How far is my neighbour?

"Love your neighbour as yourself" has been a great teaching that no pious Jew ever questioned. However, the range of its meaning was certainly in doubt. That is why a lawyer once stood up in one of the teaching sessions of Jesus and asked, "Who is my neighbour?" (Luke 10:29).

The story that Jesus told him was to illustrate the meaning of neighbor. He told him the story that we now call the Story of the Good Samaritan. There was a man who was attacked by the robbers who left him on the road that leads from Jerusalem to Jericho to die. All sorts of people passed by this man but no one except a Samaritan helped him and saved his life. The priest and the Levite who passed him by without lending him any help were closer to him in every way. They were from the same race (Jews) and belonged to the same religion (Judaism) and most probably lived somewhere around that area. However, as far as Jews are concerned the Samaritan was an outcast and foreigner. He must have lived in the territory of the Samaritans, which was further north of Jerusalem. After concluding his story, Jesus posed this question: "Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?" This question implies that there is a distinction between two realities. One is to have a neighbour, and another is being a neighbor.

Having a neighbour is decided by the physical proximity; however, being a neighbour is being there for a person when he is in need disregarding all sorts of distance. Living in a Jewish neighbourhood, the lawyer could only extend his love only to another Jewish person (or to a lawyer if he lived in the Lawyers Campus) who lived next door or just across the street. For the priest and the Levite the man on the road was not his neighbour though he was a fellow Jew, because they did not live in the same neighborhood.

Jesus redefined love to neighbours by defining what it means to be a neighbour. By extending our love to all those who are in need we become a neighbour to them. They may be living miles away from me in the poorest countries of the world, or the poorest sections of my own country but I have to be a neighbour to them by extending my love and care to them. For Jesus, a person's need is what brings that person to the neighbourhood of my love. It is a challenge to extend our love beyond our own neighbourhoods of religion, caste, nationalities to all those who suffer.

Why Christians are Compelled to Serve

Down through the centuries the followers of Christ have set examples of being kind through their service to humanity all over the world. Numerous hospitals, orphanages, schools and colleges in places where there was no health care and proper education are examples of kindness that is integral to the followers of Christ.

Kindness is love in action. In 1 Corinthians 13:4 Saint Paul wrote, "Love is patient and is kind...." If Christian love is a coin, then patience and kindness are the two sides of that coin. A coin cannot exist unless it has two sides! This also means that the real kindness proceeds from the real love. What type of love would produce kindness?

First of all, there is contemplative love, where love is a feeling. This love, seeks and cherishes all that is lovable. Human beings has the tremendous capacity to love anything even animals of different kinds. Humans are the only creatures who keep pets! It does not move beyond the thoughts or feelings of love to action. Contemplative love is thus impotent. Sudhiir Kakar retells the story of dog-couple in one of his books. One day the bitch was killed and its body was lying on the road. Its partner came along and saw the lifeless body of his partner, sniffed it and then walked away. Later that dog was found in the company of another bitch. Contemplative love is nothing beyond the love this dog showed. The followers of Christ who busied themselves in serving humanity cherished a love that springs in to action.

Secondly, there is the congenial love which is love for the things that a person likes or of the same kind. Congenial love cannot love persons of different likes, looks or class. Though congenial love may be lavished on the persons whom we like, particularly our own people it does not go beyond cross the barrier of race, culture or language. It may also express itself as xenophobia. The disciples of Jesus who travelled across the nations to serve the poor and the needy of people other than their own showed a different type of love.

Thirdly, there is the outgoing love. This love goes beyond feelings to action, is not limited to people of ones like, and looks. God, by loving the entire fallen humanity shows this love. As Jesus puts it, he is a God who "... makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust" (Matt 5:48). God's love is outgoing love, which Jesus exemplifies. Jesus' miracles were not merely displays of his power but acts of kindness, which spring from his outgoing love. Jesus did not just feel sorry for the sick (contemplative love), but he healed the sick (act of kindness). Jesus did not heal only the Jews (his own people) but all sorts of people. It included Samaritans (Luke 17), Syrophoenicians (Mark 7:26), Romans (Matthew 8) and all.

This is the secret of kindness, which is the Fruit of the Spirit; an outgoing love which God's only Son showed by his coming to a people who are not his kind, rendering service which they did not deserve and dying a death which they should have died! This explains acts of kindness followers of Christ showed and should be the model for Christians today.

