Love Your Neighbor

Love Your Neighbor (John 20:19-30)

We sing a song in our 10:30 service called “Brother.” The song reminds us that “when I look into the face of my enemy, I see my brother.” The middle of the song contains a bridge that is an unlikely exploration of our text this week (John 20:19-30) as well as next week's (Matthew 18:21-35):

Forgiveness is the garment or our courage
The power to make the peace we long to know
Open up our eyes to see the wounds that bind all of humankind
May our shutter hearts greet the dawn of life with charity and love

The associations between this song and our text for the week are subtle and not heavy handed, but that makes them no less impactful. Listen to both John 20:19-30 and Brother and see if they don’t begin to form an intertwined dance of love for neighbor.

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author
Isaac Gaff is the Managing Director of Worship and Creative Arts at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Mark 16:1-8)

Reflections on Mark 16:1-8

Read Mark 16:1-8:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Each Thursday on the Daily Connection we reflect on what it means to Love Your Neighbor in relation to the Scripture text for the week.  We do this in light of what Jesus calls ‘part two’ of the greatest commandment (See Mark 12:28-34) - to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Obviously, not every passage in Scripture speaks directly to this command (or the one before it to love God), but if we use these two commandments (to love God and love our neighbor) as lights to illuminate scripture by, they often revel things in the text we miss. 

On the surface, today’s text seems to have little to do with loving your neighbor. After all, the resurrection in-and-of-itself is a wonderful and mysterious thing to behold, even without thinking about its implications for our life toward others. But Mark places the reveal of the resurrection in a group of people (not just one) and also relays the instructions to tell the others. Unfortunately, the three do not connect with their ‘neighbors’ because of fear. Regrettably, I think that’s just as true today as it was two thousand years ago.  The resurrection (in all it’s many facets) is a communally unifying reality, but fear can keep us from experiencing that new reality. 

Questions for reflection:

  1. What fears are keeping you from embracing your neighbor (whoever they might be).
  2. How does the resurrection (in all it various incarnations) set that fear in context (how does that fear compare to resurrection)?
  3. What small thing could you do today to challenge one of these fears?

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author
Isaac Gaff is the Managing Director of Worship and Creative Arts at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Mark 14:32-42)

As human beings created in the image of God, we are built for companionship. In some ways, we are a copy and extension of the communal life the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – a communal life which expresses itself through the ongoing giving and receiving between each person of the trinity. With that in mind, Jesus’ despondency over his disciple’s inability/unwillingness to stay awake and pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion is not only understandable; it pulls at the very fabric of what it means to be both human and divine. 

When mutual giving/receiving breaks between us and those around us (our neighbors), there is a noticeable disorientation to life, both inside our own chest and in our day-to-day actions. Often, we wait for the other to give first in order to jump start the cycle of giving/receiving, but Jesus doesn’t do that in Gethsemane. Even though he has been abandoned by his companions in this moment, he leads the way back to the virtuous cycle of giving/receiving by continuing to pour himself out. It’s a trust in God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, to be sure; but in a strange way he’s also placing trust in his fellow companions (disciples). He’s cultivating a ‘long-game’ trust with them, one that will only see the restoration of giving/receiving long after the worst of the cross.

Loving our neighbor means transcending our basic unrest in a disrupted giving/receiving cycle. As Christians, we follow the way of Jesus and continue to pour ourselves out to one another – Jesus calls it taking up your cross daily – knowing and trusting that the good work of giving will lead to, in some way, a restoration of the cycle of giving/receiving in our lives and in the lives of our neighbors.

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author
Isaac Gaff is the Managing Director of Worship and Creative Arts at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Mark 14:3-9)

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Read Mark 14:3-9:

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

In this week’s text, Jesus says “the poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.” This verse is sometimes misused to position worship (the anointing of Jesus in this story) over and above serving the poor; or it’s sometimes used to demonstrate the futility of trying to eradicate poverty. Both of these approaches miss the heart of this story. 

