Neighbor + You = Gospel

Introduction:

What have been talking about thus far?

Theology of Hospitality by looking at an example from the Old Testament in Abraham.

Be looking

Go to them

Offer an invitation

Give your best

Be present

Bearing the Fruit of the Holy Spirit when we engage in the practice of hospitality.

Our central theme of this series has grown to be: The only reason you and I are in this place today is because the gospel is a story of hospitality.

Where are we going today?

Today we are talking about the practice of hospitality by focusing on the following big idea Neighbor + You = Gospel. This formula creates moments where Gospel is shared and your light shines. I don’t want you to view this sermon as a traditional “evangelism” message. Often, we view evangelism with a lot of negative perspective:

Tracks

Megaphone on the corner

Screaming pastor on TV asking for money

Mormons coming up to the front door

Used car salesman asking, “if you were to die today, do you know where you are going?”

This images of evangelism give shade to our perspective of what Jesus has called us to.

I strongly believe that evangelism in our 21st century is through a long, consistent, and intentional connectedness through relationship.

We have said the last two weeks - first invite your neighbor over to your house, share a meal, a cup of coffee - before you ever invite them to church.

Today our scripture text comes Luke 10. Please begin to put your finger on your page or looking it up in your app.

Before we talk about Neighbor + You = Gospel.

I want to take a quick moment and talk about our family.

The family of God.

Central to life in the kingdom of God is eating and drinking together with other apprentices of Jesus, as family. It sounds like a very simple idea because it is, and it’s something that we tragically have stopped doing over the millennia. Eating and drinking with other followers of Jesus is an idea - more than that, a Practice - that we need to recapture as the people of God because meals catalyze community and bind us together around Jesus.

In Acts 2, we read that the church gathering itself was a meal. It doesn’t say that they ate a meal before or after the main event; it says that the meal itself was the main event. A sign that the Holy Spirit is at work in a church, isn’t just thousands of people coming to faith, or prophecy, or healing, or even miracles; it’s this: people eat together like family. And when that happens, you know you’re onto a move of God.

We want to recapture the integral tradition of sharing a meal with other apprentices of Jesus, our brothers and sisters in the family of God.

Exercise #1: Share a meal with someone who follows Jesus.

The main exercise this week is simply to eat a meal with a fellow follower of Jesus.

Exercise #2: Reimagine your table as a place of family

Spend a little time, notepad or journal out, and just dream a bit around this idea of church as family around a table. If you’re in a small group, dream about how to take your family life to the next level.

Exercise #3: Reimagine your home as a place of hospitality

Again, a lot of you are already doing this, but for some of us it’s brand new territory. Especially if you grew up in a suburban, Anglo setting. There’s a difference between the Spanish catch phrase“mi casa su casa,” and the Anglo saying,“a man’s home is his castle.” One of those sayings is a lot more like Jesus than the other!

Those of us who grew up in what sociologists call a“cold culture,” have to do a little work to re-imagine our home not as a place of escape, but as an outpost of love. Christine Pohl, in her fantastic book Making Room, writes about ten markers that make a home conducive to hospitality:

It’s comfortable.

It’s lived in.

It’s a place where people are flourishing.

It’s not necessarily beautifully decorated, but it is well cared for.

It’s a place of safety and sanctuary, where people can retreat from the anxiety of the world.

It’s not frenetic or stressful, but you walk in and feel a slower pace and a sense of peace.

It’s a place where life is celebrated, where the discipline of celebration has become a habit of the heart.

Yet it’s also a place where the pain, disappointment, and sadness of life is welcomed.

It’s a place where the details of life point to the simple beauty of life – with things like good food, fresh cut flowers, music, a sitting area with a plant or painting.

Finally, it’s a marked by traditions, which guests are invited into, but not forced into.

These traditions can include praying before a meal, reading Scripture, quiet time in the morning for prayer, sabbath, etc. As people spend time in your home, they should find that they slow down and experience the soul-healing rhythm of the way of Jesus.

