move into your hood

move into your hood

Christmas can be summed up in this one sentence:

God became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. John 1:14

I love this.

The God who made pomegranates and lizards moved into the hood. The God who paints sunsets with brilliant color pallets and the God who formed mountains with his bare hands, He showed up on the streets and in the alleys. As you watch God move about His hood, He purposely connects with his neighbors. He asks people their names. He knows their story. He sits with them, eats with them, parties with them. His intentionality with his neighbors changes the neighborhood. It changes lives and it changes the world. Actually, come to think of it, Jesus’ intentionality with his neighbors changed my life.

This is interesting considering many of us do not even know our neighbors. We push a button and back out of our garage door, wave at them, go to work, come home after work, wave at our neighbors, press that same button and that is the extent to which we connect with those around us. Christians can actually be most guilty of not knowing their neighbors. Very often we go from one Church gathering to the next. We attend our church services, we go to our Bible studies, our worship nights and our potlucks. We only know people who live like us, think like us and believe like us. How can it be that we can do this, meanwhile our Lord was accused of being a drunk and a glutton because he was with drunk gluttons so much? How is it that we can be in a Christian bubble, when our Lord was accused of being a friend of sinners? If we take a step back and look at our lives, do our lives look like that of our Lord?

The other day, my husband really surprised me. He left the house to work next door on a rental we own. He came back hours later. When I asked him what he got done, he had little to report. He began to explain…

He said he went to a store he regularly goes to. He goes there all too often to rent movies. My husband looooves movies. But this particular night he went there to get a hot chocolate. I said to clarify, “You went to get a hot cocoa?” I have never seen this man drink a hot chocolate in the 15 years I have known him. How cute… I thought. He explained that his stop was supposed to be so quick that he left his truck running while he ran in to grab it.

This whole thing sounded odd. My husband is a very practical guy that only does things that make sense. And he is very predictable in a healthy, stable kind of way.  Drinking chocolate and leaving keys in a car, sounded like he was describing someone else. And maybe he was acting out of character because God was moving him like a puppeteer. I say this because it became clear that he was meant to be in that store. And as I now see it, God must have given him a strong craving for something other than a movie to get him there. Because there were no time for movies! He had to bust out a long list of jobs before our new renters were moving in!

So Rob walked up to pay for his warm drink and the cashier, whom Rob chats with every time he frequents the place, just opened up. He opened up for 45 minutes… He shared with Rob about his mother’s suicide, his mental diagnosis, his deep intimacies with his girlfriend and his failure at school and jobs. These things that were shared, these are not the things you share with someone who walks into a place one time. It was Rob’s frequency of place and intentionality in hood that opened up this man’s story. These things that were shared are also not the things you share with a running car or a job to do. The young man kept referring to the camera watching him talk that was probably going to get him fired. He knew he was opening up deep and wide. But he needed it. He needed another person to hear his pain, to listen to his struggle and to wrestle with him with his faith.

Rob asked him about his faith. The guy said he used to go to church and then when his mom killed herself, people told him she was going to hell. He has wanted little to do with God since. He said he has sex with his girlfriend and doesn’t believe he is going to hell for it. It was clear this guy’s perspective on faith tells Him God is waiting to punish him for pleasure and for pain. His view of God is a horrible, Punisher waiting to strike at any minute. I agree with Him, I would want  nothing to do with this God either. I would rather work in a convenience store every Sunday morning and stock shelves with mountain dew and chips than sit in a pew and try to act like I liked a God like that.

This man just went off on his wounded view of God. And Rob stood across the counter, with the cigarettes overhead, the pop machine behind and the Holy Spirit within. As this man took a deep breathe, Rob agreed that he didn’t buy into those things either. He suggested perhaps that this man give God a second chance. That perhaps he stop listening to those kind of voices and listen to some other voices. Rob actually gave this guy some ideas on books to read. And there in the middle of this store, they talked about Jesus. I asked Rob what other customers were doing when they were talking. He said there were no other customers. I said “There were no other customers for forty five minutes?” Rob knew what my question inferred, “No, there were no other customers.”

God loves his kids so much, that he will do nothing short of moving into their neighborhood and trying to tell them He loves them. He did and He does.

Forty five minutes later, Rob got his change back, walked out of the store with little gas and a new friendship. Moving into the neighborhood the way Jesus did sometimes means frequency in places, spaces and lives we otherwise wouldn’t naturally step into. Moving into the neighborhood means letting your car run even if that makes no sense. Moving into the neighborhood means going with the Spirit, even if the Spirit is telling you to drink a sissy drink. Moving into your neighborhood looks like building trust every time you rent a movie so that one day a hurting human being will let you in to their pain. Moving into the neighborhood means being accused of being a friend of sinners and tax collectors and bipolar, unemployed, suicidal, adult men who love video games and hate the Jesus they think they know. Moving into your hood looks like doing things you don’t normally do.

Let us begin to live like our Lord and then perhaps people will see God for who God really is. This is when our neighborhood will really change! This is when people who are grieving will be able to do it in good company. This is when neighbors who hate each other over fence issues, will hand over their boundary lines because they are willing to serve like Christ. This is when we will really know each other and care for each other instead of just wave. If you say you follow Christ, you better be following Him right into the neighborhood He has you indwelling. Christ is not just pushing garage door buttons and watching TV. Christ is not just at church. Christ is intentional with people in the neighborhood, that is why He came. So should we be intentional.

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