Latest / The Wesley Word / [WW] The Art Of Neighboring: What If Jesus Was Serious?

Transcript

[WW] The Art Of Neighboring: What If Jesus Was Serious? · The Wesley Word

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wesley Ware.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably about six, seven years ago I had a friend walk into my office and she was like, Steve, I am done with that church.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my gosh, what'd they say?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: I am done with that church.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, what's the problem?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: All they preach about is loving God and loving neighbor.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And loving God and loving neighbor.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And loving God and loving neighbor.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, that doesn't sound heretical.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds pretty much on point.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, I know, but that's all they ever preach about.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, so they're getting it right, right?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's the problem here?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: But she was like, in sense that that was the only thing they ever talked about.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: We know as people of faith, right, when Jesus asks, what is the greatest commandment?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, love the Lord your God with all that you have and all that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself as yourself.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: That is the quintessential thing of who we are called to be.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought it's fitting as we begin a new semester here and with new friends and old friends, to spend some time, if we're called to love God and to love neighbor, to look at some, some, spend some time looking at what does it really mean to love our neighbor?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: More specifically, what might it look like to live into the art of neighboring?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: We use this language a lot about loving God.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: But what it might look like to spend some time, and I'm not a super creative person, I was a math major, right?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: But what might that art of neighboring look like?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: What are some key things that might help us live into who it is that we are called to be?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And just a few moments ago, our trio of scripture readers read for us The Great Samaritan, right?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Which is a familiar passage, perhaps, or maybe you've never heard it before, you've at least heard about acting like a good Samaritan, right?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And as the story goes, there's a lawyer that comes before Jesus and wants to catch him, right?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: He wants to sort of trick him here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Hey, you know, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Well, what does the Bible say?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I need to love my neighbor, right?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Love God and love my neighbor.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is like, boom, you got it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do it and you'll live.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do this and you will live.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: But wanting to justify himself, the scripture says, right?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Want to justify him, almost looking for a loophole, so to speak.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: He says, and and and who's my neighbor?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Who do I really need to love?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or who can I leave out, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Who is my neighbor?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when we get in that familiar passage, right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Where Jesus answers his question not directly, but with a story, as Jesus often does.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus very rarely answers a question straightforward.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: He almost always comes back with another question.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we hear, right, the priest, the guy, the certain man walks down the road and he's beaten, he's robbed, and left sort of naked and bloody in a ditch.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the priest comes by, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Priest doesn't stop, walks on the other side of the road, and passes on by.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: The Levite again sees the man, passes the other side of the road, and walks on by.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally, finally, right, we see the Samaritan.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: The Samaritan that stops, that bandages the wound, pours oil on him, puts him on his animal, takes him to the innkeeper, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And says, I'll come back and I'll pay for whatever is needed.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Just take care of this wounded person.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And a reminder, then again, if you don't know the story, why the Samaritan is such a big deal.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: The Jewish folks and the Samaritans, they were at odds at each other, right?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't as different as they wanted to think they were, right?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: The Samaritans, essentially, when the exile happened, the Samaritan folks stayed in the land and still kind of worked the land.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: The Jewish folks left.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And when they came back, right, years later, there was a big tension there, right, about who was pureblo, who wasn't.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: They were both trying to worship the same God.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: They just went about it a little bit differently, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can think about almost today in our our political climate, not the best metaphor, but I'm gonna go with it, of Democrats and Republicans, right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I truly believe that both sides of the aisle want what's best for our country and for our people.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: They just go about solving the problems in very different ways, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'll end, boom, move out of political.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what that kind of thing.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: The tension that you might feel in that realm, that was what was there between Jews and Samaritans.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Again, both trying to worship the same God, just maybe come at it a little bit differently there, right?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so at the end of all this story, as you heard, read before, Jesus says, Um, and who do you think was the neighbor?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Who do you think was the neighbor?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if Jesus poses you that question and gives you two examples of somebody walking by and not helping someone, and the third example is someone who actually stopped and helped, you're gonna say, Okay, Jesus, you got me.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was the Samaritan, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus gives him a very simple command.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Now go and do likewise.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Go and do likewise.