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Kristen Edsall moved to Boston.  She packed up her things in Minneapolis, Minnesota and spent the next few days in a car with a friend making the move.  She had taken a job there and was looking forward to something different for a while.  Things didn’t start off very well.  As she was pulling into town a large semi sped passed her and kicked up a rock that cracked the windshield of her brand new car.  Then, after she picked up the keys from the agent she found that none of them would open the door to her building.  She noticed a dent at the bottom of the door.  She kicked it and the door swung open.  The apartment no longer seemed so nice. 

Things started to look up the second day when she met a neighbor.  They met in the laundry room and really hit it off.  It turned out that they both lived on the fifth floor of the building.  Kristen and this neighbor struck up regular conversations.  They would go out to eat together.  When Kristen was away for work her neighbor’s daughter would watch the cat and check on the apartment.  Kristen was happy that she had made the move.  She was in a nice apartment, in a good neighborhood, and to top it all off she had found a good neighbor, maybe even a friend.  Or, so she thought. 

One morning Kristen’s neighbor came across the hall and asked to borrow her car.  Kristen had a thing about lending her car.  She just didn’t do it.  The neighbor became a little agitated because she really needed it since her car was in the shop.  Kristen just couldn’t do it.  On her way to Colorado, she sent a text message to her neighbor saying, “No.”  One week later she returned to find that her car had been keyed from front to back.  One week after that she received the statement for her company card with $3000 worth of unknown purchases.  The following month there were $6000 worth of unknown charges.  Now Kristen was suspicious. 

To make a longer story shorter, it was the neighbor, who was no longer so neighborly.  Kristen called the police.  The police confronted the neighbor.  She confessed to everything.  Kristen spent the rest of her year-long lease trying to avoid this neighbor; the same neighbor who had been in and out of her apartment, the same neighbor who knew all kinds of little details about her.  When Kristen’s year was up, she moved back to Minneapolis.  She was happy to be back home.  It’s hard for Kristen to see anyone as a neighbor anymore.   

There aren’t a lot of story’s like Kristen’s out there, but there are enough.  This last week I heard the story of the people who stole charity money from a pizza parlor and returned later in the day to steal donations so that someone could have a funeral.  Who does that?  I also saw the story about a group of men who stormed out of a store and knocked an older woman to the ground giving her a concussion.  Why were they running?  They were stealing some cases of beer.  Even though these stories are rare in the grand scheme of things, there are enough of these stories to make us suspicious of others.  What these stories end up doing is taking the “neighbor” out of neighborhood. 

I grew up in a great neighborhood.  I grew up on a block with five houses.  On one side were the Keenan’s, Welch’s, and Hayes’.  On the other side, were the Winkles and the TeWinkles.  I spent many a summer morning mowing the neighbor’s lawns.  We spent many a summer afternoon at the Welch’s pool.  On those days when my mom couldn’t make it home from work before we got home from school, the Keenan’s door was always open and they would always welcome us in.  My sister called them our grandparents across the street.  We didn’t have a Neighborhood Watch group or throw big, block parties.  But, day to day, the neighbors looked out for one another.  I would say that it’s not much more complicated than the golden rule.

 “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.”  It’s a very simple statement, but it’s certainly not an easy one.  First, Jesus says, “in everything.”  It’s not “in some things.”  It’s in everything.  It’s not “in things that are comfortable for you.”  It’s in everything.  It’s not “in things you have time for.”  It’s in everything.  In everything…do.  It’s not “in everything don’t do.”  It’s easy enough to avoid doing things to people we know we shouldn’t do, but Jesus says that we have to do to others, what we would have them do to us.  On the one hand, we are sometimes our own worse critic.  There are many times we don’t treat ourselves very nicely.  On the other hand, we are often most forgiving toward ourselves.  We give ourselves plenty of chances to prove ourselves.  Jesus knows this. 

Jesus knows that at the end of the day we are well aware of our own faults and failures, but that we also give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.  If we do bad things, it’s not because we’re bad people.  We just made a mistake.  Even if we have some weaknesses, we have a good heart anyway and people should be nice to us.  Jesus knows that we basically think we are good and deserve to be treated that way.  With this little rule of his, Jesus wants us to think of other people the same way and treat them accordingly.  Maybe it would help us to know that this isn’t really such a little rule.  The golden rule might be short on words, but its long and deep and wide in its coverage.  Jesus says that this short little phrase covers what all the law and the prophets have said. 

Consider that for a moment, Jesus says he has just covered in about a dozen words, what the thousand pages of the Old Testament have said.  Every law and ordinance and command, every rant and criticism from Isaiah to Malachi is caught up in the short little phrase, “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.”  It sounds so easy.  We know that this is what being a Christian is all about.  How come, then, there are so few neighborhoods like the one I grew up on?  I mean think about the street you live on or the apartment you live in, how many neighbors do you know?  Why don’t we know our neighbors like we used to? 

