Love your neighbour: a strategy to reach the world

It used to be much more difficult to connect with our neighbour (that’s neighbour singular – we’re at the end of a terrace). He spoke no English and would furtively dart in and out of the property. When the police hauled him away we learned that he’d converted the whole house and its roof space into an indoor cannabis farm. I had no idea he was so entrepreneurial.

The new tenant, let’s call her Debs, is a mum of three and a smoker (of the tobacco variety). I mention this only because she is out smoking on our shared porch 20 times a day, which is bad for her health but, I hope, good for her soul.

That’s because Emma and I get to speak to her all the time. And occasionally she’ll let us pray with her. Last week was one of those occasions. Life had gotten too much and I shared about many times when I’d felt the same. ‘But we’re not meant to do it alone, are we?’ She agreed. I told her the story of the two sons from Luke 15 and made the application: ‘That’s what we’re like: thinking we know best and making a mess of things. And that’s what Jesus is like: arms open, willing to receive anyone who turns from the pigsty and comes home.’ We prayed about that and about help for her situation. I went inside to grab a book and gave it to her. I invited her to church and, though she said that church was ‘too far, too fast’, three days later she agreed – her and her family. The whole conversation took about 20 minutes.

Later that day, I drove to one of the most famous educational establishments in the world. I gave a talk to some very bright, very privileged young men. They were attentive and polite, receiving the talk well, it seemed. Then a student (let’s call him Alistair) raised his objections to me privately. Over the next 20 minutes Alistair clung to his atheism with unfailing tenacity – and charm. He cheerily traded away everything we ordinarily hold dear for the sake of his godless view of the world. He agreed that human equality came from the God of the Bible, so – yep – it had to go. Human rights? As nonsensical as the Christianity that gave rise to them. Goodness itself? Well really, altruism is an illusion. Truth? Probably just power plays. Beauty? All subjective. The experience of awe? Only neurons firing. Love? A chemical reaction.

Like dominos, every transcendental fell. It was all psychology boiling down to biology, boiling down to chemistry, boiling down to physics. But ‘if that’s the way things are, we have to bite the bullet and face up to it’ he said, sounding like the nihilist, Friederich Nietzsche, but looking for all the world like a beaming Bertie Wooster.

At one point he said: ‘But I feel like now we’re ready to face that reality. In the past, life was difficult and we needed the consolation of religion. Nowadays we all have more than enough.’ My eyebrows performed an involuntary leap and he caught himself. ‘I mean… most people. It’s hard for some, but most people have it pretty easy.’

In the car on the way home I thought back to Debs and a very different 20-minute conversation. I thought about the kinds of conversation you’re able to have with an anxious mum at the end of her tether and a clever lad with the world at his feet. I thought about the choice I’d made to speak at the prestigious institution (which I don’t regret at all – I just thought again about my motives and wondered what the pull was). I thought about the strategies our churches have explicitly or implicitly followed in pursuing the clever and the comparatively comfortable – camps, university towns, student ministries. And I thought about the original mission strategy of Jesus:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (Luke 4:18-19)

That day I drove four hours to speak to ‘the cream of society’. More evident fruit came from simply loving my neighbour.