Here it is at last. The final installment of this series.

Bruce

Moving into My Own Neighborhood: Part 4

Okay, so maybe this whole line of articles is getting old to you; how much can be written about moving into my neighborhood. But the truth is I keep writing about it because that is the wrestling match—one of the wrestling matches—that is going on in me right now.

I can’t help but feel that in paying so much attention to being a leader in the church, I might not have paid enough attention to actually being a disciple.

A couple of weeks ago we took our granddaughter to a corn maze. The rows in the maze were supposed to form the facial features of a duck. I’m sure from an airplane that is exactly what it looked like, but walking those paths surrounded by 8 foot tall cornstalks the face was not discernible. It just felt like…well it felt like we were walking on paths surrounded by 8foot tall  cornstalks.

Talking about discipleship can be like that. We all think we know what we mean by discipleship, but when we start discussing it we find we all have different definitions, The more we discuss the more the stalks grow up around us and pretty soon we can’t tell the shape of the maze we’re walking in.

Some of us may think of a disciple as one who knows and believes the right sorts of things. Others may see a disciple as one who understands their function within the church and pours themselves into that role. There are probably several other perceptions.

Maybe that is what is lying at the heart of my wrestling match. As I read the gospels, and hear what Jesus had to say when he talked about being a disciple or following him, I’m getting an inkling that there is a lot more to his definition of a disciple than there is to mine.

When Jesus talks about following him, he talks about things like dying, taking up a cross, being least, being last, and losing your life. It seems like what I know and how I think is a lot less important to him than it has been to me.

So, I’m here at this place of wrestling; wrestling with what that should look like in my life and to the people in my neighborhood.

What do you think it means to be a disciple? What does Jesus mean when he says, “follow me.” Any ideas? I’d love to hear them.

Moving into My Own Neighborhood Part 3

Here is installment 3 of "Moving into My Own Neighborhood."

Bruce

Moving into My Own Neighborhood Part 3: Being a Neighbor Starts with Knowing My Neighbor

For the last couple of issues, I’ve been trying to figure out what it looks like to follow Jesus’ example from John 1. If you recall, in that chapter John describes how Jesus moved into our neighborhood. So, I’m trying to learn how to move into my neighborhood.

In part 1, I described a couple of neighbors I had encounters with, and impressions of, but didn’t really know. One of them was my neighbor across the back fence. All I knew about him was that he and his wife were constantly fighting, often late into the night. She eventually left and his late night fights were replaced by late night sessions around the fire pit in his back yard listening to music and commiserating with a group of friends. On those warm summer nights, the later it got, the louder they seemed.

I’ve learned his name is not, “the guy across the back fence.” His name is Rod (actually that is not his real name). His wife wasn’t his wife, but his girlfriend of 10 years. Curiously enough, she had a name too, Shirley (again, that’s not really it). Shirley didn’t leave him. They didn’t want to “break-up” but Rod couldn’t stand the fighting. So Shirley rented a place down the block so they could see each other when they wanted, but didn’t have to put up with each other all the time.

A couple of weeks ago, Rod was having one of his late night gatherings. Shirley showed up somewhat inebriated and belligerent. I don’t know the details, nor does Rod because he was in his backyard, but a scuffle occurred in the driveway, and Shirley fell and hit her head on the asphalt. The paramedics came and the police came. Shirley was taken to the hospital where she lay in a coma for a few days until she finally died.

Rod has been devastated. Not only has he lost someone who had been a significant part of his life, but, though he was not directly responsible, the fact that the fatal fall happened at his house has weighted him down with a nearly unbearable burden of guilt.

Most every day one of us will stick our head over the fence and ask how he’s doing. Sometimes we pass him vegetables from our garden or eggs from our chickens; I don’t know if he actually uses them, but he seems genuinely grateful that we’re giving them to him. Our son, Jacob, has hung out with Rod a couple of afternoons.

Jesus moved into our neighborhood--“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—because he knows our name and our story. He came to bring grace into our lives--“Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.” I can no longer think of Rod as “the guy across the fence who has annoying parties.”  Now I know his name and part of his devastating but all too human story. Now what?

I’m asking myself how I can bring grace into his life.  I confess, I don’t know the answer to that yet. But I do know that I cannot bring anything without first being his neighbor. So, learning to know my neighbors is only the first step.

It seems my next step is to learn what it means to be a neighbor.

Here is the 2nd post of my series from 2012  called "Moving into My Own Neighborhood." I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Bruce

Moving Into My Own Neighborhood Part 2: Wait a Minute, Who is My Neighbor?

This whole series of articles was prompted because I was reading the Gospel of John. I was struck by the way John 1 talks about how Jesus moved into our neighborhood. It came alive because I started wondering what it would look like in my neighborhood.

As I continue reading, I’m learning something else about my neighborhood. In John 5, Jesus was walking into Jerusalem. He sees a man sitting by a pool waiting for the waters to stir so he can climb in and be healed. Jesus had an encounter with him and ultimately heals him.

Sometimes for Jesus neighborhood happened to be where he was at the moment; he had a way of being present to the people he was with.