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I began to think, right, like what if Jesus really meant what he said?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: What if he meant what he said there, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: That the way that we find life, not necessarily eternal life, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the way that we find life is by going and doing likewise, by loving our neighbor, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that we get, we, we are pretty good about loving the other, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: If we see someone, like if you saw a baby drowned in a puddle, you're gonna reach out and grab it, right?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you see someone hurt by a car accident, you're gonna try to stop if you can, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was reading a book about the art of neighboring as well as I was sort of studying for this.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I used that book and scripture to kind of help us with this.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: In the Art of Neighboring, that book, um, they talk about how back then, right, back then, um, it would have just been assumed that the people were taking care of each other.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: You would take care of the people that live near you, you take care of community.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the Acts 2 stuff about sharing, breaking bread, sharing all you have, all that good stuff?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: They were doing that.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus, by telling this story, was pushing them to help and to give kindness to the other.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think oftentimes in our society, sometimes we're almost quicker to be willing to serve in those one-off capacities and to give help someone jump their car, help them with the flat tire, do the little random acts of kindness, but it's harder for us sometimes to actually love our neighbors.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we got to be careful with loving our neighbors and using that language, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes when we see about loving our neighbors, we think about, and we hear Jesus question, who, well, who is our neighbor?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, well, the whole world is our neighbor.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I actually preached this passage last semester, and I think I even said that, like, everybody's your neighbor.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem is when we talk about everybody being our neighbor, sometimes the metaphor gets too big, and when we talk about everybody, what happens is nobody actually gets loved.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: The individual gets passed for this whole big metaphorical everybody.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But what if Jesus meant what he said, and that the way that we find life, the way that we come alive, the way that we find community, the way that we get fired up inside is if we actually loved our neighbors.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: The people that live to our right, the people that live to our left, the people that share our dorm room, the people that share our classes, the people that may live across from us one day, the people that we eat across from at this crazy place called Clemson Wesley.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: What if the way to life is by engaging our neighbors and getting to know them for who they are?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Several years ago, they took um the authors of this book, they did a huge study.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: They surveyed thousands and thousands of Christians, hundreds of churches, right, about this very subject, loving your neighbor, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And like of all people, we should be the people that thrive at loving our neighbors, right?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: That is our command to love God and to love our neighbor.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they did this survey and they put a uh they sent out a graphic or a sheet, um, I don't have the online survey, but essentially they said, think about where you live, right?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Put yourself in the center, and then think about who are your eight.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: What do I mean by that?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Who are your eight?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about um, if you're living in a neighborhood, right?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, who's the house across the street from you?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the house behind you?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the house to your left, to your right, and don't forget about your diagonals.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Those are hard sometimes, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like Steve, I lived out in the country.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, just think about who lived close to you, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right, or if you're your dorm, right?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Think about who's left, right, who's across.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe you want to venture to another floor, but at least like if you look out your door, what are the immediate doors that you can see, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then they posed the question, and they said, of those eight eight people, or three or four, wherever you're at, they asked them three questions, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: They had lines A, B, and C.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a multiple choice, it was a fill-in-the-blank test.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: They got them, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Line A, can you fill out not the last name, but can you simply name the first name of your immediate neighbors where you live?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can you name their first name, all those people, right?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: You automatically think, ah, that person's a god, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Line B, can you name something about them that you wouldn't know just by like like spying on them, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just like look out the window.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: My neighbor across the street, I'm telling you, she lives in the blinds looking out at us, right?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you couldn't just say, oh, Steve's a Clemson fan because he's got tiger paws on his car and you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: But you'd actually have to talk to them, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Something not not huge, but like, I know that they're major, I know that they're an engineer, I know that they're a nursing student, right?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Something that you would actually have to have a passing conversation with, right?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: That would be line B.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Line C, something a little bit deeper that require a little bit more than just a conversation as you're taking the trash can in in my neighborhood, right, or passing quickly, but something that you sort of get to know their hopes, their dreams.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know something deeper about them.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And out of the thousands and thousands of Christians that they that they surveyed, the hundreds and hundreds of churches that are supposed to specialize in loving their neighbor and being they should be the most profound artist ever in the art of neighboring.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: They found that only 10%, only 10% could name the first name of the people that live around them.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Only 10%.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's one out of ten, ten out of every hundred.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Only three percent could fill out line B.
