Thursday, October 18, 2012

Neighborhoods

Sometimes Chicago is referred to as the “city of neighborhoods.” Ethnic groups cluster together. We have Chinatown and Greektown. There is a section of Chicago where many of the store names and advertising copy is in Spanish. Another section is in Polish. In fact, Chicago has the largest number of Polish people of any city in the world outside of Warsaw, Poland. I once went to assist a church in the city where most of the people in the neighborhood were recent immigrants from Africa.

We tend to gather near people who are like us. It makes sense when you think about it. If you move here from a foreign country, wouldn’t you try to find people who looked like you, spoke your language, understood your customs and honored your culture?

Churches reflect the same human tendency. When people move to a new city they often try to find a church of the same denomination, or similar style as the one they attended in their previous home.

We like to hang out with people like us; people who share our interests, our values, our culture, our perspectives. It makes us comfortable, and we like being comfortable.

Interestingly, the founder of our faith, Jesus, did just the opposite. He sought out people who were unlike him. He befriended the friendless. He loved the unlovely. He embraced the outcast. He purposely engaged people He wasn’t supposed to engage.

John records a story in his 4th chapter of Jesus taking his disciples through Samaria and stopping for water at a well there. So? Well, Jews didn’t mix with Samaritans. In fact, even though going through Samaria could cut a day or two out of your travel, Jews refused to even walk through Samaria. Not Jesus.

He stopped at a watering hole and engaged a Samaritan woman in conversation. She had two strikes against her that were obvious. She was a Samaritan and a woman. Jewish religious leaders didn’t talk to Samaritans and men didn’t talk to strange women, or women at all for that matter.

It gets worse than that. German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way:

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.”

Jesus intentionally sought out people who were unlike Him and even befriended His enemies! This is not my natural tendency. We distance ourselves from people we perceive as enemies.  Evangelicals from “mainline”, conservative from liberals, Protestants from Catholics, Cubs fans from White Sox fans!

I want to be like Jesus. Which means that I have to fight my natural tendencies and intentionally embrace people who are unlike me.

That’s hard to do in the city of neighborhoods.


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