First, when Jesus invokes the phrase “the poor you will always have with you,” he’s most likely referring to Deuteronomy  15:11:

“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”

This hardly evokes a sense of futility toward poverty – quite the opposite. God calls us to be openhanded toward our neighbor who is in need.

Second, Jesus didn’t bring the poor into the conversation, “those present,” (the people who did not care for this unnamed woman’s act of worship) brought them into the conversation – but only for the sake of shaming the unnamed woman and calling into question her act of worship. They’re using service to the poor for their own questionable purposes.

Jesus affirms the serving of the poor by invoking Deuteronomy, but he also validates the unnamed woman’s worship because she has the eyes to see and recognize Jesus in the present moment. Worship and service to the poor are not in opposition. One doesn’t have to lose for the other to win. Worship and service to the poor form a virtuous circle  – a circle that continually cycles back and forth from one side to the other until we can’t tell where worship ends and service to the poor begins. Ultimately, we learn to anoint Jesus in the poor we serve while simultaneously serving and affirming those who worship differently from us.

Questions for Reflection:

  • In what ways do I miss opportunities to serve the poor because the problem seems “too big”?
  • In what ways do I criticize the worship practices of others when I don’t understand or agree with them (“why this waste of perfume”)?
  • How am I working toward the fusion of worship and service to the poor?

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author
Isaac Gaff is the Managing Director of Worship and Creative Arts at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Mark 12:28-34)

In this week's reading from Mark, Jesus tells us that one of the most important things in the Kingdom of God is to "love your neighbor as yourself." He's drawing on a passage in the book of Leviticus – a book which is often seen as a loose collection of "dos and don'ts" in the Old Testament. In the middle of this seemingly tedious rule book sits (what Jesus identifies as) the heart of God's design for us. Leviticus 19:5-8 starts with instructions on how to share a fellowship/peace offering (loving God) and then moves to how we love each other:

Leviticus 9-18 (The Message)
9–10  “When you harvest your land, don’t harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don’t strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am God, your God.
11  “Don’t steal.
 “Don’t lie.
 “Don’t deceive anyone.
12  “Don’t swear falsely using my name, violating the name of your God. I am God.
13  “Don’t exploit your friend or rob him.
 “Don’t hold back the wages of a hired hand overnight.
14  “Don’t curse the deaf; don’t put a stumbling block in front of the blind; fear your God. I am God.
15  “Don’t pervert justice. Don’t show favoritism to either the poor or the great. Judge on the basis of what is right.
16  “Don’t spread gossip and rumors.
 “Don’t just stand by when your neighbor’s life is in danger. I am God.
17  “Don’t secretly hate your neighbor. If you have something against him, get it out into the open; otherwise you are an accomplice in his guilt.
18  “Don’t seek revenge or carry a grudge against any of your people.
 “Love your neighbor as yourself. I am God.

Loving our neighbor does not end (or even begin) with simply a feeling of affection, affinity, or affirmation (even though there's nothing wrong with those things) – this Kingdom-of-God kind of love gets its hands dirty with issues of ethics, care, justice, speech, and interior renovation. Reread the above section from Leviticus again and notice how many different verbs are used that are finally summed up in the verb “love.” 

The apostle Paul also has a famous section on love-in-action (1 Corinthians 13). As you read his words, try to synthesize both Leviticus and Paul, and then live both of these "love passages" toward your neighbor next door, across town, and across the world.

1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)
1  If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2  If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3–7  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
 Love never gives up.
 Love cares more for others than for self.
 Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
 Love doesn’t strut,
 Doesn’t have a swelled head,
 Doesn’t force itself on others,
 Isn’t always “me first,”
 Doesn’t fly off the handle,
 Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
 Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
 Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
 Puts up with anything,
 Trusts God always,
 Always looks for the best,
 Never looks back,
 But keeps going to the end.
8–10  Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11  When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12  We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13  But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author
Isaac Gaff is the Managing Director of Worship and Creative Arts at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Mark 11:12-21)

When Jesus arrives in the temple in Jerusalem, he does lay out his lessons clearly in a monologue or a manifesto. He mixes metaphors. He puts on prophetic performance art. He makes verbal and dramatic references to Israel's history and writings.

