Meeting our Neighbours

The commandments…are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”  Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law (Rom. 13:9-10).

            As you have probably already heard, we are trying something a little different this Lent.  We are gathering on five Wednesdays from March 8 – April 5 for a simple soup & bread supper and Holden Evening Prayer.  Each week we will also have a guest speaker from various groups of people that we most likely don’t know very well.

            Each of these people represents our neighbours.  In fact, we may well live quite close to people who are Aboriginal or Sikh or Muslim or members of other faith groups or nationalities.  Yet, very few of us are likely to know these people very well.  And so, how can we love our neighbours as ourselves when we don’t really know that much about our neighbours?

            Hence, this Lent we have an opportunity to get to know some people with whom we might not normally hang out.  The goal is not to convert anybody, or for any of our guests to convert us, but to share with one another and thus gain a better understanding of one another.  It is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue, as well as an opportunity to learn.

            In each case, we will discover things that we have in common, as well as things that we believe differently.  I find it interesting that our Hindu guest mentioned to me the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself, which in his estimation makes Jesus okay J  So this is one thing that Hindus and Christians have in common.

           These days, there is plenty of hatred and plenty of misinformation that is being spread around.  It is always good to remind ourselves of our call to love, which is the most important of all commandments according to Jesus (cf. Mt. 22:37-40).  Thus, the hymn in Holden Evening Prayer each week will focus on loving God and neighbour.

            At the same time, our readings each week will come from the “sermon on the plain” in Luke, which we skipped over in our Sunday readings.  These verses represent some of Jesus’ most challenging teaching in which he goes beyond loving our neighbours to loving our enemies.

            While we could have had guests from any number of different communities, these five will be represented: Buddhist, Aboriginal, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim.  We also had a guest in November who helped us to understand our Jewish neighbours a little bit better.

            It is my prayer that each of us will grow in faith and in love and in understanding this Lent.  May our understanding grow ever deeper of what Jesus has done for us.  May our faith grow ever stronger as we see and experience God’s power at work.  And may our ability to love and to respect and to understand our neighbours also continue to grow – especially the love that is the fruit of the Spirit – the gift of God’s love in our hearts.

                        In Christ,

                        Pastor Lynne Hutchison