There Goes the Neighborhood

Growing up in a major metropolitan area in the north east always had me wondering what it must have been like to live in a smaller town. I graduated from High School in a township that was relatively small — lots of folks had spent their entire lives in the area… but it was not like the small town charm type of situation that I always saw on TV or heard country music stars sing about.

One of my favorite representations of the small town comes from the greatest story ever told. It’s a story about a boy who grows up in a little town called Greenbo Alabama. The boy’s name? Forrest Gump of course. What I love about Forrest Gump is that even though he travels the world in many many fine adventures — he always ends up right where he feels like he belongs… In Greenbo Alabama… In the house that he grew up in.

It’s a fascinating little twist of story telling because Greenbo Alabama was not entirely wonderful to old Forrest Gump. He was known as the slow kid who needed braces on his legs. Made fun of ruthlessly over the course of his life for being dumb. And yet there he was… loyal to Greenbo Alabama.

It’s really something right? Like I know that some of you have lived in Ft. Pierce for most of your lives. I know that some of you maybe left the place you lived for most of your life to come live here in the wonderful city formerly known as Can Town.

The thing that draws us to where we were raised — or pulls us into a new place is the same thing: the desire to find and belong to a community.

We are in a sermon series called “Part of Your World” where we have been talking about what is called the concentric circles of belonging. These areas of relationships that all humans are part of move from highly intimate to less intimate as we move outward from ourselves. Each one of them is important, and seeing to the health of each of these areas of our lives helps us to become the people that God created us to be.

So we’ve talked about the divine relationship, the family relationships, and friendships that make us who we are. Today we move outward to the circle of community. Particularly today we want to focus on what we do when we feel disconnected from our community or like the place that we live, grew up in, or whatever… just isn’t the place that we had maybe hoped it would be at one time or another.

But first let’s define community a little bit. Because we can be really broad about it like it’s the city I live in. But that’s kind of tough because even a city as small as Fort Pierce has really many different communities within it. I mean you’ve got north Island people, South Island people, Avenue’s people, West of Town people, White City people, and all the areas in between right?

I think of community as in “the geographic and social circles that we regularly inhabit.” And yes, honestly I regularly inhabit basically all of Fort Pierce. But maybe not all of us draw such a large circle with our day to day lives. Regardless of size, your community is the people that you live and do life around. The people that you see and have at the very minimum a heart inclined towards because in one way shape or form — they are your people — whether you know their name or not.

That reminds me of the old Rodney Atkins song “These are my people — this is where I come from, we’re giving this life everything we’ve got and then some. It ain’t always pretty, but it’s real. Its the way we were made wouldn’t have it any other way.”

But sometimes things happen that make us feel like we aren’t a part of our community — or at least strain our relationship to our community. It’s in those moments where we wonder what we are supposed to do. Do we walk away and find a new set of humans and places to inhabit? Or maybe we already have moved on but are really struggling to connect — always wondering if we made the right choice.

Well there’s good news for you. You’re not alone.

The people of Israel faced this messy kind of reality head on. They were a messy put defined community of people who had a really specific identity. They were folks that were picked by God to be a specific type of people to live in a specific place for a pretty specific purpose.

And then all of that was taken away from them. In 586 BC the Babylonian empire came in and destroyed the home of the Israelites and deported them to Babylon. And they wondered “how do we live now that we have lost everything? What should we do?”

And so they Lord answered them with these words of wisdom:

Jeremiah 29:4–7 NRSV

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

God is like hey, I know that this isn’t ideal for you but here’s what I want you to do… Lean into this new reality. Create something new. I know that you are living in a place that basically represents all of the hostility that you have faced over the recent past. I know that every day you wake up to the images of the people that took everything from you. I know that it hurts often and you are grieving what you thought it would once be…

But you can and will do something with it. You will thrive in this place, and in doing so you will bring transformation to this new community of people that you have been given to for this season.

And honestly I often wonder what the babylonians had going on in their minds. Like here’s a whole bunch of people that the king just imported into our city and land. What are we supposed to do with them?

Also, that’s without even mentioning the fact that these are two groups of people that do not mix well culturally. Like Israel’s religion literally forbid them from taking part in most of the things that were common everyday life for the Babylonians. So that makes things difficult.

So I’m sure they are thinking “well there goes the neighborhood!” And they are probably not entirely wrong. Their way of life is in jeopardy as well.

And so that’s what makes the words of God even more wonderful. Yes God is saying like hey you people of Israel — do your thing here in this place. Thrive. But not just for your own good — see how it brings about change to your new neighbors. And that my friends is the beauty of it all, something that Jesus brought to his followers by saying:

Matthew 5:13–16 NRSV

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

When we are uprooted — physically or emotionally — we are called to live in a way that lays the groundwork for a new type of community. We are called to be this light that lets everyone else around us know “like hey we have found a thing worth forming a community around. It’s this Jesus.”

And as the church this is our primary purpose. We are a community inside of our larger community that shows the larger community how beautiful and wonderful the community can be when we are driven by the Love of God to inhabit our world as this strange connected and grace filled way that we have found to live. That strange way that puts others first and serves one another with love.

It was this very way that Paul told the Philippians to live when he said these words:

Philippians 2:1–11 NRSV

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

You see, the ability for the church to be a city shining on a hill, a place that sees to the welfare of the larger community, a place where people look and see and know that Jesus Christ is Lord is directly impacted by our attitudes and way of living as individuals. Unhealthy people don’t come together and magically make a healthy community.

Healthy communities are created when individuals are healthy - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And while that doesn’t mean that we need to be in peak condition in any of these areas of our lives to come and find healing in the community of faith, it does mean that we need to be working towards that healing so that our witness to the community at large is not tarnished.

This means that community relationships have a certain individual weight to them. If you want a healthy relationship with your community, if you want healthier communities in general, if you want the city of Fort Pierce to be a place where you belong and for the City of Fort pierce to be a place that looks more like the kingdom of God than whatever it is that it looks like right now then you — me — we — all of us individually need to do some work that identifies just how it is that we live in our community.

Do we have among us the capability to look to others before ourselves? Do we have the ability to see the example of Christ Jesus who gave up the cosmic power and status of God to become a human being who then gave up his life to show us what true care and compassion looks like?

If this is too big of an example to try to follow, maybe think of it in this way… look to the example of Forrest Gump. This guy… this guy made communities everywhere he went. His humble heart and gentle nature drew people to himself. First his best friend Jenny, then the tenants at his Mom’s house, then his best good friend bubba, and lieutenant dan, and all those people who ran across the country with him, and every single person who sat on the bench and listened to his story. This way of being — this way of living that was genuine, open, loving, and humble drew people to him even when he was in the most adverse situations.

This week we will continue to pray the Lord’s Prayer every morning, and when you do say a prayer for your community and for God to show you how to be a community builder in this current day and age. And then go do that.

Our world needs us to live this way. So are you feeling a bit overwhelmed with the changes that are occurring or have occurred in your community? Does it feel like the community you once knew is gone or like you’ve found yourself lost in this new place seeking some place to belong? Well the path to healing starts with you. You are meant to be the city shining on the hill, the example of Jesus, the Forrest Gump of love and hope to this world. In doing so, you can influence and create community. In doing so, you can step outside your door and smile saying “there goes the neighborhood, and I love them. They’re my people.”