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Community—Loving Thy Neighbor AND Thy Self November 6, 2005 The Reverend Heather Janules Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church Bethesda, Maryland In the Gospel of Matthew, it is written that “someone came to [Jesus] and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’…And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 19:16-19, New Revised Standard Version, abridged) To “love your neighbor as yourself;” easier said than done, if you ask me. As Jesus was an enigmatic man, a prophet who taught in vague language and strange parables, I cannot say with confidence what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.” But I can say that all too often there is an obvious need for stronger bonds between strangers, for more “neighborly love” in the world. Case in point: I learned the story of Arnold Abbot on the National Public Radio program This American Life. In 1991, Abbott founded a charity in Florida that supported the homeless. His center provided job training to those in need and served over a thousand meals a week. As this ministry was in the spirit of Jesus’ great commandment, Arnold Abbott named his charity “Love THY Neighbor.” However, there was a problem. Before Abbot started his charity, a minister in Michigan, Catherine Simms, also founded a center serving the homeless. Catherine Simms named her charity “Love YOUR Neighbor.” And she trademarked the phrases “Love Your Neighbor” and “Love Thy Neighbor.” When Catherine Simms found out about Arnold Abbott’s charity named “Love Thy Neighbor,” she asked him to change the name of his center. He refused—so she sued him, demanding that he turn over all his donations as she claimed that his charity diverted funds from hers. Abbott hired a lawyer to challenge the lawsuit. The lawyer cost $5,000, the equivalency of 13,000 meals at his shelter. (This American Life, 5/11/01, #184, “Neighbors.) I may not be able to say with confidence what it means to “love your neighbor” but I don’t think this story illustrates the practice. What would Jesus do? I doubt Jesus would take the homeless to court. Nor would he bankrupt the homeless to win a dispute over a name. I do have some ideas about how to respond to my neighbors. Growing up, I received clear instructions about neighbor relations, but these rules were from the secular world, from my hometown in New Hampshire. In case you have not spent much time with us Yankees, you should know that we are often a quiet—but not subtle—people. Any community that prints “Live Free or Die” on their license plates cannot be described as “subtle.” As you may have gathered, personal freedom is very important to citizens of the Granite State. But if there were room for an addendum on the New Hampshire license plate, every car would be emblazoned with “Live Free or Die” and “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors.” Growing up, I learned that personal freedom was critical but it could not interfere with anyone else’s freedom. “Be free – but keep it to yourself.” Growing up, I learned that we had a responsibility to respond to a neighbor’s emergency but the human impulse to say “hello” to the people around you certainly did not qualify as an emergency. I do not worry that I will be denied “eternal life” through minding an invisible fence between me and my neighbors. But I am concerned that by living life in this way, I miss opportunities for a meaningful life. I miss opportunities to grow and learn through the company of others. I miss opportunities to give of myself, to give my time and experience to those around me. Having found the value of community in the congregations I have joined, I know that “this American life” does not need to be one of isolation. I know that when two or more are gathered to form a community of mutual relationship, each individual—and the world they live in— are transformed. We can find another way. As I consider isolation in our society, I am mindful of the real challenges standing in the way of creating community, of the challenges that keep strangers as strangers. These challenges complicate relationships between people who live near one another. These challenges also interfere with our existing relationships and our very sense of belonging in the world. I am mindful of the lack of time we have in order to build and maintain relationships. In just the short time that I have been here, I have come to know this congregation as a gathering of people overworked, overscheduled, and sometimes overwhelmed with the frantic pace of modern life. With the demands of jobs, family responsibilities, even retirement activities, many of us do not have that rare commodity called “spare time.” One Cedar Lane member told me that the only time that she relaxes is during committee meetings at church. While she did not say anything to suggest that she was unhappy with her life, her hectic schedule is symbolic of the ways that we can be around people all day but still feel lonely, that we can be constantly full of activity but still feel empty. As I consider isolation in our society, I am mindful of the realities of declining health. I have come to know many in this congregation as people craving the company of others but unable to travel on their own. Without independent means of transportation, many are dependent on the generosity of friends to bring them place to place. Even in the best of circumstances, such an arrangement is not easy; in time those who can no longer drive sometimes fade from community life. And I am mindful of the myriad of lessons we learn about our place in community. In my childhood I learned that the best way to respect my neighbors was to keep my distance. Many of us learned other, more damaging lessons, lessons that told us that there was no place where we could be ourselves and be loved as that person. Perhaps we had the wrong ideas about God or the wrong politics or we got the message that, for some reason or another, we do not belong. This morning, I am mindful of those imprisoned by their own thinking, thinking that says that there is no place for them to know other people and to be known. I cannot say with confidence what it means to “love your neighbor.” Nor do I know how each one of us finds their way out of isolation. But, with faith in the power and value of community, I know that there is another way to live “this American life.” I know that, for each of us, there is a way to “love our neighbor” and, through these relationships, bring love to ourselves. Jesus taught in vague language