Daily Dose of the Word of God - Beyond Sunday Ep. 103

Jeff Klein, Pastor of Outreach

Transcript

Jeff Klein  0:07  

Welcome to Elmhurst CRC's Daily Dose in the Word of God. It's Monday, November 3. This is Jeff Klein reminding you to take your faith out of your seat on Sunday and into the week.

Jeff Klein  0:18  

Among the Jews, the question of, "Who is my neighbor? Who am I responsible for?" cause endless dispute. This is probably still true today. Among Christians, Jesus always sought to broaden the definition beyond those who were the same as us. He included enemies, those who persecute and those with need. Jesus was basically saying that everyone you meet is your neighbor. So your neighbors are the people placed around you, people who are across the fence or across the street or even across the city! With the way the world is today, it probably even means we have neighbors across the oceans - being a neighbor means not ignoring someone across the world. Yet ironically, this good and broad understanding has somehow also simultaneously weakened our definition of neighbor. Neighbor has become too metaphorical. If everyone is our neighbor, no one really is in a very concrete way - no one is actually really responsible for anyone anymore. A broad understanding of neighbor has permitted us to ignore our literal neighbors. God has each one of us in a literal location with literal neighbors to literally love and serve. Who is your neighbor literally? How is Jesus asking you to impact your neighbo?

Jeff Klein  1:44  

Let's pray. Jesus, open our eyes, open our hearts to literally love our literal neighbors. In your name we pray, amen