• 9:40
  unknown: Right?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Only three out of every hundred people, three out of every Christian who major in loving their neighbor could tell you something a little bit deeper about who they are.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tell you about their major, so to speak, right?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: And only one percent, one out of a hundred people that specialize in loving their neighbors could tell you something deep about the people that they live around, right?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's profound.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that hits me.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I'm I'm the more the older I get, the more introverted I get, believe it or not, right?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I say my diagonals, I struggle on the people on my diagonals.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've slowly gotten to know the people around me, but it is hard to do that, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: The reason we talk about this, the reason I bring this up is because I firmly believe that before we can love someone, or to love people more deeply and more fully, we have to know them.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: It starts with knowing them.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And on the most basic level, it starts with knowing their name.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: How can you love someone deeply and personally and have an impact on their life when we aren't maybe willing to even say, hi, my name's Steve.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: What's yours?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned last week as I sort of cast the vision of who you want to be at Wesley, we've been using these uh mask and tape name tags since way before I was a freshman, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because we want you to know and be known.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: We believe that naming matters, and that's the first step to be able to love one another and to walk out these doors and to love other people as well.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I know it's it's it's hard sometimes, right?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we make excuses on that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, one excuse that we make often, that I make often, is that we're busy, right?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're on the go.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I talk to y'all about your schedules, and I'm worn out just hearing about all the clubs you're in, all the classes you have, all the labs you do, and everything that you do.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh man, I'm tired too.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's hard sometimes.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have the time.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're always moving all the time.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had a neighbor behind me, they're an awesome family.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember a few years ago I was talking to them by the fence.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: We looked like two dads on the fence.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we were like literally talking like this, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, man, we'd love to like have you all over for some hot dogs or some s'mores or something, but y'all are like never home.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yes, you're right.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're never home, right?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of the coolest families we know, but we don't get to spend time with them because we are never home.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're always on the go.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: But you know who else never had time?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: The priest.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: The priest was in a hurry.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: He couldn't stop and help the person who needed help because the man had somewhere to be.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: He had too much going on.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: He had rituals that had to perform at the temple, and if he were to stop and help this person that might be a little bloody, might be a little bit unclean, he wouldn't be able to do the things that he was called to do, and so he didn't have time, and he walked on the other side of the road.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes one of our excuses for loving our neighbor and to getting to know them on a very personal level is that we just don't have time.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: The other excuse that we have, and I live into this as well, is that sometimes if we're honest, we're just scared.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: We are just scared.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a part of who we are, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we just have fear.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I remember back in Numbers 13, you remember before the Israelites, they had that first opportunity to go into the wilderness.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: They are not in the wilderness, they're in the wilderness.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're trying to go into the promised land that God had set up, and God's like, hey, y'all, I got this great place for you.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: You should go check it out, right?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Go check it out.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they send these 12 spies into the promised land, and 10 of the 12 come back and like, it's just like God said it was.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is land flowing with milk and honey.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: It is awesome, it's incredible.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But y'all, the people there, they are like giants.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: There is no way that we can go in there and take that land.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like they will that we can't do it, right?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: They will beat us up, they will own us, we can't do it, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Joshua and Caleb are like, are you kidding me?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what we saw.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the spies are like, they are giants.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, when they look at us, they think we're just grasshoppers, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we begin to have this mentality that we that they, these people we don't know yet, our neighbors who are literally living next to us, the people who are sitting in class next to us, the people who are sitting across the table from us on a Wednesday night or in the cafeteria, they're giants.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just grasshoppers, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or to put it another way, what if I ask them like their name and they turn me down?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: What if they don't like me?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or what if they like me too much, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: That happened to us and our they moved away so I can talk about them.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna call him Dave.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's this guy that lived down the street from us years ago, and Dave, first time I met him, we're outside, it's summertime, we're we're just having some time as a family, and Dave walks up and he comes and he brings his kid and he sits on the grass and he's like, What's up?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dave.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Hey, I'm Steve, how you doing?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, this is cool, get to know my neighbors, this is awesome.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then like an hour passed, and I'm like, Dave, you got to go, man.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he just kept going.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: He wouldn't get the hints, right?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Julie, I think it's time we should probably go bathe the kids.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh, that's cool, bad time.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, maybe it's time for dinner.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh, cool, dinner time.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Dave, you got to go, right?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Dave's been forever in our yard.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think we actually went into our house, and Dave is still sitting in the grass, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, he'll get the hint one time, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Fast forward three weeks later, is Labor Day, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Labor Day is a big deal in my family.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my dad's side, all my brothers, sisters, they all come to our house this past weekend.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you saw me stressed, we had 18 people hanging out at our house, plus an extra dog.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was incredible, it was crazy.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Glad they're gone.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we're having this big family party, and not through the front door, through the back door.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Dave walks in.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is the second time I met Dave.