and who is my neighbour? (part 2)

The stories I gave in the last post are simple examples of our church communities trying to discover natural ways of demonstrating expressions of Kingdom principles. The focus is around promoting a practical commitment to neighbourliness, which is rooted in the sake of a commitment to neighbourliness itself – rather than neighbourliness as an aperitif for a main course of more self-conscious (and often up-tight) evangelism. This is justice and hospitality etc. for justice and hospitality’s etc. sake. In the process of doing neighbourliness, principles of building God’s Kingdom here on earth (now) are employed. These principles subvert a more traditional and obvious approach to mission. It’s about developing models of mission for people who don’t do mission, church for people who don’t go to church.

When Jesus was asked by a smart-alec lawyer, “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29), he was really asking, “Where, within the boundaries of those with whom I naturally have something to do, does my responsibility end?” So, he was actually trying to get a theoretical and technical definition that would absolve him from having to do anything with people who fell outside of the definition of ‘neighbour’. But Jesus was ruthless with him by telling the parable of the Samaritan (note that nowhere in the text is the Samaritan referred to as ‘good’). And a Jewish lawyer hated nobody with as much venom as he hated a Samaritan. At the end of Jesus’ parable, in verse 36, he asks the lawyer, “Which….do you think was a neighbour…?” The lawyer must concede that the neighbour was the Samaritan because of what he did. Jesus challenges the lawyer to, “Go and do likewise”. In other words, be like the Samaritan, a doer of God’s word, not just a theoretician about God’s word.

So, who is my neighbour? Neighbours are doers of God’s word. They should of course, include those of us who say that we are followers of Jesus, committed to living fully alive, shalom-like ways that bring resonances of heaven here on earth. But they can also include the most unlikely ones who, by their concrete actions in everyday life, demonstrate the principles of the Kingdom of God. Let me encourage you to be a good neighbour for the sake of our community – a community that God loves.

and who is my neighbour? (part 1)

What a question to ask these days! For those who live in Walthamstow, I’m sure you’ll have noticed the banners that the Council has provided that say, “225,000 people, 1 community”. The idea of the banners is to remind us that we are all in this Borough together, and so we have to (and the idea is that we are saying that we want to) live together as good neighbours. The banners come as a direct response to the recently publicised arrests of suspected terrorists plotting to blow up aeroplanes en route from Heathrow. Some of those terrorists were arrested in Walthamstow. Did any of us know them as neighbours? And how many of us really know our neighbours anyway, as a matter of course?

St. Luke’s continues the process of following God into the High Street, trying to discover what God is doing there that they may be able to join in with. During one Sunday morning in the summer, I led some of St. Luke’s congregation into a local café for breakfast. The owner very kindly agreed to us being there as a church to meet and discuss issues of mission, and explore another way of meeting as a church on a Sunday morning. A mutual sense of neighbourliness was experienced by both parties that left a good taste in the mouth (literally!).

But neighbourliness is not ‘risk-free’. Over the summer I got to know some of our neighbours a bit better as a result of an unfortunate incident with someone that I and the parish had tried to be neighbourly to and help, but who took liberties in a most disagreeable fashion. Our local neighbours were only too willing to help us in any way they could, and I felt blessed and comforted by them.

Again, over the summer, St. Mary’s was awarded a substantial grant from the Local Heritage Initiative to fund the new ‘Open Village Project’. The Open Village Project aims to create and sustain vibrant local engagement with the heritage of the Walthamstow village area. The project aims are to involve those residents already interested in their local heritage and to reach out to and actively encourage the rest of the community to take part in research and celebration. Open days and ‘School encounters’ will provide physical access to the project. An interactive website which will be linked to other local websites will also be produced and information boards will be sited around the area. In order to ensure community inclusion the group will engage 4 community development workers to work with groups on 4 specific themes including multicultural and social development. I will be chairing a group of neighbourhood partners to deliver the Project over the next two years.

In September this year, I was invited by the Metropolitan Police’s Safer Neighbourhood Team of the Hoe Street Ward to be part of their newly formed Neighbourhood Panel. The Big Idea behind the Panel is to get about a dozen people who represent the diversity of the Ward, and as partners to assess and express local concerns as identified through community engagement and analysis in order to establish priorities for policing in the Safer Neighbourhood area. The Panel will be meeting bi-monthly for two years so that good community relations and accurate and effective policing can take place. But its not just about policing, its about getting different players in the Ward to become closer neighbours who understand one another and work better at creating a neighbourly environment.