How To Neighbour – Did Jesus Mean Everyone? – Sermon – Pastors Marlee and Dave Page

The question that the scribe asks Jesus is a good one, he asks a very clarifying question “Who is my neighbor? 

It’s like he’s asking – “I’m supposed to love people but who exactly do I have to love? If I’m supposed to love my neighbor, I need to know, who is my neighbor. In other words, Jesus, do I have to love people that listen to the wrong kind of music? Because I listen to the right kind of music. 

Do I have to love people that don’t have the same social standing that I do, because you know I’m pretty important. 

Do I have to love people who have weird hair and tattoos and ear piercings, nose piercings? 

Do we have to love those people? 

Do we have to love them if they have a different accent than we do? 

If they speak a different language than we do?

Do I have to love someone who has a different color skin? I know I’m supposed to love my neighbour, but I need to know, who does that include, who is my neighbor?”

Now don’t miss this Church – What’s interesting is Jesus doesn’t answer the question about who to neighbour. What he does – through His entire earthly ministry – is he shows us how to neighbour. Jesus is going to assume everybody is your neighbour, and he shows us specifically how to neighbour and so, he tells a story. 

Read Luke 10:30-37

Notice in vs. 33….“But a Samaritan.” 

This would be shocking to those hearing the story Jesus is telling. Basically what Jesus is saying is that, “ a Samaritan man went to help the Jewish victim.” The reason this was shocking is because the Jews hated the Samaritans, the Samaritans hated the Jews and this was a seven hundred year hate fest. Why? Well, quickly, seven hundred years prior, when the Jews were exiled, some of them were left behind and they actually intermarried with someone from a different race. The “pure” Jewish people hated the offspring who were known as Samaritans.  

And, the Jewish people were hated by the Samaritan people because of that, they just did what we naturally do, if someone hates us, we hate right on back. Because if you hate me, I hate you back and that’s what happened for seven hundred years, they hated each other. This Samaritan guy who would have been hated by the Jewish guy lying on the road did one simple act. What did he do? Instead of walking to avoid him, he actually walked across the street towards him. He took pity on another human being and even though he was from a different race, this guy showed love to a man that was in need.

Dr. Martin Luther King said this in one of his most famous messages, said, this: “The first question the priest and the Levite asked was, “If I stopped to help this man, what will happen to me?”” Then he said, “The good Samaritan reversed the question and said, “If I do not stop and help this man, what will happen to him?”” 

 Isn’t that the Gospel – isn’t this the absolute heart of the Gospel – loving God and loving others. Even if they are different from us and some might argue especially if they are different from us. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said, “Love the lord your God and love your neighbour as yourself.”

Friends, if love like this is the heart of the Gospel then sin is the heart of Racism. 

James 2:9 says, this, “But if you show favouritism, you sin …” You are committing a sin. He said, you are guilty of breaking the law. 

“I like you because you look like me.   My kids can play with your kids because they look like my kids”

Any time we act like that, it is not a political, socio-economic or cultural issue, it is a sin issue. We have to call it what it is, it is not right before God and it should not be right before us. That raises the big question doesn’t it ? As Jesus followers, how are we called to love our neighbours, how are we called to love those who may look a little bit different or speak a little bit different than us?

Three things – that’s what we want to give you – three very important ways to consider how you might deal with this in your walk in the neighbourhood this summer.

The first thing, we need with God’s help to be honest here – we need to recognize our prejudices. This is really difficult to do because prejudices are so difficult to see. Look in our culture today we are often encouraged to feel justified in how we might feel against someone else. Even if our prejudice mindset or our racist attitude isn’t intentional, to those people it’s there and to God, it’s still sinful.

It could be totally accidental…. I’ll tell you some experience from riding fire trucks for 27 years – I have been to many, many car accidents in three decades – if there was a person of colour or a migrant labourer involved in the accident – Do you know the first question that got asked over and over again – What did they do? And I’m not calling out the first responder world here, b/c I was a part of that system for a long time – but as I reflect I can tell you that very often, these people didn’t get the benefit of the doubt about whether they were in the wrong or not….

I’ll just be real honest, I’m not saying that any these people were being intentionally racist….but let’s call it what it is, I watched that happen over and over again for almost 3 decades. We have to call it what it is, we see it in our own hearts. This is wrong, is prejudice, is judgmental, it’s racist, call it what it is. Not to mention, It’s not neighbourly.

What does the word prejudice mean? This is in your message notes? It means prejudging. It’s a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. I bet most of us, if we had the courage to be really honest, we would admit that we were raised most likely with some type of prejudice, why? Because for many of us, in the culture context of how we were raised, in the family unit, we are predisposed to making wrong judgments about people, in light of the Gospel.

And look this doesn’t always have to be about colour or ethnicity…. Maybe you grew up thinking, 

“Heavy people are really lazy. 

The younger generation they simply won’t work. 

Old people they are useless; they can’t teach you anything. 

White Dad’s can’t dance” – Oh some of you think you can – LOL . 

