“But she is my mom… Why does she reject me?” Cried a grown white man hidden under a white hospital blanket. I met the man only once and don’t remember much about him. But he was suffering far away from home and expressed his loneliness and desolation. I tried to see him later, but he never wanted to see me again and soon left the hospital.
It was a long time ago. I was still new to the chaplain training and was awkwardly navigating my way around raw human emotions of others and my own.
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” -Matthew 20:16
Neoliberal capitalism has warped our sense of self, to the point where we are cogs in the greater system, forced to move in the pattern that has been determined for us; ultimately, productivity is constantly demanded and any leisure or rest is considered a waste of time. The more you move, the more you grind. The more you grind, the more you produce. The more you produce, the more acceptable you are to society. We are groomed to always strive to be the best, no matter what the cost or the means.
This can come at the expense of others or even ourselves. This lifestyle is not only exhausting: it is not the life we are meant to live. Yes, we are meant to be stewards of our time and energy, to do the best we can with what we are given, but that doesn’t mean that we are to be worked so hard that we no longer know ourselves apart from the work we do or produce. What the world demands of us is not what God demands of us.
Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Luke 10:29: And who is my neighbor?
“Love” is a transitive verb that needs an object. I [subject] love [verb] my neighbor [object]. In speaking of love, all too often we look at the object to decide whether I should love it or not. Chocolates are yummy, therefore I love chocolates. Spiders are scary, therefore I do not love spiders.
In Luke 10, however, Jesus did not focus on the object of love. He did not define neighbor [the object of our love] as someone who is near us, therefore we should love him/her; nor did Jesus define neighbor as someone in need, thus giving reason for us to love. Instead, Jesus focused on the subject — “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (Luke 10:36)
The good Samaritan [subject] loves [verb] the man who fell among the robbers [object], making the man his neighbor by his love. That is exactly God’s love — “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). We were separated from God and we didn’t even know we were in need; yet God loves us, loving us to become not his neighbors next door but his own family, and the Spirit transforms us to be like Christ, making us to be lovely and lovable.
“Therefore sinners are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive.” (Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation [Thesis 28])
What a different outlook!
I admit that there are people whom I find difficult to love. But instead of crossing them off my “neighbor” list, there is a better way. God’s love is powerful and redeeming. It has power to soften my heart towards them, thus freeing me from the prison of selfishness to give myself to them. When I love them with God’s powerful and redeeming love, they become my lovely and lovable neighbors.
“God’s Love does not find, but creates, that which is loveable to it.” (Tuomo Mannermaa, Two Kinds of Love: Martin Luther’s Religious World [p1])
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Wendy became a Christian while attending Queen’s University in Canada. She graduated from Fuller Seminary in 2016 with an MA in Theology, and from Multnomah Biblical Seminary in 2023 with a DMin in Heart-based Spirituality and Christian Formation. Wendy lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters, and serves as a minister at Evangelical Chinese Church of Seattle.
I find myself buying my college friend Aaron’s little daughter’s clay-made jewelry. They’re clear across the country in Pennsylvania But we’re in touch Because her dad and I still connect Once a month To pray for Harvard 2004 alumni friends Who once were neighbors In Cambridge, Massachusetts 20 years ago.
”Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love…Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then ‘loving one another’ should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us.“
1 John 4:7, 11-12 TPT
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR
Call received. The next door neighbor, Her ring camera shows a package on the doorstep. Sure, I’ll get, hold it until her return.
Favor granted. Closing spoken. Her words flow, Naturally, sincerely and with ease, “I love you”. My attention captured, set back a bit, Heart touched.
Conscious pricked. Our first meeting over 25 years ago, Her son had died, she had a need, I had my intentions. Life happened, I did nothing. Action failed.
Conclusion reached. Never a time spent together, Yet, apparently my consistent prayers, greetings and respect. Because of God, suffice. Neighbors love.
Emi Iwanaga served thirteen years as a missionary in Amazon Valley in Brazil, over 20+ years as a children’s ministry director, women’s ministry director, and pastor’s wife, and is currently a spiritual director.
Learning that I was going to be reflecting upon “Loving Our Neighbor” for this week’s AAWOL blog brought back memories of hearing the telling of the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) in my Sunday School class. At a younger age, the message I received through this teaching is that as a Christian, I should always be prepared to help those in need. Perhaps it was my interpretation that “the one who had mercy on him” (Luke 10:36) equated mercy to help. I remember a surge of pride when I was able to help another student at school with homework, or when I assisted a different classroom with cleaning.
But pride is not to be mistaken for demonstrating a capacity of loving our neighbor. As I got older, and maybe with the assistance of more lived experience and more interactions with others, I realized that another message within the telling of the Good Samaritan is that we do not need to wait for someone to be in need before we help others, nor do we need to wait to show our care and love towards others.
In living for God, it is important to understand how to respond to the Holy Spirit’s invitation. A new year, 2024, just started. We should employ our best gift of Christmas, Jesus.
As I write I realize that the end of January means many well-intended resolutions will also end. Friends mentioned they were looking forward to February when the crowds lessen at their gyms. The desire to do something and stay with it, for many of us, is not just related to working out, balancing checkbooks, and housecleaning, which all falter without intention. Our spiritual life also begins to become inactive, quenching our intention to live by the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19).
As I reflect on the Spirit’s leading, I first think of some of the larger movements in my life. My marriage to my sweetheart when we were both just twenty-one and both still in university. My conviction to keep submitting my first book proposal in spite of rejection after rejection. The unexpected call to pastoral ministry that took me from not even thinking about being employed by the church to becoming curious and then excited about the new possibilities for service and learning. My resignation years later from my position as a full-time pastor to focus on my writing beyond the local congregation. I journalled, I prayed, I consulted with others, I sensed the leading of the Holy Spirit.
At other times, I’ve sensed the leading of the Spirit in smaller, more specific ways. Like suddenly feeling moved to pray for a friend in another part of the world. Or being prompted to call someone only to discover they were wanting to talk through a difficult situation. Or wrestling with a given scripture text that suddenly takes on new meaning for me. In these small and unexpected ways, there too I sense the Spirit’s leading.
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