It could be that one of the reasons we find it hard to keep the golden rule is that we worry.  We worry about the things that we need.  We worry about the things that we want.  There has to be food on the table.  There has to be a roof over our heads.  There has to be money in the bank for a rainy day.  All of this requires work.  As it turns out, these things that we need are requiring more and more work as time goes on.  When work itself is scarce, there is even more to worry about.  So, we work harder to prove that we deserve the work we get.  All of this time spent worrying and working means less time for our neighbors.  Then there’s worrying about things we want. 

We all have a certain image that we like to portray to our neighbors.  It can almost be like a competition.  If it’s not the appearance of dress, then it might be the appearance of the lawn.  If that’s not it, then perhaps it’s the appearance of a happy family that we want the neighbors to see.  A lot of time can be spent worrying over this appearance.  The problem is, if we’re worrying about how we appear to our neighbors, there isn’t much energy left to do to our neighbors what we would like to have done to us.  Worry is one of those things that prevents us from living out the golden rule.   

If it’s not worrying that stops us, it’s judging.  Sometimes we decide that our neighbors are unworthy of our time and effort. Other times we decide that our neighbors don’t deserve our time and effort.  No doubt we all have neighbors who are different than we are; neighbors who dress differently, who act differently, who parent differently.  Basically, we’ve made judgments of our neighbors based on a few appearances (which is probably why we worry about our appearance so much) and you’ve judged that it’s just not worth it.  Then again, maybe the neighbor has done something to upset you.  Maybe the snow blower was returned with a dent in it.  Maybe the fence is a little too close to the property line.  Maybe the music is too loud or the grass is too long.  Whatever it is, maybe the relationship has been breached and you’ve judged that that neighbor doesn’t deserve to be treated like one. 

Worrying and judging.  As far as I can tell, these are two of the things that prevent us from acting like neighbors.  Jesus has something to say about these things.  Basically he says don’t. “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”  Look at the birds, he says, they don’t worry and they have plenty of food to eat.  Or, look at the flowers of the field, they don’t worry and they appear more beautiful than anything Solomon could have made.  Don’t worry, Jesus says, because your Father in heaven knows what you need and they will be given to you.  Do not judge, Jesus says, so that you may not be judged. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?  If you’re going to judge your neighbor, you better realize that you’ll be judged by the same criteria.   

In everything, do not worry.  In everything, do not judge.  In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.  What’s the opposite of worry, but trust?  If worry is a concern that we won’t have what we want or need, then trust is the belief that we can get it from our neighbors.  What is the opposite of judgment, but mercy?  If judgment is the decision that someone is no longer worth our time and effort, then mercy is the decision that our neighbor deserves another shot.  When I think about my own life, if there is anything I would like others to do for me it is to trust me and to forgive me when I break that trust.  Jesus’ words may well as go, “In everything trust and forgive others as you would have them trust and forgive you; for this is the law and the prophets.” 

Stories like Kristen’s make this hard to do.  So, let me finish with another neighborhood story that offers you the possibility of something new.  As Suzi and I sat with Joyce Underwood this last week we wondered about some of these same, neighborhood issues.  She told us about the year that the first black family moved on to the street around the corner from her.  She remembers who angry her white neighbors were.  She remembered all the phone calls she got from realtors who told her who the neighborhood was going downhill and that they would buy her house.  Basically, there was a lot of worry about and a lot of judgment toward these new neighbors. 

Joyce also remembered, however, that one of the neighbors called the rest together.  She doesn’t remember why or how or what was said exactly, but she knows that all the neighbors decided to stay.  What’s more, they closed off the street, moved all of their picnic benches to the middle, and had a party.  They welcomed the new family as part of the neighborhood.  After that, there were never any problems.  I’d like to know what happened at that meeting, but I’d like to think that someone considered how they would like to be treated if they were that first black family to move onto the street.  I’d like to think that they remembered Jesus’ golden rule and that that made all the difference for them.  I’d like to think that it could make all the difference for us as well. 

The Bible promises us all kinds of new and wonderful things: a new covenant, a new spirit, a new creation.  The Bible promises that God is at work through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit to bring all of these things about.  I imagine this work of God extends even to new neighborhoods; where neighborhoods of worry and judgment are replaced by new neighborhoods of trust and mercy.  They would be neighborhoods like the one in which I grew up.  They would be neighborhoods like the one that Joyce Underwood remembers.  They would be neighborhoods governed by one, simple, little rule: In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.  Amen.