Loving our neighbors

I typically avoid writing about controversial matters. I’m open about my faith, but I don’t discuss political issues, educational choices, food preferences, or other polarizing topics. Sometimes, though, I feel a nudge to be more transparent at the risk of being controversial. And today is one of those days. This is by no means a sermon but is more so a soliloquy to remind myself what matters most.

I live an insulated life here in the suburbs. Our brick-walled entrances and well-manicured sidewalks are no protection from divorce or disease. But life here is easier than it might be in other places. If I’m not careful, I can believe that finding my dog a place to board while we go on a beach vacation is an actual problem. I can start thinking that pulling weeds from the fenced-in perimeter of our backyard is a hardship.

Of course there are exceptions but, for the most part, my literal neighbors are healthy and wealthy. So from my limited vantage point in the Southern suburbs, I have a hard time processing the gravity of a global pandemic. It feels disruptive, unsettling, possibly unnecessary, and hugely inconvenient. In the same way I go through most of my days and weeks not giving thought to the plight of the homeless or the helpless, I’m surrounded by so much comfort and convenience that I struggle to understand the needs and fears of the most vulnerable.

To be clear, I don’t think Jesus hates the suburbs. He surely isn’t surprised we have grouped ourselves together in this way. But he may grieve what the suburbs are doing to our sense of community and our awareness of need.

Ever since the coronavirus became newsworthy, I have noticed a sense of entitlement and privilege in the circles in which I live and move that scares me. In part, it’s scary because I can so quickly—if I haven’t done so already—slide into the same mindset. I don’t want school to be called off, travel plans to be disrupted, or special events to be cancelled. But, it’s incredibly easy to be blinded by privilege and numbed by distance. Maybe it’s human nature to think first of ourselves, to be partisan, to question authority, and to self-protect. But it’s not God’s nature. If we don’t genuinely care about the elderly and the weak (or the healthcare workers in harm’s way) because it inconveniences us to do so, are we really who we say we are as Christians?

We can’t yet know how COVID-19 will play out. But we can be sure of one thing. Our response to it or any other pandemic or national crisis that is particularly threatening to our society’s most vulnerable should be as much our problem as it is theirs. We are in this together. Because the elderly, the homeless, the immunocompromised, the sick, the under-resourced—they are our neighbors, too.

Of course there are people who make bad choices and must reap the consequences of doing so. But just because someone is unseen or unranked by society does not mean we get to un-neighbor them in the same way we can unfriend an acquaintance on social media. And just because I don’t live next door to or often interact with people who are barely making it, doesn’t mean I get to pretend they don’t exist.

I love the way Eugene Peterson reminds us in The Message how we are to view our strength (whether that be in the form of health, wealth, faith, or anything else that gives us a leg up on others).

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”

Romans 15:1-2

Whether it be in the days after a tornado rips through a neighboring region or the days and weeks before a virus threatens to disrupt our routines, my question—our question—can simply be, “How can I help?”

Strength is for service, not status.