By arriving into Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus already fulfilled prophecy from Zechariah. He continues by dramatically invoking the prophet's concluding verse: “and there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day" (Zechariah 14:21).

While doing so, Jesus quotes from a passage in Isaiah:
Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say,
    “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch complain,
    “I am only a dry tree.”
For this is what the Lord says:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
    who choose what pleases me
    and hold fast to my covenant—
to them I will give within my temple and its walls
    a memorial and a name
    better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
    that will endure forever.
And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
    to minister to him,
to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
    and who hold fast to my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain
    and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
    a house of prayer for all nations
The Sovereign Lord declares—
    he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
    besides those already gathered." (Isaiah 56:3–8)

This is the vision of the temple that Jesus evokes: all people invited into God’s presence and included in God’s covenant people. Jesus has come to extend these promises beyond Israel. Jesus then immediately quotes Jeremiah 7, saying the temple has instead become a "den of robbers”—possibly condemning how their practices excluded and exploited others, especially Gentiles. Jeremiah warned Israel that the Lord would not dwell in the temple if they continue disobeying, especially oppressing "the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow” (Jeremiah 7:6).

Jeremiah also uses the barren fig tree as a symbol of judgement:

I will take away their harvest,
declares the Lord.
    There will be no grapes on the vine.
There will be no figs on the tree,
    and their leaves will wither.
What I have given them
    will be taken from them. (Jeremiah 8:13)

Jesus visually enacts God’s own judgment. His cursing the fig tree is a dramatic declaration that Israel—especially Jerusalem and the temple—has failed to fulfill its divine calling. 

The symbolic meaning of Jesus' cleansing and cursing cannot be distilled into a few simple sentences, so let these these prophetic symbols and metaphors stir in your mind. Revisit our core insight from Monday: worship and ethics are deeply intertwined. The temple—a house of prayer for all people—represented confluence of these two streams: loving God, loving neighbor. How do Jesus’ words and actions challenge you to embody this? 

If you need, reflect on these more specific questions:
- What was Israel’s calling and their failure?
- In our own places of worship, what tables need overturned?
- What patterns and practices bear no fruit?
- Where have financial concerns overshadowed our focus on prayer and justice?
- What does a house of prayer for all people look like?
- What unnecessary barriers keep people out of our worshipping community?

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author
Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Mark 11:1-11)

Read Zechariah 9:9–17:

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
    righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
    and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
    and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
    His rule will extend from sea to sea
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.
As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
    even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.
I will bend Judah as I bend my bow
    and fill it with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, Zion,
    against your sons, Greece,
    and make you like a warrior’s sword.
Then the Lord will appear over them;
    his arrow will flash like lightning.
The Sovereign Lord will sound the trumpet;
    he will march in the storms of the south,
    and the Lord Almighty will shield them.
They will destroy
    and overcome with slingstones.
They will drink and roar as with wine;
    they will be full like a bowl
    used for sprinkling the corners of the altar.
The Lord their God will save his people on that day
    as a shepherd saves his flock.
They will sparkle in his land
    like jewels in a crown.
How attractive and beautiful they will be!
    Grain will make the young men thrive,
    and new wine the young women.

When Jesus enters into Jerusalem, he intentionally enacts this prophecy of the Messiah by riding in on a donkey to the rejoicing of people in Zion. He does this to reveal and remind what his arrival means—the coming of the anointed King, an end to war, freedom for prisoners, rescue from danger, coming home, health and beauty, plenty of food and wine. It means the Kingdom of God will advance no longer with weapons but with people. The patterns of violence and decay will be undone and replaced by rhythms of new creation. All that is hollow and horrific will be made full and beautiful. 