and strange parables. But while parables are sometimes a frustrating way to understand an idea, I recently heard a story that serves as a modern parable of community relationships, a story I call “the parable of the baby monitor.” Beth Lisick and her husband moved into a rundown neighborhood outside of Los Angeles. Beth was not worried about living “on the other side of the tracks” as she had lived in difficult neighborhoods before. But she was worried about being a good neighbor as this was the first time she lived in a residential area with narrow streets and single-family homes. She worried about having what she called “real neighbors,” people who would expect her to “chitchat” and become part of neighborhood life. Beth took on the task of being a “real neighbor” with full force. She decided that the best way to learn how to be a “real neighbor” was to talk to everyone she met. She thought this plan was going well until she heard through neighborhood gossip that she was not known as the new, “friendly” neighbor but the new neighbor strange enough to make conversation with the local “crack heads” that wandered through their block. After learning of her reputation, Beth decided to be a “real neighbor” by keeping to herself. Things changed when she gave birth to her first child. Some babies sleep through the night. Her baby was not one of these babies so, desperate from a prolonged lack of sleep, Beth bought a book to help, “The No Cry Sleep Solution.” The proposed “no cry sleep solution” required detailed documentation of the baby’s activities— when he slept, when he woke and when he cried. And this required a baby monitor—a small walkie-talkie device placed by his crib so, through the receiver on her end, she could pay attention to his activities. One day, Beth was sitting by the baby monitor when she heard someone’s voice coming out of the speaker. “Yeah,” a man said, “I am standing outside of ‘the haters’ house.” As she heard this, she looked out the window and saw her neighbor’s grandson, a teenage hoodlum that everyone just called “Little Mo,” standing outside her house, talking on his cell phone. The monitor was picking up his conversation. “The haters,” if he was in front of her house, he was talking about her! She turned up the volume on the monitor. Little Mo finished his conversation, a drug deal, and then hung up. From then on, Beth was fascinated with Little Mo and his conversations, often switching channels on the baby monitor to listen in on his calls. Before this, she had avoided Little Mo. He was known to call women lewd names when they walked by. She was afraid of him and so she didn’t talk to him. Maybe that is why he called her “the hater.” By listening in on Little Mo’s conversations, Beth learned a lot about him. She learned that he doesn’t actually live next door with his grandmother; he just comes over and deals from her front porch. She also learned that someone in the family was very sick. “I told you Antoine was going to drive her,” Little Mo’s voice said over the monitor one day. “It’s the liver, the liver and the bones.” Beth guessed that it was Eunice, Little Mo’s grandmother, he was talking about. Her idea was confirmed the next day when she saw a crowd gather outside Eunice’s house. A car pulled up, blaring rap music. Slowly, Eunice came out of the house, looking frail in her purple jogging outfit. “Is this my chariot?” Eunice asked, gesturing at the car. Eunice notices Beth looking at the gathering from next door and waves at her. This catches the glare of Little Mo. “Is that your grandmother?” Beth asks. “Yeah,” he says. “She’s got cancer and she’s going in for chemo.” “Oh,” Beth replies, and goes back into the house. After that, Beth listens even more intently to Little Mo’s conversations, but only hears two more drug deals. Beth couldn’t stop thinking about the old woman next door, fighting cancer in this rundown neighborhood with most of her grandson’s attention going into his drug trade. Finally, Beth made Eunice some soup and waited until Little Mo left his perch so she could bring it over. Just when she thought he was gone, Little Mo noticed Beth coming towards Eunice’s house with the soup and came back to the porch. “What do you want?” “I made your grandmother some soup,” she said. Little Mo looked wary. Eventually he decides to let her in and introduces her to Eunice. “What is your name again?” he asks. “Hey, grandma, it’s the lady from next door.” The house is a mess, dirty dishes piled in the sink, the curtains pulled, clutter everywhere. Eunice invites her to sit down and share the soup with her. Beth brings food over a few more times; each time Eunice looks sicker and sicker. Eventually, Beth doesn’t wait for Little Mo to leave. He stops glaring at her when she comes closer. “What you got in the pan?” he asks. “Lasagna? Is that meat lasagna?” Beth stops listening to Little Mo’s phone calls. On the day that Eunice dies, people from all over the neighborhood come to her house to pay their respects to Little Mo. Beth is one of them, no longer the new neighbor who talks too much, no longer the neighbor who just keeps to herself. No longer “the hater.” (This American Life, 11/19/04, Episode 278, “Spies Like Us”) I do not know how each one of us finds their way out of isolation. But somewhere in this story of Beth and the baby monitor may be a solution. Despite dishonesty and bad behavior on all sides, community relationships form. They form through taking risks, through opening minds. It begins with listening. It begins with faith in the idea that we do not need to lead lives of isolation. It begins when we believe that we can find another way. In the short time that I have lived here, my neighbors have proven to me that they learned different lessons than I about how to respond to your neighbors. They organized a block party, complete with an inflatable “bounce house” for the kids. The couple next door hosted a housewarming party and invited the entire building. And I have come to these get-togethers, not out of obligation to tend to any emergency, but just to get to know those around me and to make myself known. For I believe that community has power but it does not happen on its own. Like all forms of love, it arises from our dreams and our decisions, from our listening and our risks. It arises when we look at a stranger—the stranger beside us or the stranger within us—and seek to see a friend. Let it begin with us. We can find another way. Amen. |
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist
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