Love Your Neighbor: Mid-Week Reflection

EMILY RUTLEDGE, YOUTH MINISTER

“Love your neighbor as yourself” –Matthew 22:39

On Tuesday my neighbor carried my flailing and screaming two year old off her porch where he had once again made himself at home with their toys as she wrangled her own children to head to swim lessons. When he continued to throw a massive fit she just laid him in the grass and giggled. In many situations I would have been mortified by my poorly behaved son but in this situation I was able to roll my eyes, pick up my ridiculous child, and head into or house. It was just another day in the neighborhood.

For most of my life I took ‘loving your neighbor’ in the universal way that we are taught in school and church. Everyone is your neighbor. The implications for that are beautiful and powerful. Each major religion of the world has a ‘love your neighbor’ tenant to it. The challenge and unity that comes with the universality of loving your neighbor could, in theory, if taken seriously, change the entire landscape of our world.

Never having grown up in a neighborhood the everyday reality of loving your ACTUAL neighbor was lost on me. Until, three years ago, when we moved into our home. In the past my community has always been church and the gym (seriously, the gym is a pretty amazing community). Yet, when we moved, community and my understanding of it flipped. See, these neighbors, they don’t just get one part of me. They don’t see minister Emily or gym Emily. Mom Emily or wife Emily. They see it all. Tired, sweaty, excited, yelling at my kids, loving my kids, being a happily married person, an annoyed married person, sick, hungry, sad, and everywhere in between. They have been there for the home improvement mishaps and moving my mom into assisted living. They have seen me at my very best and my very worst. They have seen me taking the trash out in my pjs and driving away at 8:30pm for an emergency DQ Blizzard. There is not much you can hide from your neighbors. That’s always the truth but something magical can happen when you choose to then love them and be loved in return: community. The kind that picks up your screaming kid and doesn’t flinch. The ones that ask about how important meetings went last week. The ones that you can call when you have the stomach flu to leave saltines on your front porch.

When we love our universal neighbor we are often loving ideas and differences. When we love our next door neighbor we are loving a person. Flawed, complex, and seeing us the same way. And what a blessing it is to be loved in that way.

Filled with the Spirit: Mid-Week Reflection

THE REV. DAVID M. STODDART

"Be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). This admonition from Paul, always relevant, seems especially apt in this week after Pentecost, when we remember the Holy Spirit raining down on those first believers like fire and inspiring such joy and energy within them. Of course we want that! The desire to be filled with the Spirit has marked authentic Christian faith for two thousand years. And here’s the good news:

We already have it.

The Holy Spirit is already within us. All that she promises is already ours to grasp: energy, joy, peace, and, above all, love. As Paul writes to the Romans: God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Rom. 5:5).

Because this is true, we can hear the call to be filled with the Spirit in a new way. It does not mean that we need to keep asking God to come to us and give us the Spirit: God has done that and will continue to do that because it is the very nature of God to give himself away in love. What it means is that we can begin to let that Spirit infuse every aspect of our being. I’m not being pious here, as if being filled with the Spirit means talking churchy language and thinking churchy thoughts all day. Rather I am being real: God is the Reality that enfolds us every moment of every day. God is just as much in our workplaces and our bedrooms as God is in our church, always seeking to lead us to greater wholeness and more abundant life. So let God be part of it all: ask the Spirit into that difficult meeting; sit with the Spirit while you sit in traffic; surrender to the Spirit all that feels most hurtful and negative, all the fears and resentments that hobble us. Allow God to be God in all circumstances—and not just when we are feeling religious on a Sunday morning.

Quite simply, we do not need more of the Spirit: the Spirit needs more of us. To be filled with the Spirit is to open ourselves up more and more to the Love which already lives within us. We can do that anywhere and anytime. You can do it right now.

Pray for Me: Mid-Week Reflection

THE REV. KATHLEEN M. STURGES

Several months ago I met a friend for coffee. We caught up on each other’s lives and before we parted he asked me to keep him in prayer about some specific obstacle he was facing in his life. He then asked me, “How can I pray for you?” I don't remember exactly what was going on in my life at that time, but no doubt there were some stressors, worries or concerns that I could have easily trotted out for prayer. But for some reason, instead of giving a quick answer I paused to really consider what I’d like this Christian friend of mine to pray for. I recognized that although I wanted my current worries to be fixed, that even if God did that and I could check them off the list they would quickly be replaced by new concerns.

I liken it to my experience of pulling weeds. On the rare occasion that I invest the time and effort to clean up the flower bed in front of my house I find it only takes a few days, perhaps a week, before more weeds sprout. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, but the reality of life is that, like a garden, it is often full of beauty
and weeds at the same time.

So instead of asking for prayer for God would pull whatever current weeds were sprouting in my life, I asked instead that I might be an open and welcoming recipient of God’s peace. For I was trusting that with that peace there would come the necessary tools like wisdom, courage, patience, thanksgiving, etc., that would help me address the pressing situation of the day.

I am reminded of Jesus and his disciples on their last night together. Upon telling the disciples that he is leaving and their understandable response of anxiety, questions and concerns, Jesus gives them a gift that will carry them through all the trials and tribulations in their near and distant future Peace. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid" (John 14:27). We are recipients of that same peace. The peace of God which passes all understanding sustains us and carries us through whatever the day might bring. It’s a peace that roots us in God’s great hope, love and goodness enabling us to deal with the weeds that naturally crop up in our garden of life.

So ask me how you can pray for me and depending on the moment I may give you a laundry list of specific needs and concerns I want you to ask God to fix, thank you very much. However, the greater gift and the ultimate answer to all of our prayers is that we might be filled with God’s peace. And infused by that peace we will be more than able to live and flourish amidst both the beauty and the weeds.

May the peace of the Lord be always with you.