What is the primary enemy of the church in her mission to be a community of reconciliation? As Arthur Brooks points out in the New York Times, its an enemy common to us all: Contempt, or the “unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.” What would it look like for the church to begin taking her view of the “other” from Scripture- that all mankind, though fallen, is also made in the image of God- instead of from the politics of the moment?
Trendy Neighborliness
Neighborliness is trendy, I get it. Everything from yard signs to pub names to children's shows tells us we ought to be neighborly. But why do it? What is the fuel in tank of neighborliness? What motivates neighborliness beyond a desire for social media affirmation? Can our fuel for neighborliness sustain us when loving our neighbor becomes a risky, costly activity? It must, if we are followers of Jesus:
“We should not regard what man is and what he deserves: but we should go higher- that it is God who has placed us in the world for such a purpose that we be united and joined together. He has impressed his image in us and has given us a common nature, which should incite us to providing one for the other. The man who wishes to exempt himself from providing for his neighbors should deface himself and declare that he no longer wishes to be a man, for as long as we are human creatures we must contemplate as in a mirror our face in those who are poor, despised, exhausted, who groan under their burdens... If there comes some barbarian, since he is a man, he brings a mirror in which we are able to contemplate that he is our brother and our neighbor: for we cannot abolish the order of nature which God has established as inviolable.”