Masks Modern Christians Wear

The life of and life in modern Christian churches, with all the dissensions, hatred and disunity is certainly shameful. That is not what Christians are called to, they are called to produce the fruit of the Spirit.
Fruit of the Spirit is the natural outcome of a Spirit-led life. It is characterisctic of a Spirit-filled life. The foremost of this is love (Gal 5:22). Though Paul listed love in Galatians 5:22 he best exposits it in his first correspondence to the church in Corinth. Love is the hallmark of Christ-disciples: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Three redherrings of true love are spirituality, charity and self-sacrifice" (John 13:35).
However, Christians tend to wear different masks that look like love which Paul criticizes very caustically in the great poem on love in 1 Corinthians 13. First of these masks is false spirituality. Christians who fail to love each other as Christ loved them tend to wear a mask of spirituality. This comes usually in the form of high spiritual gifts like, speaking in heavenly languages, prophecy, and claims of miracles. Even if these claims are true, they are useless unless they proceed from lives that are saturated with the love of Christ and is able to pour that love out to others. Such lives are lifeless as "sounding brass" or "claning symbols", makes noise but lifeless!
Second mask that they  use to cover their loveless lives is charity. To be at the service of the poor and needy is often considered as acts of love, but may not. I once saw a lady running after a begger to give him an apple from her shopping bag. It is evening, and her religion requires that she should do some good thing each day to earn merits before her gods. It is not really love that drove her but her own selfish spiritual interest. Christians need not be different, most social service need not be out of love, but fund-driven or for a good name in society. I don't intend to look down upon people who sacrifice for the poor out of genuine love.
Third mask is self-sacrifice. Pauls mentions the extreme self-sacrifice of letting oneself to be burnt at the stake (one of the means of persecution in early Christian period). Just because a person denies his body, chastises himself does not mean that s/he is doing it out of love. The Bible insists in this passage (1 Cor 13:3) that giving and even self-molesting for the sake of charity is useless if there is no real love.
Christians are expected to "serve one another in love" (Gal 5:13). For that we need to rip these mask off. Lack of love leads them to behave like animals who "bite and devour" each other (Gal 5:15). These two verses in Galatians which serve as introduction to the discussion on the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Gal 5:22-23 explains why so we face so much of disunity and hatred in modern churches.

Planning and Goal-setting Redefined

Death speaks volumes and we tend to listen more carefully to our dear ones at the death than when they were alive. In the recent past, four deaths spoke to me powerfully. One is of my friend who died suddenly before reaching the fiftieth birthday. A man of full of plans, things lined up to do for God was suddenly called to glory. The other was the death of a two little children of my Sunday school aged eleven and nine years in a road accident. Their dad, a cousin and the cousin's granddad also died in the same accident. It was very painful to watch two kids and their dad aged just 38 lowered to the same grave in three coffins to be laid side by side. They had dreams, plans and aspirations for life, but God had different plans and none of us could question his plans nor should stop him doing what he willed for them.
I had to take a serious look at my life. I have plans, most of them are certainly things that I want to do for God. However, every planning requires some assurance of the span of time available. That is where the issue is. I but can't really have any definite plans until I know how much time I have. That is where the hitch is: I am not in charge of my lifespan. That is decided not by me but my creator, God.
Does that mean that I should not make any plans? Certainly not. Without plans my life will be disorganized, I will be without goals in life and eventually no achievements in life. I will be just floating aimlessly and then rust away. I need a plan for the day when I get up, that is what gives me reason to roll out of my bed every morning. I should achieve something before I go to bed, that is what gives me fulfilment in life. Many such days make up my months and many such months of planned, ordered and goal-oriented life should make up my life.
Actually, every one of us should have long-term plans. Goals to reach on a longer span of time: for a year, may be five-year plans, etc. Then these are broken up into smaller achievable goals for the months and days. However, when we make a five-year plan or even set goals for the current month, we should know that the month does not belong to us; even the given day!
We read in the Epistle of James (James 4:13), "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.' Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away."
When Apostle James penned these lines, he was not against planning and goal setting. He was not a pessimist at all. He then goes on to the next verse to tell us an important truth that our planning should also take account of the fact that all plans ought to be within the will of God. He continues in Verse 15, "For you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”" This type of conditional planning, that is plans surrendered to the supreme will of God is what God expects from those who love him. Such planning and goal setting accepts him as the author and sovereign over our life.

Know where you are going!

But before we take our journey to that side of the grave we need to make sure where we are going. Please make sure where you will end up before that transfer from this life to the other happens.

A few days back, a teenager in Pune killed himself by hanging. He was from a well-to-do family happy family, got a lot of love and care from his elder sisters and brothers. However, he decided to die just to satisfy his curiosity. A lesson in his Marathi textbook about the martyrdom of India's freedom fighters made him curious about death. He used to ask his parents and teachers what happens after death. The answer his parents of this Hindu boy gave seems not to have satisfied him nor of his teacher. Finally, he decided to find out by himself. The police told the press that he committed suicide in order to find out for himself what happens after death. When he killed himself, he was not sure where he was going and what is going to happen to him.

People were always fascinated by what happens after death. Nobody were ever able to return to life and report back to us what is there beyond death. This adds to the curiosity. However the Bible doesn't leave us confused. It is very clear that, "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Hebrews 9:27-28).

