perhaps you have skills you can share with people around you. You know how to fix cars. You love to do yard work. You can babysit. Who do you know around you that can benefit from your skills? It will cost you some time, but it’s time well invested in making a better neighborhood and in showing the love of Jesus to someone who is in need. It might even turn out like this. Take a listen.

VIDEO: NEIGHBORING 3

Now, the goal is not to become everyone’s best friend; that’s not possible. The goal is to be like Jesus so that some might come to know him. The goal is to meet the needs around you, the ones you can see, to love people as Jesus loved them no matter what, and to shine the light of Christ into our dark and hurting world. Simple acts like meals or dog walking might not change the entire world, but if enough of us engage in loving our neighbors and our neighborhoods, we might just change the city. And then we’ll see what we can do about the rest of the world. The mission field, folks, is next door. Let’s pray.