How do I know who my neighbor is?
By posing the question like that, it rather implies that if some are, then some are not, which I guess can be both true and not true at the same time. It’s kind of a trick question. For the Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel, that stranger lying beaten in the road was exactly that, a stranger. He was a stranger, though, only until they made contact, until they encountered each other and the love of God got busy in that Samaritan.
Certainly there are times when receiving neighborly treatment comes as no surprise. Last year we were called to serve in a small parish on the Cumberland Plateau in East Tennessee. Arriving at the Rectory on a chilly January morning, we found that we had been the recipients of a real pounding. Now, it was not a “pounding” like that given our old friend in the Jericho Road. Ours was in keeping with an old tradition whereby the congregation extends a welcome to new clergy by stocking the parsonage larder with a pound of flour, a pound of sugar, a pound of coffee. In our case, that also included bread, fruit, bottles of wine and concert tickets. What a joy it was to cobble together our first meal in our new home using those gifts offered in God’s name by our new family, our new neighbors, most of whom we had yet to meet.
Sometimes though, you get no warning.
In May, a day before the National Day of Prayer, I was invited to pray with other local clergy at their annual observance on the Courthouse Square. This came as a real surprise, as I’d received a few kindly meant words of counsel not to expect a lot of interaction with the local God Squad. Ours is the westernmost parish in the diocese, the only Episcopal church in the county and a good 30 miles from our nearest (Episcopal) neighbor. The local ecclesial landscape, I’d been told, comprises mostly evangelical congregations rather unsure about what to make of a bunch of folks who claim to be Protestants but who look like Catholics. They probably wouldn’t use the word “ecclesial.”
Chock-full of ecumenical spirit, curious and hopeful, of course I said, “Of course.” (I will admit though, that it DID cross my mind to wonder about who must have bailed at the last minute for me to get an eleventh-hour invitation.)
The weather gods were not kind that day. Cold and rained-on, a half-dozen pastors huddled with about two dozen stalwart faithful in the windswept bandshell. Even without rain gear, there wouldn’t have been another dog collar in sight, and no other “mainline” clergy. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, I don’t think that word means what it used to mean, anyhow.
As the prayers got underway, it was clear from their content that we were each of us raised up from different theological seedbeds, but I speak of form only and not function. Theirs were prayers reflective of a heartfelt love of God truly present in their lives – and on that platform – as we prayed for our families, our community and our nation. When my turn came, I even got a few “Pray it, brother!”s from the Amen Corner.
Ours were different traditions, certainly, and differing points of view, perhaps, but by coming together that day our commonality outstripped our differences.
These were my new neighbors, hands and hearts extended in welcome and in affirmation, strangers no longer.
That question, “How do I know who my neighbor is?” had reworked itself in my mind to “Whose neighbor am I?”
The answer was right there.
We observe in physics that liquids, subjected to gravity and atmospheric pressure, will seek to rest at their own level. How much greater a force might we see the love of God to be, driven by the relentless grace of God, at work and moving in our lives and in the lives of those around us? That love will seek an outflow, moving over and under and around any barriers – real or imagined – to rest where our Lord needs it to go, right where we are.
Tom Schneider (M.Div. ’15) is rector of St. Raphael’s Episcopal Church in Crossville, Tenn. He lives in Crossville with his wife, Sylvia, and Horatio, the Rectory Cat. They are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the newest member of their household, Rosamund P., an English Labrador.
