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.
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.
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