I moved away as soon as my car was fueled up and the ink on my high school diploma was dry. I journeyed out of state for college and never found my way back to Quarry road. I've now lived all over the Old North State and overseas on African shores. I discovered that when Jesus said to "Love your neighbor as yourself" He wasn't necessarily talking about the person next door. He meant everyone, everywhere, every second. But often for us it really is our own neighbors that need love, that need Christ. Regardless, they are often the folks that we avoid in our culture that trains us to view privacy as our sacred cow.
Very few of us still live on the same road with our same family ties that we were bound to as children. We're a generation of gypsies and often we land in neighborhoods with no one around that we know. Our neighborhoods look vastly different from the ones that we grew up in thirty plus years ago. Even in the South we don't often live side by side with people that look and sound like us anymore. From our church seats we're instructed to be missionaries and take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, but for some of us the ends of the earth have come to us in our subdivisions and we've labeled our neighbors as "different".
We live toe to toe with Afghanis, Burmese, Liberians, Somalians, Laotians, and every flavor of Latin culture. Every tribe and tongue are on our front doorsteps, but we often shut the door to keep their noisy music and the smelly unidentifiable aromas out. The aroma of the Gospel is the same in every culture and the language of grace can be spoken by anyone who has ears to hear. You will probably never visit Nepal, but what if Nepal came to you and lived right down the street with children the same age as your own? The nations are just on the other side of our front door, but most of us are guilty of shutting the door and double locking it. Some of us are itching to move. We are itching for our neighbors to move. We would rather talk about how much they bring down the property value of our home than talk to them face to face about where they come from and dare to find out how we are the same.
It isn't just ethnicity that creates a barrier. As a Southerner I am privy to the use of the term "trailer trash" or "white trash". I've used it in conversation. I won't lie about that fact. It is a term that encompasses a lot of folks and in conversation a raised eyebrow and the repeating of that phrase creates a universal definition with a common understanding. Like the Jeffersons some folks born on the poorer side of the tracks are some times able to move on up to nicer neighborhoods. Some of them live next door to you and you're contemplating moving because of that fact.
Might I ask you to think twice before you put your home on the market?
You worry about your kids safety. I get that. It's legitimate and I'm not proposing we all move to areas with known meth houses. You are just plain annoyed with your neighbor's disrespect and disregard for common civility. I get that. Their destructive dog has torn up your yard one to many times. Our world is topsy turvy and bad things happen and they often happen to us at home. What I am proposing is that we let our guard down a bit and we lower our holier than thou standards to see those around us not as a label, but as a needy soul in desperate want of grace.
Last summer at the beach I had a discussion with one of my nieces after I said something I really shouldn't have about an encounter with some people who were different from us. What I said was not edifying and certainly didn't represent a heart changed by the Gospel and ready to extend that to others. I realized as I was saying thoughtless words that I was being ungracious to say the least and started back pedaling and trying to undo the damage to my sweet niece's thinking that I probably incurred, but this missionary mama realized really quick that no matter how long we lived in West Africa it doesn't change my hearts hard bent toward self-righteousness.
I don't engage those next door because the fear that takes up residence in my heart stops me. It isn't the resident down the street that repels me from loving. It is the fear residing in my own bones that stops me short of extending grace and truth to the people cooking dinner, washing cars, nursing babes, planting flowers, raising kids, riding bikes, and watching sports right down the street. People that might be more like us than we ever imagined if we'd get brave enough to knock on their doors and peak behind the curtains.
The mission field has come to us in our neighborhoods. My family is about to move to a new town, a new set of neighbors and it would be easy to stay inside with the shutters drawn. If I am honest that is the easy route. The method of neighboring that is most comfortable to me; you live your life, I'll live mine. We'll get along just fine. The Gospel calls us to more. More grace. More tolerance for the unkempt lawn. More boldness in sharing Christ. More love when the neighbor's kid shoots our cat with his pellet gun. More compassion for all that goes on behind closed doors that we may never know about. If we leave these neighborhoods who will bare the "more" to hurting hearts in need of the sweet balm of the Gospel?
Friends, the fields are ripe for the harvest. Fewer and fewer of us are willing to labor. Many of us would rather pack up the farm and move away. Don't. Ask for Jesus' eyes to see those around you. It might just change the whole world. It might just change you. At the very least it will change your perspective.
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