So just take a little time to dream. Maybe you set up a“Christ room”. Maybe you buy a Murphy bed, or host a Community or Sunday night dinner. Maybe you adopt somebody into your family. Or, if you’re single, maybe you adopt a family. Just take a little time to dream. And if all that feels like too much, just share a meal this week with a brother or sister.

Neighbor + You = Gospel

Today we explore the idea of recapturing the idea that you and your home serve as an outpost for the kingdom in your neighborhood and the table as a tangible expression of neighbor love.

Stand for the scripture reading today:

Luke 10:25–37 (NIV)

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “ ‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Prayer

Love for people, or potentially the lack of it, reveals the quality and effectiveness of the values we hold on to. And from a Biblical perspective our love for people is even more revealing, because it actually indicates the authenticity and health of our relationship with God.

The two divisions of the Ten Commandments teach this explicitly. The first division, the first four commandments, all demand and enhance our love for God and are summed up in the Shema: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:4, 5). The concluding six commandments, the second table of the Law, all demand that we love others and are capsulized in the words of Leviticus 19:18: "Love your neighbor as yourself." The spiritual logic is clear: you must first love God with all that is in you, and if you do, you will be able to love others as you love yourself. Love for God produces love for people.

Luke 10:25–37 (NIV)

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The lawyer was one of those who were sure they had the truth. The childlike openness that Jesus so prized could not be found in them. Luke mentions that he "stood up," indicating that Jesus and his hearers were seated as he taught. The lawyer's standing was an assertive gesture to "test" Jesus. He had an agenda, an ulterior motive.

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “ ‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

The lawyer looked foolish, having been made to answer his own question and then being kindly told to practice the answer he had just preached. A little embarrassing!

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

His response itself was deeply telling. He obviously had been thinking about the breadth that is implicit in the demand to love others as oneself. Lawyer thinking…certainly loving my neighbor must be restricted to Israel, and even further to those who are of character, he thought to himself. "We can't love everyone! Where do you draw the line? What about tyrants? What about blasphemers? Really, Jesus, who is my neighbor?" His questioning was reasonable enough. But it also shows that "wise and learned" as he was, he was not completely tracking with Jesus.

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

A Priest

The first person to discover the poor man on the Jericho road was a member of the cloth: "A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side" (v. 31). Jericho was one of the main country spots where priests lived. So the priest was likely returning from performing holy service in the temple. If the man lying on the roadside was dead and the priest touched him, the priest would be ceremonially defiled (cf. Leviticus 21:1ff.). So rather than risk defilement, he passed by on the far side of the road. To preserve legal cleanliness, he heartlessly transgressed the entire second table of the Law. Oh, was he pure!

So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

A Levite

Levites were not as high-ranking as priests, though they were highly privileged. They were the temple liturgists. They oversaw the temple and services. The language of the text gives the sense that he actually went up close to the man to see him, and then passed by on the other side.

As Jesus told the story, the lawyer and his hearers were expecting something other than what they got. They expected the threefold rhythm of the Semitic story form to reveal that an Israelite layman came by and helped the man. Many people were unhappy with the clergy, and they expected Jesus to say that an average good-guy Jew came along and showed the clergy up. That would be a slap at the establishment, but many, perhaps most, would applaud it.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

The Samaritan

No one expected Jesus' to finish the story the way he did: "But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him" (v. 33). A Samaritan? Not long before, James and John had urged the Lord to call down fire from Heaven to destroy some inhospitable Samaritans (cf. 9:54). The hatred between Judea and Samaria went back over 400 years and centered around racial purity, because while the Jews had kept their purity during the Babylonian Captivity, the Samaritans had lost theirs by intermarrying with Assyrian invaders. In the Jews' eyes the Samaritans were compromising mongrels. Also, the Samaritans had built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim only to have it destroyed by the Jews in Maccabean times.