All of this is summarized by the concept of shalom—peace—not just as absence of war, but also as abundance of life and blessings. How do we live in this reality of shalom? First of all, every time we take Communion we take part in these promises. We partake of the “the blood of the God's covenant with us.” We share the peace of Christ with one another. The promised shalom begins to take shape here at the center of the life of the community of believers as our bodies and souls receive and share the presence of Jesus Christ. 

Just as the crowds welcome Jesus' saving presence into Jerusalem and the temple, so also we welcome the saving presence of Christ in Communion into ourselves--we who are the temple of the Spirit of God, being built from living stones (1 Corinthians 6:19, 1 Peter 2:5). As we await a New Jerusalem, the people of God gather as a sign of shalom to the rest of the world, presenting a new reality and thereby protesting violence, injustice, and slavery. The patterns and powers that bind and break this world have already been defeated. Abundant, everlasting life together is already available.

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor

About the Author
Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Psalm 126)

(5 Minute Read)

Read Psalm 126:

A song of ascents.
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
    we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
    our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we are filled with joy.
Restore our fortunes, Lord,
    like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow with tears
    will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
    carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
    carrying sheaves with them.

This is one of the traveling songs that Israel sang as they returned from exile—and that they then sang every year as they made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They sang to remember the deliverance that God had achieved for them, beyond their wildest dreams. But Israel never stayed  independent for very long. They lived perpetually under the thumb of another nation. Even when they were physically at home, they were not free. So the second half of this song calls for God to restore them again. They pray that they would not return home empty-handed, that God would use their sorrow and suffering to bring forth a harvest of joy. This is the prayer and promise that Jesus ultimately fulfills, as Zechariah prays at the beginning of Luke’s gospel:

“[God] has raised up a mighty savior for us
    in the house of his servant David,
 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
    that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
    and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
    to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness
    before him all our days."

When we pray Psalm 126, we celebrate this deliverance and pray for it to be made real in the lives of those who suffer in oppression and exile. Pray for the displaced strangers of our world:

  • for refugees who have been forced from their home by war and oppression
  • for the homeless who live in a different daily reality
  • for the mentally ill who are strangers to their loved ones and even within their own minds
  • for the church-less who have walked away from, been hurt by, or never known the community of believers

Pray that their sowing in sorrow would spring up to a harvest of joy. Pray that Christ and his Church would welcome and care for them, giving them a home and family.

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor (Operation Christmas Child)

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Jeremiah)

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(5 minute read)

Read Jeremiah 7:1–7:

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and there proclaim this message:
“‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever.

One of the most consistent clarion calls of all the prophets is to care for the powerless. Here in Jeremiah, God actually makes his presence among his people contingent on whether or not they practice justice and eliminate oppression. He calls us to replace severity with mercy, shrewdness with generosity, security with risk, apathy with compassion, and fear with hospitality.

This call is so essential to the heart of Christianity that James tells us this: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). These two things are not as separate as they may seem. In fact, if our impulse toward holiness leads us to withdraw from the task of caring for others in need, we fail on both fronts. Purity is not a matter of personal piety; it is a social matter of justice and peace. In a world of war and oppression, the people of who bear God’s image are commissioned to communicate an entirely new socio-political reality on earth. While the world operates on power and privilege, the people of God are always and everywhere called to care for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. This is what it means “to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” This is not something extra appended onto “the real gospel" of “saving souls.” Our care for the poor and powerless is the very condition of God’s presence among us.

The prophets constantly wrap up Israel’s idolatry and rebellion against God with the their failure to establish justice and peace in their society. When we reject our neighbor, we reject God—and vice versa. To teach us this, God himself became poor and powerless, so that maybe we could finally learn to see him looking back at us in the faces of refugees, social outcasts, the homeless, addicts, and orphans. God arrives at the margins—not to pull the outcasts in but to call out the safe, secure, and “normal."

