Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Good Morning Friends,
Yesterday’s lectionary was on love and todays includes table etiquette in the Kingdom and conforming to the unity of God in community…something during election time that seems very far removed from the norm and especially so with the recent violent attacks at a synagogue shooting in Squirrel Hill. These things though are connected, for where love is, so too is unity and the work of extending the circle of who are neighbors are. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Scripture: If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:1-4 (NRSV)
He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Luke 14:12-14 (NRSV)
Message: The sermon on Sunday pointed out what has been in social media and that is the interesting fact that Mister Rogers, the Presbyterian minister and former children’s program host on the PBS channel, was from the same community outside of Pittsburgh as the place of the recent massacre of a worshipping Jewish community there. In fact, the violence took place in the late Fred Rogers neighborhood. The event has recalled this saying of Fred Rogers:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'” Friends, if we focus on the needs of others, and the fellowship of believers, we will have little time for our selfish, self-serving desires. Yes, we are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Our Lord set the table for this work and the example of repeatedly humbly serving others. He had us in mind as He bore our sin and endured in our place on the cross for Jews and Gentiles as well. He was not there for His benefit, but for all of us. And if we love God, it only seems logical that we would want to glorify Jesus by emulating this Way.
Pray we live and love as our Lord. Pray we love our neighbors as ourselves. Pray we realize the importance of unity in any community. Pray we embrace the practical and relevant truth and lasting value of unity and its connection with love. Pray we share a common vision and work together toward fulfilling the work we have been given. Pray we bring our needs to Jesus. Pray we realize that Christ alone can provide the wisdom and inculcate in us the desire to walk together in unity. Pray we realize that a house divided cannot stand.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 