Being Neighborly

A neighbor is more than just the people around you.  I went to a large high school in the suburbs of Detroit.  There were 435 people in my graduating class. So there were a lot of people around me that I just never knew.  One day in college, I met a girl in the library.  We were getting along pretty well and discovered that we were both in that graduating class, just never knew each other. It probably had something to do with our last names starting with vastly different letters.  There is more to being neighbors than just being around each other.

Of course being a neighbor is more than knowing each other too.  A friend once described being from a small town with "You don't need to know the person, just their business."  The idea of being a neighbor implies more than knowing who each other is, but rather it involves being there when the neighbor is in need.  

This idea of being a neighbor is what is described in the story of the Good Samaritan.  A person is robbed, beat up and left in a ditch.  People pass by and ignore him. That includes those from his town, the town leaders and priests.  It was the traveler from Samaria, a looked down on people, that stepped up and helped the injured man.

Watch this clip from Pastor Lowell.

Jesus said to love our neighbors as our selves.  Being neighborly is showing love to those around us is such a way that the love of Christ is shown through us. That is what it means to be neighborly.