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Saul and David)

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(3 minute read)

Israel's monarchy hits a rough patch fairly quickly. King Saul presumptively oversteps to do the job only the priest is supposed to do. For this, God regrets and rejects him as king. In his place, God anoints David, a young shepherd boy, to one day replace him. In an ironic twist, David is brought into Saul’s service, and his music is the only thing that calms Saul’s manic moods. Saul’s son Jonathan becomes David’s closest friend, and David marries Saul’s daughter Michal. Though David shows Saul only the deference and love of a son to a father, Saul is quickly filled with envy and fear of David, whose fame and strength threatens him. On multiple occasions, Saul tries to kill David with a spear.

For years, Saul hunts David, keeping him on the run. Even fearing for his life, David maintains honor and grace for the one seeking to kill him. David refuses on at least two occasions to kill Saul and end it all, calling him his “father” and saying “I will not raise my hand against my lord; for he is the Lord’s anointed" (2 Samuel 24:10). The heart of David tests the limits of our ability to show mercy. He does not justify or pity or defend himself. He does not play the victim. Even when it seems he has every right to strike back, he continuously forgives and surrenders his entitlement to "justice." This long-suffering forgiveness is at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a king indiscriminately canceling the debts of his servants. We are forgiven in Christ, so we forgive all.

David wrote many psalms while he was pursued by Saul (e.g. 18, 52, 54, 57, and 59). One challenging thing about these poems is that David’s words don’t seem to align with his actions in the story. He expresses outrage and calls for vengeance, but when the time comes, he shows mercy and grace. Pray through one of these psalms, processing any similar feelings of bitterness and self-justification in your own heart. Surrender them to God and pray for the same heart of David to forgive and love your enemies. Your enemies may even be like Saul, broken and lashing out from a place of insecurity and fear.
 

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Joshua 2:1-7)

(4 minute read)

Jericho hums about its business just like any other day. In a quiet corner, spies of a different kingdom watch. They are a threat to the status quo and powers-that-be, so they are received only by a "harlot" on the margins of society. As we reflect on this, we do well to open our ears to the warning Jesus gave to the safe, secure, and satisfied people of his own day:

“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him” (Matthew 21:31–32).

So who is welcome in the Kingdom of God? Simply put, those who welcome the Kingdom of God. Rahab saw and responded to the signs of God’s Kingdom coming. In order to do this, we have to step out our immersion in the normal flow of the world to see things with eyes like Rehab’s. We have to become citizens and ambassadors and spies of a different Kingdom, praying and pushing for the new Kingdom to come. We look around and see everything as promised and claimed by God for his plan of redemption. With this perspective, Rahab received God's Kingdom by receiving his people. Centuries before Christ, she obeys and embodies his teaching:

“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me...And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Matthew 10:40, 42).

Hospitality is a Kingdom act. However we receive and treat our brothers and sisters is how we receive and treat God himself.  ...Jesus sharpens this lesson when he envisions the measure by which all peoples will be judged:

"Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:41–46).

We receive Jesus not only in fellow believers, but in every human person who bears his image, down to “the least of these.” It is humbling and harrowing to realize that those outside the Kingdom are not necessarily the willfully evil but the distracted, the self-centered, and the stingy—those who neglect people in need. This vision completely dismantles all of our moral posturing and platitudes. In the end, Jesus is only concerned with how we care for others. 

Questions or discussion? Click here to comment.

Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (The Exodus)

(3 minute read)

When God leads Israel out of Israel and into the desert, one of the very first things he does (after providing them with food and water and protection) is give them the Law. The intention of the Law is to facilitate the full flourishing of human life. The Creator reaches into his creation to reiterate his plan and remind us how things are meant to work. Law is restrictive only in the sense that a canvas is restricts a painter. It gives us boundaries in which to imagine and pursue the good life. It also demonstrates to us that we cannot create the good life by our own devices. We rely on grace to guide and strengthen us.

The Hebrew word rea, translated “neighbor," is repeated these chapters in Exodus. This clues us in that the Law is more social than individual. It is not a checklist of mandates for personal righteousness but a communal way of life. Virtues like duty, justice, piety, and holiness all take shape within a community. And all these virtues find their fullness is one: love.

