Home of Parrish W. Jones

Called to be Neighbors
By Parrish W. Jones, Ph.D.
©2007. All rights reserved.

Amos 7:7-17
Luke 10:25-37
My intention here is to talk about becoming involved in mission, and to do so with these magnificent texts from today's lectionary. At first they are not the most obvious choices, but I hope in the end you will see that they are perfect.

Amos talks about plumb lines. Many do not know what these are. Even persons in professions that once used them no longer use them. Instead, they use all manner of instruments that are in fact more precise. Plumb lines assure that the wall you are building is actually straight vertically and horizontally. A vertical plumb line has a weight on one end so when you hold it up it creates a means to judge if a wall is vertically "plumb", i.e. straight up and down. By tying a plumb line between two corners of a building one can assure that the horizontal line of a wall remains straight. Masons still use horizontal plumb lines to assure their concrete blocks or bricks do not stray. However, they use what we call levels for the vertical plumb.

Amos says that God is going to place a plumb line in the midst of Israel. This plumb line was a measure of justice in the face of the injustice that ruled in Israel—to measure the injustice of Israel's economic and social structures and political and religious institutions. Through the plumb line God was promising justice. The king objected and told Amos to quit preaching this stuff because the people were getting upset. Probably nobody was more upset than was the king and his court and the priests of the temple.

This text starkly points out that the standards of God often conflict with the standards of humans. Such is the case with discipleship. You do not need me to tell you this, because if you are anything like me and this lawyer in our gospel, you play the spiritually dangerous game of equivocation, of trying to make a clear meaning seem vague and uncertain. In his book Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer addresses our text along with the text about the Rich Young Ruler (Mt. 19:16-22). These men found following Jesus just too hard as if they are alike. Both men enter spiritual peril through equivocation.

Bonhoeffer says that the call to discipleship is unequivocal. There is no out except to be out, to stay lost, to remain separated from Jesus and salvation. And so the plumb line is set. We know the answers as surely as does the lawyer who asks, "And who is my neighbor?"

Jesus answers with a parable and in the process changes the question from who is the neighbor to who neighbors and how. So our question is, "How do I follow the call to neighboring?"

In the spring of 2006, as a member of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, I received an e-mail from Alice Winters, the PCUSA missionary of 25 years in Colombia. She asked for someone to come to Barranquilla and teach theology for a year at the Presbyterian University. Having been to Colombia to teach once before and then on two delegations, I knew the situation. The university cannot afford to hire all the teachers it needs. Getting qualified teachers is also a problem.

I could do this and I knew I could. But I equivocated. I thought of all the reasons I could not do this:
1. My wife would go nuts.
2. I couldn't give up earning a real salary for a year.
3. My Spanish probably was not good enough to do all that teaching.
4. We just couldn't stand the separation.
5. Who would walk the dog?
6. Certainly, there were others.
The three questions that stood out in my mind the most because they sort of included the others were my wife, the separation, and the money.

At that time I was driving to Stafford, VA as an interim minister. The drive gave lots of time to pray, to listen to audio books, and to think. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get away from this. I had the theology, the Ph.D., and I could read and speak Spanish not so badly. My biggest problem is with hearing. So I could not say I wasn't qualified. I also could not think of anything more stimulating than studying theology for a year unhampered by parish concerns. But still the three biggies.

One day I got word that one of the parishioners was going to be deployed to Iraq. He had a beautiful young wife and three children. Many in that church thought I had no empathy for our soldiers, in fact, to them, my pacifist views meant I was anti-military. I guess in some sense that follows, but I have great empathy for the young men and women and their families who are called to carry out that "duty". I grieve daily what has been happening in Iraq to the families of our soldiers. When they go off, they know they may not return physically, mentally, or spiritually whole. Some will come home dead. I also grieve the terrible violence with which the people of Iraq have lived for so many years and appear to be destined to for many more.

That message about the deployment of this particular soldier put a thought in my head I could not get away from: If young men and women, and some not so young people, could willingly go off to war in Iraq because they had signed up to follow earthly orders, then what was preventing me from volunteering to do what disciples do? That is, what was keeping me from being a neighbor to the Colombian church, its university, and the students and faculty? After all I had enlisted and remained in God's "army" for years. Could I continue to equivocate? Why couldn't I answer the call to be deployed for Jesus if these young people could do so for earthly authority?

