Who is our neighbor and how do we actively and internally love them? Jesus said that loving our neighbor the most essential component to his teaching. He also tells us that loving our neighbor is the same as loving God and both acts are tied up together and not separate. It can be easy to love the ideal of a imagined neighbor, but real neighbors require a lot of grace, patience, discernment, time, and are as complicated as each of us are. Loving a real neighbor requires personal sacrifice and intention. We are invited into this beautiful mess of loving our neighbor well and are told this outward expression is linked to loving God. We will not do it well all days, but with humility and perseverance, we can practice this teaching. Sometimes our neighbor is one person, and other times it’s an entire nation of collective neighbors. If we want to practice the teachings of Jesus we are invited into this sacrificial life of loving God and neighbor. We are promised that if all where to practice this unreasonable love that the kingdom of God will be actualized on earth as it is in heaven. There is tension and idealism in this practice, but when flesh and blood enters this practice, its messy, and its beautiful, this is the live we where born into. Today lets put on the practice, let us not expect to be great at it right away, but lets keep it up. If you want to be great at any craft, you must start at the beginning and practice, practice, practice.

 

Jesus Teaching #6

The Teaching: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” this is just like loving God.

 

The Practice: Set aside our own agenda or obsession with safety and personal comfort and respond like our creator does with grace, patience, discernment, humility, perseverance, and sacrificial living.

 

I reflect on this teaching this morning as I sit on the shores of the small island of Lesbos, Greece. I’m here assisting the Syrian refugees to safety with many international volunteers. Here I can see how the Syrian in my neighbor, here I think about Mexico and how they are my neighbor too and also how my new Greek roommates are my neighbor. I hope the teachings of Jesus will continue to shape my political understanding of the world more than nationalistic or media propaganda. We are invited to actively try to practice the teachings of Jesus, to make a mess of it, to sit in the tension of our own personal shortcomings, but to keep practicing. We say with Jesus, to the divine creator, let your will be done. I am invited into a beautiful surrender. As I sit above our camp on watch for refugee boats I hear the words of the 90’s band Tesla and reflect upon this situation, “What give you the right to put up a fence”?

God of Rage vs. self fulfilled God of love

 

So, you left your faith, you want to re connect, but the old concepts still haunt you. Are you sick for the toxic repression of a God of rage, calling you back into submission and fear? There is hope yet. As a friend of mine said, “We suffer from a crisis of imagination.” Maybe you’re reading the wrong pages, old stories with old wine that is passed its sell date. Question all authorities, don’t allow fear and false power enslave your vision of God. There is freedom; imagination and wonder in knowing the God that invites all to the table, all are welcome at this party. There is room for you, your fear, your poorly constructed bias, your childhood wounds, your self-hatred and pride. I know this, because I’m invited to the love that God is with in all these for mention present within me.

 

Jesus teaching #5

The Teaching: Our Creator wants everyone to have union with him, (a full house) but not all will show up or be ready. Don’t give God excuses, give him your presence.

 

The Practice: Make yourself available to God, he wants your presence . Listen for the invitations of the Spirit and respond. Value your connection with your creator above all things.

 

Luke 14:15-24 (NIV)

The Parable of the Great Banquet

15 When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

20 “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

21 “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

22 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full