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, What's up, Steve?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what's up, Dave?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: How you doing?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, I saw the cars, thought you were having a party.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, it is, yeah, it's a family party, having a cookout, it's all family.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Oh, cool, your family goes around, so introduce himself to all my family members and all this kind of stuff.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Dave.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Took about 45 minutes, eventually Dave leaves, right?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm like, this dude likes us too much, right?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: When we talk about the art of neighboring, don't be creepy.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Be intentional, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Be intentional.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: All right?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna embrace the awkward, and you gotta embrace the awkward to get through this, but don't be too much.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Be intentional, though, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Be intentional, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, we want to be intentional.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: The Levite, he thought he was too scared, didn't want to know, thought it could be a road, could be trapped, you never know.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um that that road was called the way of blood.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: He was scared to go into that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: But what would it look like if we were to live into our time and to really get to know our neighbors, not metaphorical neighbors, but think about for a moment the faces that you see around you that are in your classes.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like that literally sit right next to you that you're like, I ain't talking to them all semester, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: The people that live across from you, maybe it's two years in a row and you don't know, and what would it mean to reach out to them?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: A couple years, I think last year I was talking to some some Wesley students, some uh they graduated and moved on, but they started hosting their neighbors for a cookout or like dinner every week.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And they said it was so cool, like they didn't know each other, but all of a sudden throughout the year, they had these great bonds that were happening.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was playing golf with my best friend Joey the other day, and uh Joey and I met in Wesley, but you know, for a whole year, I lived on Calhoun apartments on top, he lived right below me.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And for a whole year, we never spoke to each other.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: All he knew is I was the guy that was always grilling outside, and all I knew is his apartment was always making a lot of noise, right?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Never spoke to each other until we met right over there.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: We were watching, I think we were watching the masters down here, so it would have been like April of our um sophomore years.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, hey, I'm Steve, oh I'm Joey, I live in California, and we're like, uh oh, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: We know each other.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're best friends.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: We could have got an extra year if we'd have simply said, Hi, my name is Steve.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: What's yours?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: What would it look like if we embrace the awkward and actually get to know our neighbors?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is never too late for that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have them printed, but what if I were to hand out that sheet with that list on there, right?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And ask you to fill out that with the people that you ate with tonight.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Could you name the first names of the people that sat at your table tonight?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, could you name maybe what their major is or where they're from or what they're about?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's only week two, so you don't need to like hope streams, all the darkness, all that kind of stuff.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's not happening yet, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: But what would it mean for us to take Jesus at his word and to love our neighbors?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And by loving them, we spend time actually getting to know them.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: The very real people that God has planted in our lives and that God has planted us in their lives.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: What would it look like?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're this is a three-week series, next week we're gonna look at some stuff at the third week, and then we're gonna kind of wrap it up during that time.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: What would it look like if we spent time and intentionally these next few weeks, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go you don't have to know the whole campus, but think about three total people in all the classes that you have.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: What would it look like if you were to try to get to know just three people that sit near you, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Just be able to say their name is and this is where they're from, or their their name is and this is where they live, and see where that goes.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: What would it look like if you were intentional about sitting at a different table here on a Wednesday night, a different table each time?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you sat with some friends, maybe you said, Hey, you know, I see you all week, I'm gonna go meet this other person because they look really cool, haven't talked to them yet, and I'm gonna go meet them.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna live on this idea where we can embrace the awkward, and if we've met each other and we forget, we're gonna say again, hi, my name is, and like, oh my bad, I forgot, right?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna show grace to each other.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: But what would it look like for the next three weeks if we really lived into this, took Jesus serious, and spent time getting to know our neighbors?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna invite you here at Clemson Wesley, it's very easy.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna invite you to linger.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know that when we sing our benediction, and I say, until we meet again, may the peace of God be with you, um, that you don't have to run out the door.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: We don't lock the doors.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not well, we do eventually, but not early, not early, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can linger.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you can go to people and say, Hi, I'm a freshman.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's your name?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm a senior, what's your name?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the middle people you can talk to.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: We, you know, I know you get you get ignored sometimes, right?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what'd it be like if you were to linger before and afterward?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're here hanging out by like five o'clock on a Wednesday night, right?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: To spend time lingering to get to know the people that will come and worship that are called to be here with each other as well, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: What if Jesus really meant it?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: What if Jesus really meant it?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not only are we supposed to love our neighbor, but as he talked to the lawyer, he said, do this and you will live.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I don't think you get into heaven by the amount of people's name that you know, right?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I do firmly believe that a life worth living is a life that is built in community.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to build that community, you have to be willing to go and to love your neighbor.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And as importantly, you have to be willing to know your neighbor, to know the people, to know the people that God has placed you with and beside, and to spend time in that area.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Holy and gracious God, we give you thanks again for this day and for this time.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: God, for the times that we say we don't have time, we apologize.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: For the times that we say, God, we are too scared.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Ease our fears, oh God.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Give us a spirit of calm, give us a spirit of confidence and courage as we seek to love the people that you have placed before us.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.