I decided the ultimate test was Mary Ellen's response to the idea. I told her sort of uncertainly about Alice's appeal. She asked a surprising question, "Do you want to go?" The question was surprising because I was thinking all the time that this was a sort of lame brained idea that certainly topped the list of all the lame brained ideas I had ever come up with. So I tentatively responded, "Well, I was just wondering what you thought about the idea? Then we would have to find out what had to be done and many more details."

She did an amazing thing. She told me to find out more.

After finding out more and spending a great deal of time talking with our faith community and praying, and gritting our teeth, we decided to investigate even more. The money thing raised its head. How much? The answer was there is a budget of $24,000.00. That covers health insurance, pension and a stipend for living expenses of $1,000.00 a month. The bad news was that I had to raise it all. There was no money in the General Assembly budget for short term missionaries.

Well, you know what, that just wouldn't do. God had to be nuts and I had to be nuttier to consider such a thing.

The plumb line—God's ways are not our ways—I kept saying, "Get behind me Jesus, I don't want to talk any more."

Then Mary Ellen's wonderful mind went to work. She began thinking of ways we could do this by getting more income. She even suggested that we sell everything and both go. I'm glad we gave that idea up. But she suggested she take a roommate in to have some rent. Good idea!

So we went on with exploration and finally by October, we had a plan and began raising money. I contacted my friends and a few enemies, presbyteries where I had served, and churches I knew had supported Alice Winters. Before I knew it I was getting support from places I never knew of and, in some cases, I have no clue how they even heard of this.

The bottom line is that all the money came. Instead of a stranger for a boarder in our house, a young man who grew up with our son and often in our house, came to live with Mary Ellen. Out of the blue our son called and asked if he could live at home. We said yes if he'd pay rent. So we had even more.

We aren't getting rich off of this, but we are making do. All our bills are paid and up to date. We have no idea what comes next, but if God can take care of this, then surely God has something else in store.

There are many non-material blessings that have come from this experience of neighboring. That is always the case. I have met amazing young people who have committed their lives to Jesus and are growing in discipleship. I have students whose lives of discipleship have led them to study theology and become ministers despite what appear to be insurmountable challenges: families, necessity of full time employment, classes five nights a week, and ecclesial responsibilities and inadequate resources. In adequate resources include lack of money to buy their own books, lack of library resources adequate to meet their needs for studying in the library, and time. Yet, they persevere that they may complete the race.

Even the university was conceived in the midst of great lack. There was only one abundant resource, namely, a dilapidated campus once used by the Colegio Americano and given to the Presbytery of the Northern Coast. It is in great need of repair. Yet, their faith led them to proceed believing that God would provide their need and send them neighbors to carry out their call. So this year they have added two programs of study in addition to their theology program, namely, psychology and music. If things proceed they will add new degrees in the next year.

I say all this to offer a challenge. When faced with a decision, use the measure that you know is God's measure not the world's. Amos says that God called him from following the flock. What a great double entendre. We have all too many people going around giving Jesus a bad name because they have argued away his truth, his plumb line, his standard. All too many Christians follow the flock of materialism and consumerism. All too many preachers are preaching a theology of success. We have all too readily taken the spiritually dangerous road of forgetting that the measure of our lives is not any other person except Christ Jesus who taught us how to be neighbors to one another. The guidebook to true life is not the guidebook to financial success or to best management practices. The guidebook to life is the Word of God that comes to us in and through the Bible and reveals to us the WORD made flesh, Christ Jesus. And we must remember that the plumb line of the call to discipleship with Jesus includes a large measure of grace, love, peace, gentleness, and self-control to name a few. However, the qualities we know as the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5: 22-23) call us to overcome so many things in our lives we are addicted to personally and culturally.

I just wonder what kind of really dumb thing God is calling you to do? What kind of call to neighboring God is calling you to? What call lays in the background of your brain and every time it raises its head you flog it back because you have too much wealth to sell and give away or because you can't see how to neighbor this or that person?

But you see, Jesus does not ask us to question him. He just says, "Take up your cross, your call, your mission, and get on with it." And the good news is that no matter how crazy, stupid, insane the call is, Jesus will get in there with you and carry the load. So its time to quit equivocating. Take up your cross and follow Jesus.