Had an interesting weekend, as I attended a discussion about the book, “The Art of Neighboring” and the challenge that went with it to learn the names of the eight neighbors around me. (NB: think of a tic-tac-toe board with your house in the middle and your physical geographical neighbors that would inhabit the other eight squares). I was able to list three, I would have gotten four but one neighbor recently moved. I’ve lived here longer than any place else I’ve ever lived, and I’m failing at the basic step of a neighbor, namely calling them by name.

Of course it doesn’t help my self-esteem to be handed this challenge in light of Jesus’ words affirming the young man that repeated, “Love your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself” as a summary of the scriptures, and telling him to go and do likewise. The bit of shame is further ground in when looking at the text and reading the young person used the following to try and weasel out from the command:

Who is my neighbor?

In this modern world, we have tried to re-define our neighbors, as a matter of fact you might have stopped by this post because of a link on Facebook, and if you did… welcome Neighbor! I wouldn’t blink an eye, to call you my neighbor in this electronic age that has made distances shrink, and relationships grow across the magic of the internet. I’ve even been to talks where this ‘quasi’-neighbor is heralded as an extension of the great commandment. It’s really easy to pat one’s self on the back about how great a neighbor one is to their electronic friends.

Then, I look at that tic-tac-toe board and wonder about the names of whosie-whatist across the street, or loud-trampoline-family kitty-corner in the back alley, or mr. always-has-the-garage-door-closed two hows down from him.

I really have no excuse, it isn’t that hard to learn people’s names. But if I learn their names, I’d have to use it when I say hello, and if I use it to say hello, I might have to ask, “how are you?” and if I asked that, I’d have to listen to the answer, and if I listened to the answer I might be able to help, and …

Not to sound like a DirecTV commercial, or a children’s book about feeding pancakes to pigs, but at the end of that stream of thought is something dangerous! Actually getting involved with strangers! My mother warned me about them!

But if I knew their name, they wouldn’t be a stranger.

I’ve also been reading The Hobbit, and how hard it was for Bilbo to leave Bag’s End and start on his adventure. I read often in the narrative about how he wishes he was home in his hobbit hole enjoying second breakfast (and if there is anything we should learn from Tolkien is the importance of second breakfast, if not elevensies) and smoking on his pipe (so long as you live in Washington or Denver, I suppose). How in the midst of the terror and fear of the adventure he could always remember home.

So I have a quandry, stay cozy in my hole, or learn the names of my neighbors. My real. Physical. Literal. Neighbors.

To add to this, there was a final paragraph in a review for the movie Her I read, copied here without further comment:

For this segment of the population anyway, we may be over-thinking the hangups with marriage. It’s not necessarily an outgrowth of economics, public policy, sociology, or religious belief. It might just be that love is hard. And, increasingly, ‘hard’ is something we’re not willing to do.

(how hard is it to learn a name?)

and sometimes passages of the bible suck. Because they are ripped out of context, and applied haphazardly to whatever we think they should apply to.

Take for example Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

All nice and warm gooey feeling, right? The context of what Jeremiah is saying to the captives in Babylon though is lost, because he’s just got done telling them: “make yourselves comfy, you’ll never see your home again. Get settled in this apostate region, because it your home for a while, and for your kids and maybe your grandkids. But realize that it is part of God’s plan, after 70 or so years, I’ll make it right, and bring you back home.”

I read on the internet today that someone doesn’t agree with Paul. Well boy howdy, that’s a pretty broad generalization, all of Paul’s writings? The ones wear he hopes that those that require circumcision as a prelude to believing in Christ slip and castrate themselves? The ones where he lists all the nasty sins we all do, just about daily, like slander and gossip along side sexual immorality?  The ones where he shows that there is no condemnation in Christ? The one where he list the ways that we’ll never be separated from Christ?

Look, I’m with Peter (2 Peter 3:16), who a couple thousand years ago wrote about Paul:

He speaks about these things in all his letters in which there are some matters that are hard to understand. The untaught and unstable twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.

He is hard to understand, it takes a bit more than the discounted 10 second sound bite that gets tossed up in the middle of a “news” story to understand Paul’s words. I’m sure that the words of a grace healed red-neck paraphrasing those greek words translated into southern twanged English are even harder to understand.

Perhaps, a few more moments dwelling on what Paul meant, and what his whole corpus means, might be a good exercise.

Try this, read Romans 7, then stop. Don’t turn the page, don’t read past the last verse and skip on to chapter 8. It’s not a happy ending.

The first letters and gospels that were penned in greek didn’t have paragraphs, didn’t have numbers for easy reference. People passed around whole letters, copying letter by letter, and sending it to another congregation. These people found hope in Paul’s words, in Peter’s words, in John’s and James. They developed the Gospels, to share the story of the God that saw our lost world in such disarray that he lowered himself, to be made all man, while continuing to be entirely divine. To provide the perfect sacrifice for the slanders, the gossips, the liars and the thieves, even for those that commit the lesser sins listed as they live in their flesh. As I live in my flesh.

This Christmas in the turmoil of the latest, loudest, if not ugliest kerfluffle over Paul’s words, take a moment, and read. Read Matthew and the scandal that surrounds the line of the baby born in Jerusalem, that includes a incestuous daughter, a prostitute and an adulteress (and murderer too). Read Luke and marvel that the first announcement of his miracle of God with us, was not to royalty, but to dirty stinky shepherds.

Read on to realize that Jesus didn’t come to save the well, and the upright, but came to heal the sick and seek out that one sheep out of ninety-nine that has gotten ensnared by life.

Then realize, that you… the ones that read Paul’s words, and understand them, you are the ones… no … I am the one, that he bids to wash the others feet.

Bible verses suck.