For this reason the New Testament claims that the whole law is summarized in two commands: 1) love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and 2) love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36–40). Love fulfills the Law (Romans 13:10). The point of the Law from the beginning is for God to instruct us how to live together in his love. In other words, the Law is essentially a guidebook entitled “How to Love God and One Another." If we miss this, we miss everything. Without love, we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1–3). Laws, properly understood, are expressions and exercises of love.

Read the Ten Commandments in Exodus 12:1–17, and reflect on each one. How does it exercise love for God and neighbor? How do they express God’s plan and purpose for human life? How does Christ embody it? Which of them need work in your own heart and life

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor? (Fibers of Love)

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Abraham)

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 (3 minute read)

Genesis 21:1–21

Isaac, the son of promise, arrives at last—foreshadowing the coming of Christ, the promised Son of God himself. God’s faithfulness is revealed and confirmed as he fulfills his covenant with Abraham. But today we read on to another story that is woven in but often overlooked. Ishmael—Abraham’s first son—and his mother Hagar are sent into exile (for the second time). But even though Abraham and Sarah reject them, God does not. He even extends the same promises he makes about Abraham to Ishmael—to make him a great nation with many descendants. When Hagar is desperate—ready to let her son die in the desert—God reaches out makes to make a way, providing a well of water.

God’s covenant faithfulness is not exclusively reserved for Israel (or to get a bit more pointed—Christians). In fact, built into God's covenant with Abraham is the promise that his blessing will spread boundlessly to all people. What we learn from Hagar and Ishmael is that it might be more messy and mysterious than we expect.

We cannot contain and confine God’s promises and people, because his presence and grace is at work in secret places—among those whom the “chosen" people of God neglect and reject. God’s mercy toward Hagar and Ishmael—just as much as his faithfulness to Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac—reflects the Kingdom of Christ which is open to all.

Christ is constantly teaching and embodying this grace that extends to everyone—even and especially those who are excluded and exiled. Just God provides a well for Hagar, Christ invites another woman at a well to drink from living water. This is once again not a woman of society or stature; she is a Samaritan with whom Jews didn’t associate. She was excluded by the people of God, and yet Jesus welcomes her to worship in a new way.

Jesus envisions the Kingdom of God not as a dinner party of prefect families who have their ducks in a row, but as a reckless banquet of vagrants. The guest list is anyone on the street who accepts the invitation, especially those who don’t have the means or status to pay or throw their own party. If we want to imitate this boundless love, we ought to turn our eyes to the wilderness and the streets to find our neighbor there. For we serve a God who practices hospitality in the wild.

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Genesis 1-11)

Read Genesis 4:1–16

All of our relationships are deeply intertwined—with God, with one another, with the earth, within ourselves. A rupture in one sends ripples and rifts through the rest. Our relationship with the Creator cannot be detached from how we treat his creation—both nature and neighbor. The prophets are relentless about this, rebuking Israel’s offerings and fasts that are not backed up by justice and generosity in their society.

In this story, Cain’s sinfulness erupts into every relationship, breaking and blighting it. It starts with Cain and Abel’s opposite approaches to the earth. Cain sees the raw materials of earth as means to be exploited for himself. Abel sees them as gifts to be appreciated and tended to. Cain hoards his possessions; Abel gives as freely as it has been given to him.

When God convicts Cain for his offering, Cain has already isolated himself in greed and selfishness, which begin to feed anger and jealousy toward Abel. Through the haze of his shame and self-pity, Cain looks at Abel and began to hate him. Abel represents what Cain did wrong. When we feel indifference, disdain, or hostility toward others, it is often because in the mirror of our brother or sister we see our own brokenness. We don't want to face our own sin, so we ignore, neglect, or even attack that reflection that reminds us of it. In this way, our withholding and hiding from God erects barriers between ourselves and others. On the other hand, when we are vulnerable and free before God, we are able to risk ourselves in generosity and love toward one another. In this way, prayer heals not only our souls but our relationships.