So in Jesus' day the hatred was ingrained and utterly implacable. The rabbis said, "Let no man eat the bread of the Cuthites (Samaritans), for he who eats their bread is as he who eats swine's flesh." The ultimate insult came in the arsenic-laced Jewish prayer that concluded, ". . . and do not remember the Cuthites in the Resurrection." Add to this the fact that in Jesus' day some Jewish travelers had been murdered in Samaria, and that some Samaritans had defiled the temple with human bones, and you can begin to imagine the shock of Jesus' introducing a Samaritan not as a villain but as a hero! Indeed, if the Jew in the story were not half-dead, he would probably push away the loathsome Samaritan.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Jesus presented a thought provoking final question: "'Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?' The expert in the law replied, 'The one who had mercy on him.' Jesus told him, 'Go and do likewise'" (vv. 36, 37). The hated Samaritan - not the priest or the Levite (and by implication, not the question-asking lawyer) - the Samaritan was the keeper of the Law. He loved those who came his way as himself, and this showed that he loved God with all his heart.

Jesus' command, "Go and do likewise" was the answer to the lawyer's question - the only answer. But it was an impossible one - unless one truly loves God with heart, soul, body, and mind, which will happen if we let him make our heart what he meant it to be.

What does this mean for us?

This story is an important one. We claim to actually know Christ. We claim that Christ is in us and that we are in him. We claim that, though residing in a spiritually dead world, we are regenerated, born again, alive. We wear it on our t-shirts, a status social media, bumper stickers, and some of us wear it on our sleeves tatted with Hebrew words. We claim to have Christ (the only person who ever fully loved God with all his being, and his neighbor as himself) in our hearts. But as we have seen in the parable, if we really do have Christ within us, we will be loving and merciful to our neighbors, those we meet along the road of life.

Jesus said the second most important command in all of the Torah (the Bible of his day) was Leviticus 19v18: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

We usually generalize neighbor to mean anybody, and that’s fine. Jesus himself said the word is so wide it encompasses our enemy. But if our neighbor is everybody, then it’s kind of nobody.

What if Jesus meant our actual neighbor? As in the people who live on our street? In our apartment complex or condo tower? What if he intended for them to be the primary recipients of our love?

Practical steps this week:

Image of “Block Map”

The center square is your home or apartment. The eight squares around it are your eight closest neighbors. Do the following for each neighbor:

On line A, fill in their name. Ideally first and last, but just put down what you know. If you don’t know their name yet, just put down question mark, or leave it blank.

On line B, fill in any factoids you know that you couldn’t get from waving across the street: where they work, where they are from, how long they’ve lived there, what they do for fun, etc. 

On line C, see if you can fill in any in-depth information: their dreams for the future, relationship status, their faith (or lack of it), experience with God or church, their childhood story, any pain, etc. 

As a general rule, only 10% of people can fill in line A, only 3% can fill in line B, and less than 1% can fill in line C. The point here isn’t guilt and shame; it’s simply to plot out just how well you know (or don’t know) your neighbors, to get you started on the journey to loving them.

Here’s our list to get you started:

Prayer walk your neighborhood and ask Jesus for his eyes and heart for your place.

Go meet one of your neighbors that you don’t know yet.

Invite all eight neighbors from your block map over for dinner over the next few months.

Throw a block party on the next major holiday.

Plan out holiday parties: 4th of July, Christmas, Super Bowl Sunday, May the 4th, etc. 

Run a weekly neighbor night or BBQ through the summer.

Start a Sunday dinner or sabbath dinner, where your table is open to family and friends.

Do whatever you like to do, but with your neighbors: Into sports? Watch football. More of a reader? Start a book club. Like to cook? Start a supper club. Etc. 

Make your home the hang out place for your kids’ friends. Invite kids over for a movie night. Have a special snack box in the pantry. Etc. 

Redo your budget and schedule to make room for hospitality.

Set up a “Christ room”Practice reverse hospitality, where you bring food to someone - a sick neighbor, or a neighbor with a newborn, or somebody out of work, etc. 

Bring back Taco Tuesday!

Turn hospitality into a way of life as we apprentice to Jesus. To live this life not out of guilt or duty but out of a place of gratitude.

Romans 15:7 (ESV)

Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

Benediction:

You are sent as apprentices of Jesus into places where God has you rooted.