We have great neighbours. And they think we’re okay too.
A couple of years ago Helen and I went to the birthday party of the wife of the couple next door on our south side. About 40 guests; family, friends and neighbours gathered in the large entertaining area of another neighbour’s house for the occasion.
The guest of honour’s speech was very thoughtful and clever. Every guest was singled out with an affirming and gently humorous comment or story. We were the first to get a mention:
It’s nice to have David and Helen here. They are such good neighbours; friendly and so quiet you wouldn’t know they were there (pause), because most of the time they aren’t (mild outbreak of laughter around the room).
Is that what makes a good neighbour? The ones you rarely see, barely hear, have precious little time to engage with and even less opportunity to be annoyed by? Is a good neighbour the ‘absent’ neighbour?
In 2014 our Diocese is engaging in an initiative called ‘Jesusbrings’. Under a common theme parishes across the Diocese are being encouraged to beef up their efforts to make the message of Jesus known to their communities. Every old and new lesson learnt about the most culturally appropriate way of bringing the life and culture transforming message of the gospel to our society will be pressed into service.
Through the ‘Mission Areas’, ideas have and will be shared. Where appropriate, resources will be pooled and strategic efforts combined across churches to maximize the impact of communicating the greatest news in history.
So how will we help our neighbour hear and consider the claims of the Lord Jesus about himself and on their life?
Yearn for your neighbour
‘Jesusbrings’ exists because Sydney Anglicans yearn for their neighbour’s salvation. We want all the good that life has to offer for ourselves and those we are connected to by blood, bedroom, boardroom and back-fence.
If we want the good, we will want, desire and yearn for the greatest good and that good is all the gifts that Jesus brings through his Lordship, his judgement-bearing death and his victorious resurrection; forgiveness, hope, assurance, the gift of the Holy Spirit, spiritual family, living with purpose and even the joy and privilege to suffer for our King and what is true and right (1 Peter 2:21 and 3:14).
Are we yearning for our neighbour? Are we reduced to tears when we reflect on the plight of those who are living as ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’ (Philippians 3:18)?
Is this our heart’s desire, or at least high on the list of our heart’s desires?
Pray for your neighbour
Are we praying for the salvation of our neighbours? It’s hard to imagine yearning for it and not praying for it.
Decades ago I was invited to speak at a week-long series of meetings in a small rural community in a remote part of Australia. There were 250 men women and children in this area girt by sea on two sides and girt again by a river and a mountain range on the other two sides.
Active little Baptist and Brethren congregations pooled their resources and asked me to help them bring the gospel to their neighbours. I stayed in the modest two-bedroom home of the secretary of the Baptist church, a wonderful Christian lady whose husband was housebound and mostly bed-bound.
At about 5am one morning I headed for the bathroom on the other side of the house. In the darkness I noticed my host in a corner of the living room by the large picture window catching the morning’s first light, on her knees, bending over a large piece of white card-board with a picture on it. I noticed, on closer inspection, that there was a red cross drawn on the card-board and around the cross were the names of all the 250 men women, boys and girls who lived in the district.
This lady yearned and prayed for her neighbour’s salvation, daily.
Love your neighbour
How will we do that?
Firstly, remember that we are uniquely placed to love our neighbour with Christ-like love. We are in the ’hood, not by accident, but because our Sovereign God has purposely placed us there. Serve them. Have them in for meals. Bake for them. Follow up on matters of concern they have shared with you. Make time for them and let’s not hide behind the excuse that we are too busy. Do the translation if you are applying this to your work neighbours.
Secondly, let’s enjoy our neighbour’s friendship. Share our lives, with it’s joys and sorrows with them. Listen to them. Try and take up less than a third of the verbal space with them. Demonstrate to them that we are a contented person by not complaining, gossiping or grumbling about life and other people. Go to neighbourhood things, and after-work stuff.
Thirdly, let’s work out ways of being the best neighbour our neighbours could ever wish to have. Don’t just be a receiver and don’t just be a giver either. Be a giver and a receiver. Let them be kind to you as you seek to be to them but more of a giver than a receiver. Go the extra mile.
Fourthly, remember that we are one of our neighbour’s best and few chances to hear the gospel. When will we tell them? How will we tell them? What will they hear from us?
If we are not God’s voice to them, who will be?
I have been challenged lately by these words by C. H. Spurgeon:
If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped around their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.
Sunday 2nd February has been designated as the day to pray for the 'Jesus brings' campaign. See more details here
Download the Archbishop's video to show in churches here
Feature photo: squirmelia
