Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Monday, 28 July 2014 “Love your neighbor as yourself”

Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Monday, 28 July 2014 “Love your neighbor as yourself”
Daily Scripture: Leviticus 19:15 “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.
33-34 “When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt. I am God, your God.
Reflection Questions:
Bible students often refer to Leviticus 19:1-37 as the "Call to Holiness." In this passage, God called Israel to a way of life, a code of conduct that would help them function as a loving community, serving one another's well being. These were not just rules for the sake of rules. Israel’s spiritual health (like ours) involved not only the reverence they showed to God, but also the way they treated all of their "neighbors."
What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? One way to think of it is that most of us instinctively look out for our own best interests. So treating "your neighbor as yourself" would mean also looking out for their best interests. How could seeking to treat others with their best interests in mind affect your relationships with family or loved ones? Co-workers? People with whom you are in conflict or disagreement?
Verse 34 commanded the Israelites to love and treat the immigrants among them as they loved and treated their own people. God reminded Israel that they had been immigrants in Egypt. Think about "neighbors" in your life who are different from you. In what ways could you focus on your similarities as people? How can looking for similarities help you become more willing to serve and bless the people around you?
Today's Prayer:
Lord God, in Jesus you “moved into our neighborhood” and showed what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves. As I keep my focus on you, grow your loving generosity into the core of my being. Amen
Insight from Melanie Hill
Melanie Hill is the Visitor Connections Program Director in Resurrection’s Guest Services Ministry.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys.” I ran across this Polish proverb not long ago and had a good laugh. As a mom of four young children, I have my hands full with my own circus and monkeys. I really don’t need to get involved in anyone else’s. Maybe you can relate to this too. I’m assuming your life is as full and busy as mine is. No need to go looking for more to fill it with, especially if it involves monkeys.
So when I read through today’s scripture passage, I had to re-examine my “not my monkeys” policy. How does loving your neighbor as yourself fit with it? Bottom line? It doesn’t. Loving is messy. It’s scary, because love doesn’t give you control over other people. Love means you can’t get frustrated when people let you down. And they will, just as you will let them down. Love means you have to listen to other people even when you don’t agree with them. Love means sacrificing your time and energy to meet someone else’s needs. Loving is a lot of hard work. It can take us soaring on the heights of emotion and then just as quickly break our heart. It’s messy and sticky and exciting. Sounds a lot like a circus.
It would be easy to relegate this passage of scripture to the realm of the theoretical. We could argue the merits of a world where countries are good neighbors. One only has to turn on the news today to see plenty of examples of where our world is getting this wrong. But I don’t think God intended for us to transfer this commandment (and it IS a commandment) onto others. No, I think he intended for us to take it to heart much closer to home. And if that’s true than my life gets much more messy because relationships are messy. It would be easier to ignore that my neighbor’s house has been toilet papered by one of their son’s teenage friends while they are out of town, and let them clean it up when they get home. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” It would be easier to ignore the young mom who is on the verge of tears in the super market trying to wrangle her own monkeys. “Not my circus, definitely not my monkeys.”
But that’s not what God has called us to. He has called us to notice those around us, our neighbors, and to love them. So instead I gathered my monkeys, and we had fun cleaning up toilet paper. (Not until after we took a picture and sent it to our neighbors. After all, love means sharing the good news!) Love demands that I stop in the store to offer help to a mom who just needed a minute to pull it all together. We don’t have to solve all the world’s problems today. We just need to love our neighbors. And maybe when we learn to embrace each other’s circuses and monkeys, our world might start to look more like what God envisioned for his own monkeys.
-------