Reflect on someone you don't care for or against whom you have a grudge. Examine and challenge your reasons for how you feel. Are they in any way related to how Cain felt toward Abel? Confess your own sin before God. Seek out an opportunity with them to forgive and be forgiven. Do as Jesus commands us: “When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23–24).

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (Rev. 21)

“It is done!” Nearing the end of Revelation, in chapter 21, John envisions the final fulfillment of God’s covenant with us. It is not a mere contractual agreement; it is a marriage. When Christ offers the cup to his disciples the night before he dies, it echoes a Jewish betrothal ritual in which the man would offer a cup of wine to his wife-to-be. The communion table is therefore the seal of Christ’s covenant, his loving promise to make us new and live in communion with us. This marriage is consummated in John’s vision of his return.

This hope is the basis for our work of mercy and justice in the present world. We don’t just sit back and wait for it to happen. The deeper this vision seeps into our imaginations and hearts, the more we are inspired to see it happen. We make space for these glimpses of his Kingdom by alleviating suffering and protesting the power of death, as if God's renewal is already working in and around us. This hope is a double edged sword of now and not yet—of joy and suffering, both of which empower us to have compassion and mercy toward others. Our hope inspires us to “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15) and “groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).

In short, we are a people of hospitality. We have been given the work of readying this world as God’s home. We are preparing for Christ’s return and the wedding feast, represented today at the Communion table. And as Jesus teaches us, we show love and hospitality to him by showing love and hospitality to “the least of these who are members of my family” (Matthew 25:40)—the hungry, the stranger, the unclothed, the prisoners.

Reflect on this declaration of hope (Revelation 21:3–4) and imagine how it can take actual shape in your actions today. If this is our hope, how do we treat others? How do we conduct ourselves in our current cultures and political systems? How do we care for nature? How do we respond to suffering and death? How do we live toward this future?

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor? (Fev, Haiti)

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (John 1:16-18)

By December 25, our giving spirit is usually spent. Following our feasting and fellowship, we turn our focus to the new year to make resolutions for how we want to better ourselves. For God, the other hand, Christmas is the beginning of generosity. His “generous bounty” isn’t exhausted during Christmas. God continues to pour out "gift after gift after gift” throughout the rest of the story (which we celebrate throughout year). God gives grace through the life, teaching, and miracles of Jesus, through his death and resurrection, through the outpouring of Holy Spirit, and through the ongoing work of the Church. Christmas can feel like a deadline at the end of the year, but it's actually a starting line that kicks off the year-round story of God’s generosity. This is truly the gift that keeps on giving—and so should we.

For the story is open, and we're playing a part. Just as Jesus makes the Father visible, so we make Jesus visible. Specifically, we reveal God by giving ourselves for others, just as God gives himself continually. We can’t have it both ways—enjoying God's gifts while also safeguarding our time, attention, love, and possessions. Why should we even want to? We have already been given everything—the life of God himself! As “we live off his generous bounty,” the risks of love and sacrifice are transformed into the only way to live, because we are learning from Jesus.

This is what it means to be the Church, the Body of Christ which is broken and offered up for the life of the world. Jesus, the “one-of-a-kind God-Expression” is communicated through the Church’s life and work—who we are and what we do together all year long. Stay close to the story by participating in the kind of life-giving works of love that God does among us. Stay close to “the very heart of the Father” by continuing to imitate his generosity and grace. Stay close to Jesus by risking and sacrificing yourself as he did.

So if you’re looking in the mirror as the new year approaches, try tweaking your questions and resolutions a bit: How can I be a “God-Expression?” What specific ways can I share God’s generosity and give myself to others this year? How can I participate in God’s story and invite others to do the same?

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (John 1:14-17)

Jesus comes not to abolish the law but to fulfill it and make it possible for us to live like him. Jesus’ own summary of “the basics” is this: love God and love your neighbor. In order to live in this way we must continually remember that “we all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift.” This means our forgiveness, kindness, generosity, and patience is not self-generated or self-sustaining.

The true source of our serving is not our own strength but the Spirit’s infinite supply of grace.

