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Many of us these days are remembering our own personal experience with wildfires here in southern California. The 2007 Witch Creek Fire was particularly devastating in the communities where most of our Village Church folks live, but we do have others in our church who lost homes as long ago as the early 1960’s, when fires took homes in Bel Air and Hollywood. As I recall, even for those whose homes were spared, in 2007 there was the jarring experience of evacuating, which involved 750,000 people in San Diego county. That impacted nearly everyone in our church.
I’ve been reflecting on how quickly and easily it is to become emotionally and practically involved in helping folks who are going through something that you yourself have experienced. It is also easy to reach out to folks who are nearby, or folks who are just like yourself. That’s only human. When you and I see photos of a burned home that looks just like ours, or when the people being interviewed on TV in the midst of their grief are pretty much just like us, we immediately relate.
But what about when they are different? Or when they are not nearby?
Last Sunday we began a season of thinking deeply about the imperative to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” This Sunday, we’ll read some powerful scriptures about just who those neighbors are. I hope you’ll show up, or at least watch and listen. Read Deuteronomy 24:14-15 & 17-22 as you prepare to hear this word: “Loving Our Neighbors: Not Just the People Next Door.”
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