December 27, 2015 – John 1:1-18
John 1:1-18
An Increasing Neighbourliness
First Sunday of Christmas – December 27, 2015
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
I have said before that this is John’s version of the Christmas story.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.
And the word became flesh and lived among us.
Or, as I never tire of telling you, literally what John says is that
the Word pitched his tent among us.
Became one of us.
Took on our lot.
Bore our difficulties.
Got to know what it’s like to be a human being from the inside.
I have also said before that I love how Eugene Peterson translates this line:
The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood.
Christmas, for John, is about God moving into the neighbourhood.
The good news for John is that in Jesus God moves into our neighbourhood.
And gets to know us.
And cares for us.
And be neighbourly to us.
Jesus invites us to do as he does: love your neighbour as yourself!
But just ask Jesus how hard it is to love your neighbours. He knows a thing or two about it.
We learn in Christ what it means to love our neighbour.
He enters into our lives, into our ordinary lives, lives filled with isolation and distress.
Lives filled with imbalance and imperfection.
And seeks to be . . . neighbourly.
He seeks to abide with us, remain with us, pitch his tent with us.
He doesn’t care what our income is, he doesn’t care what we look like.
He doesn’t care how successful we are.
He’s seeking to make friends of strangers.
As the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman has said,
God in Christ seeks to reorient this whole world towards increasing neighbourliness.
Toward increasing community.
That is God’s project.
That is God’s mission.
I said on Christmas Eve that Christian life is not rocket science.
We receive gifts, we give gifts.
One of the gifts we receive from God is neighbourliness.
Intimacy. Closeness. Care. Friendship. Sustenance. Food for the journey.
God gives the gift of neighbourliness in Christ,
and God invites us to give the gift of neighborliness.
God becomes our very close neighbour in Christ.
Moves into our neighbourhood.
Gets to know us – perhaps too intimately!
When the Psalmist says, Where can I flee from your presence:
if I ascend to the heights of heaven you are there;
if I descend to the depths of Sheol you are there –
when the Psalmist says that it is good news, of course.
There is nowhere you can go, and there is nothing that can happen to you,
where you will be without God’s presence.
But there is also a note of uncomfortableness in what the Psalmist say, I think.
Like, “Okay! Wherever I go there you are! I can’t get away from you!
There is just no escaping you!”
God, I suppose, is annoying like that.
God as neighbour is nosey and wants to know all about you.
What you do for a living.
And how you spend your free time.
And what you do with your money.
And who your friends are.
And what you want to do with your life.
God as neighbour wants to know what brings you joy.
And God as neighbour wants to know what your griefs are, where your pain is,
what hopes have gone unfulfilled, and what keeps you awake at night.
God is a nosey neighbour.
But God is a caring neighbour, because God loves you.
And God loves the neighbourhood of this world, its light places as well as its dark places.
And God wants to orient this whole world toward increasing neighbourliness,
and increasing care, and increasing compassion.
God gives the gift of neighbourliness in Christ,
and God invites us to give the gift of neighborliness.
At First Lutheran Church we’ve really reconnected with our neighbourhood here at
Sargent and Victor.
We’ve sought to become increasingly neighbourly.
And to do our part in orienting this community towards increasing neighbourliness.
If Christmas is the time that we recall that in Christ God comes among us and
moves into our neighbourhood,
then it’s totally appropriate to reflect on how God has moved into
this neighbourhood through us,
especially in light of our recent Community Meal Christmas Dinner.
On December 16th the Food Bank and Community Meal Volunteers hosted our
annual Christmas Dinner.
And to me, that was Christmas.
It was sort of a Christmas miracle: we fed a hundred people!
The food, for sure, was kind of miraculous:
4 turkeys, 3 hams, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, potato salad,
Cranberry sauce – all beautifully served by some of our youth.
But to me what the real miracle was was this:
for the first time in 15 years, I really felt like our congregation is a real and
vital part of this neighbourhood.
Like First Lutheran Church is part of the very fabric of this community rather than
a little doo-dad that’s been appliqued on.
I asked Kelly Speak – who began the food bank years ago – if she had the same feeling.
And she said, “Oh! Totally! We knew all the people – and they knew us!”
It was very gratifying and I told many people that to me, that was Christmas.
And I think I said that because I felt like Jesus and his love were borne there.
In the hospitality of our volunteers.
In the serving of food by our youth.
In the neighbourliness of all the people.
Something was born there that wouldn’t exist without First Lutheran Church.
A neighbourliness born of Christ,
who comes to make neighbours of us all.
Whose love is borne only and always in the flesh of hospitality.
Whose grace is borne in the flesh of his people.
Who comes to reorient this world towards increasing neighbourliness.
It takes a long time to be a good neighbour and to see the results of your neighbourliness.
15 years in this case! And there is still so much to do.
It has taken your commitment, and your patience, and your perseverance, and your hope.
But you have reoriented this community towards an increased neighbourliness.
I am so grateful for this church and its ministries which you support so generously.
I am so grateful for your commitment to God and God’s mission to
move this often alienated world towards increasing neighbourliness.
Come to the table and see again how God moves into our neighbourhood,
comes to this table at Sargent and Victor, offers you the gift of hospitality,
and moves into the neighbourhood of your body,
that you might bear the gifts of neighbourliness through it,
and participate with God in God’s mission to
reorient this whole world towards increasing neighbourliness.
For the word became flesh – and moved into the neighbourhood.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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