We tap into this grace by giving thanks. Gratitude begets generosity in a dance of “exuberant giving and receiving.” We realize Christ's gift in our own life and overflow with the desire to share what we have been given—life with God.

Law alone is no longer the reason we serve others. In fact, the law shows us that we can’t do it on our own. Our love is not a strict obligation but a spontaneous response to the gift we have already been given. When we love our neighbor just because “we should,” we will run out of steam eventually. When we love our neighbor in response to God’s loving us, we are relying not on our own love but God’s, which is never exhausted. While we withhold and only have so much to offer, our God is "generous inside and out,” and he uses us to share that generosity with others. We ourselves become his vessels of grace, vehicles of his presence and peace.

Our human love is restricted and inconsistent—only a dim reflection of divine love. But as a reflection, it still shines the light of God’s perfect love, even if imperfectly. In this light, our own weakness and weariness change from excuses and obstacles into reasons to love one another. I am just as helpless and hurting as my neighbor, and God has given me life through the grace of Jesus Christ. So what stops me from sharing that grace?

All we have to offer is ourselves, broken but beloved by God. Like John, we point out the source of life—the One who loved us first. As we remember his arrival among us, let’s give thanks for his limitless grace and seek to share it wherever we can. When we do, we make the unseen God “plain as day."

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor? (Sarah E. Raymond School of Early Education)

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC.

Love Your Neighbor (John 1:9-13)

The Incarnation is the basis of the infinite worth of every human person. In God’s Son we are all sons and daughters. His birth into the world means new birth for all. He becomes like us to make us like him. God unites himself to all humanity, making us holy and whole.

Therefore, becoming children of God means we also treat others as children of God. This is the true reason why Advent and Christmas ought to be seasons of generosity and kindness: because we remember the great mystery that the God has become one of us, transforming what it means to be human. We see Christ himself in everyone.

Paul puts it like this:

"From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us" (2 Corinthians 5:16–19). 

“From a human point of view” means defining others (and ourselves) by faults and limitations, status in society, race or gender, opinions and behaviors, what they can or cannot do for me. But Christ bulldozes these distinctions to clear the ground for new creation. Not only that—he has made us the stewards and laborers of the field. We practice this work of reconciliation by overcoming these divisive ways and regarding everyone as “their true selves, their child-of-God selves,” thereby welcoming them into the truth of who they are in Christ.

Spend time meditating on the mystery that God himself becomes a man. Let that be a source of motivation today to practice reconciliation today. How will treat the next person you see as if he/she were Christ himself?

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Who Is My Neighbor?

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC

Love Your Neighbor (John 1:6-8)

John the Baptist is the culmination of a long history of prophets, whose love for their own people often sounded strange and harsh. They are a voice of confrontation, conviction, and correction—hardly a voice that blends nicely into a choir singing Christmas carols. Their consistent mission was to re-focus and re-align, calling the people of God back to the core of who they are. They arrive to get us back on track and prepare us for what is coming. For the prophets, this especially means that we kill our idols and care for the helpless in society. For Israel, it was the widows, orphans, and immigrants. Who are they in our own life and community?

During Advent as we await the final coming of Christ, we inherit John's work of announcing and preparing the way. We are called to recover this prophetic voice—"to show everyone where to look, who to believe in”—not in condescending condemnation but in urgent invitation. We are also called to listen to this prophetic voice by abandoning our self-centered gods and sentimental traditions to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. This holiday season is a time to make straight the way of the Lord by doing justice for those in need.

As we remembered in prayer on Monday, we ourselves are not the light; we shine Christ’s light, as the moon reflects the sun. Our lanterns are lit with his fire. Any truth, hope, compassion, or generosity that we show to others this season is not our own. We simply share and show the way to the source, "pointing out the way to the Life-Light.” With that humility of heart, let us open our hands to extend the same light of service, forgiveness, and generosity that Christ has shed on us.

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Tomorrow on the Daily Connection: Connecting With Our World Through Outreach

About the Author

Nick Chambers is the Director of Spiritual Formation at Calvary UMC.