THE NEIGHBOR LAWS
Exodus 20:3-11; Matthew 22:34-40
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Have you heard about the new neighbor laws in California? You know that the entire state is in its worst drought since almost ever. Cities all over the state are now encouraging residents to tattle on their neighbors for wasting water.
Actually, tattling is sugar coating it a bit. The real goal is to shame people into not wasting water—on their lawns, on their driveways and sidewalks, on their cars, even in the shower—don’t ask how the neighbor knows you’re taking too long in the shower.
Shaming is immensely popular, too— residents have responded in droves, outing water wasters on talk radio shows, in the twittersphere, and via facebook, etc. Sacramento, for instance, has received more than 6,000 reports of water waste this year, up twentyfold from last year.
Drought-shaming may sound like a petty, vindictive strategy, and officials at water agencies all denied wanting to shame anyone, preferring to call it “education” or “competition.” But there are signs that pitting neighbors against one another can pay dividends and reveal drawbacks.
“In Santa Cruz, dozens of complaints have come from just a few residents, who seem to be trying to use the city’s tight water restrictions to indulge old grudges. ‘You get people who hate their neighbors and chronically report them in hopes they’ll be thrown in prison for wasting water,” said Eileen Cross, Santa Cruz’s water conservation manager. People plead water-waste innocence, and suspiciously ask: “Was that my neighbor? She’s been after me ever since I got that dog.”1
So much for “love your neighbor as yourself”; so much for the greatest commandment; so much for bringing out the best in one another! It’s far easier to focus on what the neighbor has that we don’t have, or what the neighbor’s doing that they shouldn’t be doing—or even better, what the neighbor’s getting away with that we want to do, too.
We can try to resolve the issue the California way, by shaming, but God’s way is far superior to any of our earthly efforts. When God gave the law to the Israelites in the desert, the Ten Commandments were meant to be a gift, not a curse, not a limitation, not a blaming/shaming kind of rule book. The Ten Commandments, as I’ve said over the last two weeks, “show us how a liberated people who have been freed by Jesus Christ from the powers of sin, the world and self can live a new life.”2
Many people are looking for new life. We’re bored, tired, overwhelmed, ashamed, guilty, troubled or some other combination of life events or situations that have really got us hurting, yearning, reaching, wanting a better life, a different life, another life. The thing is, we have life and God gave us life, and God gave us Laws to keep us free from the sin and circumstances that derail and shame and punish folks who stray from God’s plan for our lives.
1 In California, shaming the water waster. By Ian Lovett / New York Times News Service. Published Jul 5, 2014 at 12:01AM
2 The Second Table—Turned Toward the Neighbor. www.workingpreacher.org. June 29, 2014.
Let me say this, “the purpose of the Law is not ‘your best life now’ (the title of one of Joel Osteen’s books based on the theology of prosperity); the real purpose of the Law is for our neighbors to have their best life now because of the way we treat them, relate to them, encourage them. This is what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The long and the short of it is, the Law isn’t about you or me. It’s about our neighbor. “And God loves our neighbors so much that God gives us the Law.” Yet, before we get our knickers all in a knot, the converse is also true: “God loves us so much that God gives our neighbor the exact same law.”3
Imagine a neighborhood in which all families loved the Lord our God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind. If we love God, truly loved God, then how in the world could we ever engage in shaming our neighbor, grinding axes and retaliating for old grudges against our neighbor? That’s not love.
We cannot claim to love God and do ugly things to any other person.
You see, we have this neighbor law that’s as old as the faith of desert wanderers, and we cannot disregard or overrule the neighbor law because doing so is the same thing as doing it to God. Hating your neighbor is the same thing as hating God; loving your neighbor is the same thing as loving God.
Our love for God is not to be half-hearted or just pretend or only when it’s convenient or just on Sundays. We are to love God with all our hearts, with all our soul, and with all our mind—and let me tell you, it takes more strength to do all that than we can ever gather on our own.
Without Jesus to teach us, without neighbor to reach us, we are as lost in the desert as the ancient Israelites.
And I don’t know about you, but I hate to be lost, to feel lost. I want to be found. I want the Lord to find me worthy of his name, but I cannot do it alone; and neither can you. We need God and we need each other; the only strength that will bind us with God and each other is love.
Friends, let’s leave shaming to California. God has given us a different and far better neighbor law: it’s a law about a greater love—love for God and love for other people. When we live by God’s neighbor laws, there will never be a drought of love among us. Thank God for the Law!
So, with the greatest commandment written on our hearts, minds and souls, we charter a new course, the best course, the heavenly course for our lives: freedom in Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.
July 20, 2014
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
3 The Second Table—Turned Toward the Neighbor. www.workingpreacher.org. June 29, 2014