Earlier this week I had to drive to Klamath Falls. About 70 miles from Klamath I decided to take a break and stop at a rest stop. It was about 4 in the afternoon on a warm day, and there was a man in the restroom washing his sunburned head, face and neck with water from one of the sinks. His clothes were ragged and there was a large, well-worn backpack leaning on the wall next to him.

We started talking, and I discovered he was from Sacramento. He had gone to Seattle for a job. The job had fallen through. He had expended all his resources in the move, so he was headed back to Sacramento on foot. His plan was to walk into Klamath that night and find a shelter where he could sleep and get a meal. I pointed out that Klamath was still 70 miles away and even at a brisk walk it would take him a couple of days to get there.

He leaned against the wall in dismay and thought for a moment. He looked up at me and asked if I could give him a ride to Klamath.

I was on my way to meet with the church board at Klamath Falls, and I could think of a fistful of reasons I didn’t have time, but the story of the Good Samaritan came to mind and I saw my face on the priest who passed the wounded man. I knew I had to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?”

As we drove away from the rest area I said to him, “I don’t even know your name.”

He stuck out his hand and said, “my name is Bruce.”

I laughed and took his hand, “my name is Bruce.”

On our drive to Klamath he told me how he entered the foster care system when he was 4 years old. He told me he avoided his family because he didn’t need to be reminded that he was worthless. He told me he didn’t have a high school diploma. He told me he was 47 and still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life.

Maybe it was because I heard the story from someone with my name, but I couldn’t help seeing myself in his seat. The only difference between him and me is that I had parents who stayed together and stayed with me. I had a church family who thought I was important enough to invest themselves in, and I have friends who walk with me through life. None of the blessings in my life are about me; they are present because the people God put in my life chose to reflect him to me.

Bruce was a gift to me at that moment and I wanted to be a gift to him.

When we got to Klamath, we had dinner at Subway. He ate half of his foot-long sandwich, wrapped up the other half and stowed it in a pocket of his backpack—he didn’t know where his next meal would come from.

After dinner I took him to the Amtrak station. I gave him the $40 dollars I had and said, “I don’t know if that will get you to Sacramento, but it should get you somewhere in California.”

I left him sitting at the station waiting for the evening train.

The encounter was a gift to us both. He got a sandwich and a train ticket out of our meeting. I learned that even though he lives in California and I live in Portland we’re neighbors. And I learned I serve a God who managed to intersect our neighborhoods at an isolated rest stop far from both of our homes.

Moving into my Neighborhood

It's my turn for another blogpost. What I've chosen to do is to re-post a series of articles I wrote for a newsletter in 2012. I've been thinking a lot about this subject lately because it seems relevant to the season our family is in right now. Read the post and then tell me what you think. After all, there's nothing like a good conversation.  As Michel De Montaigne said, "“The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.” 

Moving into My Own Neighborhood.

I’ve been reading through the gospel of John.

At the Western Area Regional Ministerium this year, our speaker, Michael Frost, author of Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post Christian Culture,  suggested that we read the gospels over and over so we can learn Jesus.

The idea makes sense to me; if we are to become like Jesus, we should try to get a picture of who he was, what he did and why he did it. So I’m reading and trying to pay close attention to what Jesus does, why he does it, who he seeks out, and how he responds to the people he encounters.

I only made it halfway through the first chapter and I’ve already encounter some problems. Verse 14 says, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (NRSV). Jesus didn’t just make an appearance on Earth to keep his appointment on the cross; he moved into the neighborhood, pitched his tent alongside ours—whatever sermon metaphor you remember, Jesus came to Earth to step into our lives with us.

But it doesn’t stop there. Verse 16 adds that, “ From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (NRSV). Jesus did not just come to forgive us. He actually came to add grace to our live. He came not just to take something away from us (our sin) but to add grace (value) to our lives.

The man across the street from us has two large dogs over which he has no control. He often takes them with him when he runs errands. Every time he opens gate so he can put them in the car, they charge barking and growling through the open gate to our house and terrorize our dogs through our own fence.

Trying to be like Jesus, we have not turned him into animal control. We’ve chosen to talk directly to him—we’ve forgiven him. But according to Jesus that’s not enough. If I want to be like Jesus, I not only need to forgive him, tolerate his trespasses against me, and then keep my distance, I need to step into his life with him. I need to add grace to his life.

The neighbor behind us used to fight with his wife, loudly enough for most of the neighborhood to hear, nearly every weekend. She left him quite a while ago. Now, when the weather is nice enough, he sits by a fire pit in his back yard, which borders ours, and commiserates with a friend until the wee hours of the morning. The later the hour and more drunk they get, the louder and more adamant their commiseration becomes.

I close our bedroom window and let them complain. Sometimes I even pray for them as I lie there (what a good Christian I am). But I don’t know their names—I don’t know anything about them other than what I’ve heard across the fence. According to John I’m not being like Jesus. According to Jesus, I haven’t even moved into my own neighborhood.

How do I move into my own neighborhood? How do I add grace to the people who live around me?

I confess, at this point I don’t have the answers, but I want to learn. That is going to be my goal over the next couple of months. As I learn and grow, I’ll share it with you in future articles.

If you’re struggling with similar lessons and circumstances, let me know. Maybe we can learn together.