I lived in a great neighborhood. It was rural but very responsive. A neighbor’s needs took precedence over our own personal schedules. No matter how important the job we were engaged in was, a plume of smoke from a neighbor’s farm brought dozens of friends with shovels, rakes, and other fire-fighting equipment. Sickness brought many visitors with food and flowers and prayers. During a crisis, neighbors dropped everything, lending a hand until the crisis had passed. An approaching hurricane meant we all pitched in to get the crops in as quickly as possible, working night and day until all the neighbors’ crops were safe. 

     Today, we live in neighborhoods, but most of us don’t even know our next-door neighbor. There are alarming stories about beatings and muggings that have taken place, while neighbors stood by, passively watching, not wanting to get involved. Often the glue of neighborhoods is poverty or prejudice. We have racial neighborhoods, economic neighborhoods, and religious neighborhoods. We tend to gather around those most like us and build walls between those different from us. 

     There is a familiar biblical text that defines neighbors and neighborhoods: 
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”  And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”  And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
    But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Luke 10:25-37 (ESV)

It is obvious from this text that the hero is the Samaritan and that Jesus is the ultimate neighbor. He lives in a community of purity, purpose, and power and is part of the ultimate neighborhood — the Godhead. In this neighborhood nothing is lacking. It is a fully operating community with full satisfaction in each participant. There is no “moving on up” dream in this neighborhood (as in the old TV sitcom, The Jeffersons). Mercy rules in this neighborhood and causes the universe’s perfect neighbor to come into a lousy community and change it. Jesus demonstrates what true neighbors do, and he illustrates it with the story of the Samaritan. The world Jesus came to was in a bad way. Like the traveler, the world has been beaten, robbed of dignity, and doomed to destruction. It is confused about purpose, isolated into self-obsession, marred by sin, and searching for significance. It has misnamed reality, becoming a slave to mammon. And those who should have helped, haven’t. 

     Jesus came to establish a new neighborhood on earth, and redefining neighbors and neighborhoods is very costly. The Jews misunderstood their purpose and produced a narrow-minded “hood.” Though Jesus was a Jew by natural descent, it wasn’t enough to make him acceptable to the established “hood” as defined by the Jewish leaders of his time. They had twisted their purpose to the extent they believed that they were the center of the world and that when the world got it right, they would all come to Israel and be circumcised as Jews. We have several illustrations of their misunderstanding the identity and purpose of God’s community. Remember Jonah? He was not at all interested in including the Ninevites in God’s neighborhood. God used some pretty powerful persuasion to get him to invite them. But Jonah still maintained his anger even after being “motivated” to preach to them. Remember Jesus at the synagogue of his home area? When he declared that the Old Testament Scripture was fulfilled in him, the people were impressed. Then he mentioned the true nature of God’s neighborhood, and they wanted to throw him off the cliff:
And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.  And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.  But passing through their midst, he went away.
Luke 4:24-30 (ESV)

     Then there was the story of Peter who needed a vision to change his definition of God’s neighborhood, so he would go and tell a Gentile about the invitation to join (Acts 10). Later, Peter even had to be rebuked by Paul when he resorted to defining God’s community by illegal means (Galatians 2:11-21). There was also a big church council about the meaning of God’s people and how one could be a part (Acts 15).

     So we see that it is not without controversy that the new neighbor and neighborhood are established on earth. I suppose that is why we are so slow in adopting it in our day. Those who really get a hold of it will be considered radical by those who are comfortable in their current roles.
     After Jesus, Paul is probably our best example of the new kind of neighbor. He was a Jew who was a Roman who spoke Greek. But the quality that made him different was that he had the Spirit of Christ in him. At Christ’s death, the veil of the temple had been torn in two, redefining the neighborhood. Jesus acted as Israel’s representative, fulfilling her destiny by displaying the nature of God’s community on earth. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and got to know him intimately during several years in the wilderness and through many travels in his name. Paul was privileged to endure the same kind of persecution his Lord had suffered. Like Jesus, he was pursued and hounded by the old “hood” of Jews who did not want to change.

God is serious about the new neighborhood:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Matthew 23:37-24:2 (ESV)

     In stark terms, he burned down the heart of the neighborhood. Those who refused to repent and accept his new reality were destroyed along with their temple, priesthood, records of genealogy, and city. God is emphatic that he alone defines the nature and identity of his people. In 70 AD, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem just as Jesus had said. The old neighborhood and its symbols were gone. The new community, released now from its association with Judaism, began to grow and permeate the entire earth. Even today, it continues to spread. 

     There are those who continue to insist that the best neighborhood has Jewish flavor. They present, at best, a distraction from the true nature of God’s kingdom. The central focus of God’s community is Jesus and his finished work on the cross. Anything that distracts from that as central and essential is an enemy of the neighborhood. 

     Our joy is both stirred and released when we act consistently with our new neighbor nature. Jesus promised that his joy would be ours (John 17:13). He said that our joy would be full (John 15:11). Like Paul, we are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ. We have been infused with eyes that see opportunities to serve. We know that God the Father has chosen us to be his sons. We have been forgiven because of the sacrifice paid by Jesus. We have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to love with God’s ability. We are sure the resurrection that has taken place in our spirit will be completed not just in our bodies, but throughout the whole earth. Now we can experience his joy by acting according to our true regenerated nature. We are neighbors the way Jesus defines them. 

     We have been invited to move from the neighborhood of survival, self interest, and disappointment. A missionary neighbor has come and brought a new dimension of life with him. He will not necessarily give us a new house to live in, but he will give a new neighbor’s heart. “What does that look like?” you may ask. It is a glad readiness to relieve distress wherever found. Opportunity is the only practical limit of the neighborhood. We can give ourselves away knowing that our needs are the concern of the One who sent us. There is great joy in living each day striving to see those that might need something we can give. It gives a good vacation from self-centered consumerism. We are released, and the neighborhood gets better.