Brent Newberry Second Sunday of Easter Wilshire Baptist Church 26 April 2015 Third(A) in a series Walking in the Light Dallas, Texas Am I My Neighbor s Keeper? 1 John 3:11-24; John 10:11-18 When I was a kid, my little brother and I would play with our friends around the neighborhood. We d play basketball or baseball or reenact our favorite action movies from the 80s and early 90s. You ve really got to hear kids trying to imitate Arnold Schwarzenegger s accent. But I remember one sport that my little brother and I tried our hands at that got us into trouble with our parents and our friends parents. My brother and I started a boxing tournament. Now before you blame my parents for getting us boxing gloves in the first place, I remembered this week that these mischievous Christmas presents were actually gifts from my older brother. Seems like something a big brother would do. Well, this boxing got us into big trouble when people started going home for supper with bloody noses and black eyes. It was a very short boxing circuit. And all I remember my mom saying is that there would be no more boxing because God frowns on you killing your brother. Thou shalt not kill is one of those Christian mandates that we ve seemed to do a better job at than others. I mean, I think it s safe to say that nearly all of us, and I m hoping all of us, are good on this one. So it strikes me as a little odd that the author of 1 John, in describing what life as a follower of Jesus looks like, starts here with this obvious command not to murder like Cain did. Of course, you remember the story of Cain and Abel. They were the other brotherly duo who tried to kill each other, except that it was really only Cain who tried and succeeded at killing his little brother. In his hatred, in his non-love, Cain killed his brother Abel. And it s this question that Cain poses to God when he s confronted with the guilt of his actions. Am I my brother s keeper? And perhaps the most interesting part of the story to me is that we don t ever get an answer to Cain s question. It just hangs there while Cain is exiled away from his family and home. It's really this question that haunts the narrative of humanity. Are we our neighbor's keeper? Are we in this thing for ourselves or for others? Cain took a survival of the fittest approach to answering the question. He achieved
and tried to eliminate his competition. He didn't leave room for much grace. Instead he was consumed with himself which only left room for envy, competition and hatred. For Cain, the answer was no, I m not my neighbor s keeper. Take a quick look at a history book or take a quick survey of the news and you ll see that we re still struggling with this question. Or maybe we find ways to work around such a moral obligation; like those nations before us, maybe we try to parse the issue by limiting who are our neighbors. But if we learn anything from this text, from the life and teachings of Jesus, from the Spirit at work today, it s that we are all created in God s image and we are all, therefore, children of God and as such, we are all neighbors. Am I my neighbor s keeper? If you follow Jesus, then the answer is absolutely. Because while the narrative of humanity is bent toward violence and self-preservation just like Cain, the arc of God s story continues to bend toward life and reconciliation. So these words of 1 John are extremely important and no less challenging for us today. Maybe we know that we are to be our neighbor s keeper, but perhaps for us in this room this morning, our question isn t are we our neighbor s keeper?, but how do we become our neighbor s keeper? The author of 1 John lays it out for us: To love your neighbor, to be your neighbor s keeper, you must not take his or her life; instead you must give life. If you re going to be your neighbor s keeper, for starters you can t be your neighbor s killer. Again, I think we have this part down pat, right? Except, what if we don t? Don t read the word murder as simply a literal death. The real words to focus on here are not just life and death but love and hatred, because for the author, love equals life and hatred equals death. Cain was motivated by hatred, by his self-preservation. And it led to his brother s death. But in many ways we could say that Cain died that day, too, forced to live the remainder of his life in exile, alienated, isolated, forgotten. And herein lies the challenge for us as American Christians. Our dominant culture espouses a life of dreams and manifest destiny, that we can have whatever we desire, as long as we work hard enough. It s a lofty sentiment. And in no way am I saying that we shouldn t be thankful for the freedoms we have. But the challenge for us as Christians is that we can get caught up in that same mindset, too. It s seemingly innocent 2
enough to pursue our dreams and strive after goals. But what tends to happen, is that the more we strive and pursue and dream, the more we become consumed with ourselves and furthering our own agendas. When that happens, when we begin to look more deeply into ourselves, we start to lose sight of those around us, and, especially, those on the margins. Unwittingly, unintentionally, indifference can creep in for the needs of others and we can develop an apathy for injustice. Before long, these can become symptoms of the atrophy of our faith. We don t set out to literally kill or harm anyone, but when we become consumed by our desires to achieve, succeed and impress, we are much more likely to forget the pain and needs of others. Out of sight, out of mind. When those who are in need are no longer in our minds, we have shifted into a worldview that contributes to their alienation, isolation, and forgottenness. We must not take