Death is inevitable and Bible makes it very clear what happens after death. One thing that is certain about death is a judgment that is waiting for all. Those who put their trust in Christ will pass on to a life of continually enjoying the presence of God and others to eternal condemnation. However, what decides what type of life waits for us there is how we take the life on this side of eternity. This life is our opportunity to grab the great salvation that Christ has offered to us through is death on the cross.

But before we take our journey to that side of the grave we need to make sure where we are going. Please make sure where you will end up before that transfer from this life to the other happens.

Apprentice of the Gospel

"But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel" (Philippians 2:22)

Great leaders are not always born but nurtured by people whom God had blessed with grace, wisdom and experience. However, an attitude of submission, obedience and willingness to learn is what is expected of those who would like to be used by God.

The house where my parents live was built long before I was born. However, I have memories of this house being renovated to add two new rooms: one on the first floor which later became my room. The carpentry team consisted of a father and his two sons; both sons were married and had small children. The father had the drawings and consulted my father occasionally and the sons just took instructions from their father and slogged. The father would take break from hammering the chisel on the wood occasionally, have a smoke and walk around the structure that is coming up. The sons worked silently, until their father allowed them to stop and have a break. At the end of each day, the father collected the wage for the team.

By the time we had another renovation of our house the father had died. The two sons are no living in their own houses and had their independent carpentry shops. My father had a tough time to decide to which of the two sons he should give the work. He finally chose the "best son", meaning the son he thought would do a work as efficiently as his father. Thus he became our "resident carpenter" for years. The story continues: he came with his sons, the sons took orders from their father and learnt from him and in the course became the best carpenters in our village.

The relationship of Timothy with Paul was one of "father and son". However, Timothy was not Paul's biological son. Paul had led Timothy to faith in Christ and became his "spiritual" father. However, in this passage there is a new dimension to their relationship. That is the relationship of a father and son as far as their occupation is concerned. In the gospel work that Paul had immersed himself, Timothy had served him as a son means he had been his apprentice. In the ancient world, the sons learnt a trade from their father and continued the family tradition. We call Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth because he must have (like all boys in Nazareth) learnt the trade of carpentry from his foster father, Joseph who was a carpenter.

Later on, Timothy became a bishop of a congregation and a leader on his own right. However, the beginning was as a submissive apprentice of a godly leader.

Here is an often neglected aspect of Christian ministry. Great leaders are not always born but nurtured by people whom God had blessed with grace, wisdom and experience. However, an attitude of submission, obedience and willingness to learn is what is expected of those who would like to be used by God.

--
Paulson Pulikottil
Union Biblical Seminary, PB No. 1455, Bibvewadi, Pune, 411037
Web: http://paulson.coreonline.info

Secret of Being Used by God

Many of the modern Christian leaders were not physically attractive nor did they come from families of high social or economic standing. They were very ordinary people, from very ordinary circumstances but God used them beyond their limitations. I can think of William Carey who was missionary, bible translator, linguist, and educator. He was an English cobbler! Pandita Ramabhai was a young widow, from a poor Brahmin family and just four-feet tall. William Seymour was a black, son of former slaves, a railway porter and blind in one eye. God used him mightily at the Azusa Street Revival.
How can God use us? The answer to this question can be found in 2 Timothy 2:20-21 where Paul uses the metaphor of pots and pans in a big house.
“In a large house there are articles not only of godl and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanse himself form the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.”
A master does not use all the vessels and cutlery in his house. There are at least three conditions for the master to use the articles. First, they should belong to him, secondly they must be useful, and thirdly they must be clean!
The sense of belonging to the Master matters a lot. Paul always identified him as a servant of Jesus Christ. Every follower of Jesus should have this sense of a relationship of belonging to Jesus. Bible describes the relationship between Jesus and his followers using various metaphors: Friends, Servants, Children of God, and Citizens of Heaven… It is this sense of belonging to God and the risen Lord that makes us in the first place worthy to be used by God. Let us make sure that God will not have to borrow an article for his use from elsewhere, but we will be found belonging to Him.
Usefulness is certainly important too. I have at least two penholders on my table and they are full with pens and pencils of all types. However, many times I have to try two or three pens before I can find one that I can use to sign or write. Many of them are there but may not have refills, or have ink dried in them. Just being there in the holder does not matter. That is what Paul highlights by the phrase, “useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (v. 21). It is sad that many Christians find themselves not useful to God when God needs them. We must spiritually stay fit for any work of God when God wants us.
Thirdly, we need to remember that the Master is very strict about cleanliness. He wants all furniture to be polished, floor to be clean, shelves to be dusted; he insists that He will use only those articles that are clean. The call to “flee” in v. 22 is directly linked to being “holy” of v. 21. Personal holiness is a pre-condition for being used by God. God does not use as any condition that we are in; we must be in a condition that God insists on and should certainly meet God’s standards.
Great men and women whom God used had a personal relationship with him, they were useful vessels and they met God’s standards of purity. That is the secret of being used by God.