I don’t know what it is for you. But I expect that you, like ourselves, grew up thinking certain things about certain people. We have to have the courage to acknowledge it, to admit it, to say, “May be I’m prejudiced about”…and you fill in the blanks.

Listen to me now – If you’ve ever said, “I’m not prejudice but.” There is nothing good that comes after a but in that sense, nothing, nothing, nothing. “I’m not prejudice but.” We all likely harbour some prejudice and we have to call it that, at some degree, some level. We must acknowledge it. 

This is challenging to admit but I want to tell you something that I’m not proud of. In 2011, I was on an airplane to Winnipeg just after 9-11. A person who appeared to be of Arab descent got on the plane – This person, once on the plane, could not speak English well, had some issues getting situated, then they got on a cell phone, speaking in a foreign language rather intensely, he was sweating, got off the plane  two times and finally, when it was time to depart, he got off the plane but forgot his carry on bag – People were going out of their minds – any you know what – I was too…

What a lot of people will say, “That’s understandable because of the environment.” Call it what you want, there was a plane full of people, that included me, that made a judgement, based on the colour of a guy’s skin and the fact that he spoke a different language. And just let me add, that if he had been Asian-Canadian, African-Canadian, Indigenous-Canadian, everybody would have thought the dude’s got food poisoning or is ill,  – which he is actually what it turned out to be…I expect he was scared because he knew almost everybody on that plane was making a judgement based on the colour of his skin.

It takes courage, it takes honestly, it takes integrity to recognize, truthfully, any prejudices, any racism, that we harbour and to admit it before God and to repent of that – remember, repent means change…. Number one, we must acknowledge any prejudices.

The Second thing, we need to be intentional about understanding others. Like we said at the beginning of this message, we have a very limited perspective and we have to know that. I don’t understand how others have been abused, mistreated, rejected and on and on. It genuinely helps us to enter into dialogue with those who’ve experienced things far different than we have. There is great value in that.

 What do we do as Jesus followers? The first thing we’re going to do is recognize any prejudices in our own life. Second thing, we’re going to be intentional about understanding those who might be different from us and the third thing is this , and it’s the big one….

The Third Thing, is that we are going to Love those different from us, love them like Jesus did, from the heart, just like we saw our Lord and Saviour do for us. 

That might sound easy in here on a Sunday morning and some of you might even be asking, Who really does that? It’s different today. Let me tell you who does, a committed follower of Jesus does. We are the ones who walk across the street to protect another human being even if we think they might not do the same for us. That’s how you neighbour, that’s how you show the love of Jesus.

It’s just showing love. It’s showing decency, honour, respect, consideration, treating another human being like another human being. It’s showing the love of Jesus.

In fact, look at your sermon notes again, this is so important. What is racism? Racism isn’t just the presence of hatred it’s also the absence of love. It’s not just the presence of hatred, I hate you, it’s also the absence of showing I accept you. I embrace you. You’re my brother, you’re my sister, I love you.
It’s the absence of love,
the absence of kindness,
the absence of caring,
the absence of saying you’re welcome,
the absence of showing love.

How is the world going to know that we’re followers of Jesus? Do you know what the Bible says? Here’s what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say they’ll know we are followers of Jesus by our perfect theology. Doesn’t say that.

God’s Word doesn’t say they’ll know we’re followers of Jesus by our church attendance. 

It doesn’t say they’ll know we’re followers of Jesus if we’ve been baptized which is important or if we give money or, you get the point. 

The word of God says they’ll know that we’re followers of Jesus if we what? If we love one another! That means everyone. Not loving those that look like us and were born where we were born and at the same colour of our skin, but if we love our neighbour.

Who is our neighbour? Your neighbour is the next person you come in contact with. 

How do you love them? You love them as you’ve been loved. 

How did Jesus love me? Let me tell you what, while I was sinning Jesus died for me. 

God’s word shows us that that while we were still sinning Christ died for us. He loved me when I didn’t deserve it and so I reflect that type of love to others and that’s what we want you to hear as you make your plans for the summer.

Listen, when we get to heaven, we’re all going to be represented there. Do you know how I know that? 

Revelations 7:9 – 10.

⁹ After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”

They were from every nation and every tribe and every people and every language standing before the throne and they cried out in a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God. Not to my God but to our God.

If we can spend eternity in heaven together certainly we can be neighbours together. 

That’s how to neighbour, that’s how we love one another. Heaven will be full of one-another’s and we might as well show the love of God on earth because that’s what eternity will be. Racism is not a skin issue, it’s a sin issue and it will not be represented or tolerated in Jesus’ church. 

FBK, How do we Neighbour? The first place to start is to make sure that in our neighbourhoods, at least the extent that we can impact it, there is not an absence of love. 

Jesus commands this: Love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul and all of our strength and because he loved us when we didn’t deserve it what do we do? We love our neighbour as our self and if we are real bout that, we believe that every one of us can be a significant part of the solution. That so many in our communities are looking for.

That’s How to Neighbour!

Let’s Pray.