life from our neighbors. This reminds me of a scene in one of my all-time favorite movies Back to the Future. With all the movies from the 80s making a comeback, I m still holding out hope that Back to the Future makes it back to the future, as well. Anyway, there s this moment near the end when Marty McFly is up against the clock, literally, 30 years in the past, and he s trying to find a way to get his parents to fall in love or else he and his siblings will disappear, having never existed. There s some complicated science fiction that I don t have time to get into, but he has a photograph with him in the past, and as time ticks away, his siblings in the picture start to disappear, a tangible example of their never having existed. He starts to disappear himself, and well, you probably know that he succeeds in the end and all is well. (There were two sequels, after all.) His parents fall in love and he and his siblings end up existing in the future. When I think about today s text, I can t help wondering if how I m living makes some people s lives fade away as if they never existed; they remain forgotten on the margins. Am I my neighbor s keeper or am I keeping life from him or her? Just like we must not take life, the text goes on to tell us that we must give life; we give life by giving our own. We must die to our self-absorbed ways of life, our narcissistic tendencies, this way of seeing the world that misses those in need and forgets those on the margins of society. When we lay down our lives, we begin to consider the lives and stories and needs of others and not just our own. When we lay down our lives, we make time to enter into relationships with people who are different than us and discover that we learn more about God when we see 3
God in others. When we lay down our lives, we embody a love and generosity that reaches beyond ourselves to those in need. It s all so paradoxical, really. We lay down our lives to give life to others. Yet in the process of dying to ourselves, we find real life. It s the way of Christ. It s the way of resurrection. This week the residents went to the DMA with Wilshire s own Mike Hill. We had a private session with Mike and we discussed Michäel Borreman s artwork. There was one piece in which two boys were holding a deceased rabbit, and in our discussion, the idea came up that in painting this rabbit, it lived on even though it had died. It was a resurrection of sorts. It was given a new life in the recreated and retold story on canvas. When we begin to see others and not just ourselves, when we remember them, advocate for them and empower them to do the same, we begin to recreate and retell their stories and breathe life into theirs. By standing in solidarity with those in exile from poverty, racial discrimination, gender inequality, religious oppression or any other sort of exile, we might get messy or even come out bearing a few wounds ourselves, but these wounds of solidarity are marks that announce new life. We keep our neighbors when we keep them among us, in mind and body. The part of the story we might not remember very well about Cain is that after he was cast out, he feared for his life. And this beautiful moment of mercy comes forth from God. From that point forward, God protects Cain from being killed by giving him a mark. It signified to others not to kill him because he was God s. So often we see that mark as a stigma, and I m sure it was in some ways. Cain bore on him a scar, a mark that reminded him, every time he saw it, of the story of Abel and a life taken too soon. And yet from that mark, from that wound, from that scar, Cain found life--god s grace of a new beginning. Shane Claiborne, in his book Irresistible Revolution, recounts an encounter he had with Mother Teresa when he lived and worked alongside her one summer in Calcutta. He says that people often asked him what she was like. Did she glow in the dark or have a halo? He said, She was short, wrinkled and precious, maybe even a little ornery, like a beautiful, wise granny. But he adds that there was one thing he d never forget, and that was that her feet were deformed, like she had had leprosy herself or something. One day he learned the story from one of the sisters. She said that they get just enough shoes for everyone, and Mother doesn t want anyone to get 4
stuck with the worst pair, so she digs through and finds those. It was years of wearing bad shoes that deformed her feet. 1 That is laying down your life for your neighbor. She kept sight of those on the margins by joining them on the margins. In keeping them close, she was her neighbor s keeper. And in laying down her life, she bore the scars and the wounds and the marks that announced that she was right there with them. She brought new life. So I ask you this morning, where are your scars, your marks, your wounds that retell the stories of those with whom you re standing in solidarity? Those voices you ve heard and the stories you ve told. Those lives you ve tried to empower to have abundant life. If you are your neighbor s keeper, then you, too, are carrying burdens and bearing scars, wounds, marks and stories that signal that you are with them. They announce that you are bringing life by dying to your own. In this season of Easter, we proclaim the good news that Christ is alive and so are we. Not alive to ourselves, but alive to the way of Christ. And that way is a way of light and a way of love. A love that doesn t take life but a love that gives life. A love that doesn t exclude our neighbors or force them out, but a love that keeps them close. Am I my neighbor s keeper? Yes. But will you ask yourself the daring question: Am I being my neighbor s keeper? 5 1 Shane Claiborne, Irresistible Revolution.