LaPorte Church of the Brethren
Message with the Children
by Herman Kauffman
August 8, 2004

"Neighbors"

Good Morning, my name is Herman. Would you be willing to share your name with me?

I don't live in LaPorte. I'm visiting here this morning. My home is in Nappanee which is about 50 miles east of here. My wife is Connie and I have two grown children: Andrew and Sara. How many of you live here in LaPorte? How many of you live within a few blocks of this church? Are any of you brothers and sisters? Cousins? How about neighbors?

What is a neighbor? Can anybody tell me? Do you have friends that are neighbors? Do you the names of any neighbors? Do you ever spend any time at a neighbors house? Who is your neighbor?

One time when Jesus was teaching, a religious leader asked him an important question. He wanted to know how to live a good life? What do you suppose Jesus told him?

He told them: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind...." That sounds like a good answer doesn't it? And I think it was the answer this religious man wanted to hear, because he knew that was what his Bible said to do. If we want to live a good life we will love God. That's important!

But Jesus wasn't done with his answer. He added one more thing: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. How many of you love yourself? Do you love who you are? I hope so because you are very special! Did you know you are special? Well, you are!!! Ask your mom or your dad or your grandparents, or anybody here today - I'll bet they will agree with me that you are special.

Jesus not only said that you are special and should love yourself, but he said that you should love your neighbor even as you love yourself. Well, do you know what this religious leader asked Jesus next? He asked, "And who is my neighbor?"

That's why I asked you this morning if you could tell me who a neighbor is.

When I was about your ages, I lived in a small town about an hour or so away from here. I had a lot of neighbors that I still remember almost 50 years later:

• Mae was an older lady who lived next door to our family. She had a big house that was right next to our yard and I used to take a little rubber ball (like this) and bounce it off the side of her house and catch. And do you know, she never complained about it either (I think maybe her hearing wasn't too good.)

• Most of the time Mae lived in that big old house by herself, but sometimes she rented an apartment to another family. One of those families I remember Geezala and her daughter whose name I have forgotten. But Geezala worked down at the grocery story which was less than two blocks from our house. Sometimes my mom would send me to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread and I was always glad when my neighbor Geezala was there to help me. Geezala came from another country far away but she was a very good neighbor.

• Another neighbor who lived across the alley to the north of us had two girls who were only a little older than I was. Sometimes we played together in the summer - perhaps like you play with neighborhood friends during the summer. We went bike riding together all over town. But mostly in the summer I played baseball with a lot of the neighborhood boys. Sometimes they would come to my house and we played baseball in the backyard. If we hit the ball hard enough it would go over into the neighbor's yard and we would have to go through the thorn bushes that divided the yards to get the ball. We eventually made a bit of a path through those bushes, but you know what - they never complained about us running through their bushes to get our ball. They were good neighbors.

These were my neighbors 50 years ago. They were special then and I remember them today. In my lifetime, I have had a lot of good neighbors who I loved ... and a few that were more difficult. Jesus said we should love our neighbors as ourselves.

When the religious leader asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus told him a story. Maybe you have heard this story before, but let me tell it to you again. It's sometimes called the story of the Good Samaritan but today I will call it the Story of the Good Neighbor.

Once upon a time, Jesus said, there was a man going down the road from Michigan City to LaPorte [actually Jesus had never been to LaPorte so he named two other cities he knew, but I don't think he'd mind if I changed a few details in his story for this morning]. As he was walking, the man was met by a bad gang who beat him up, took his money and his cell phone, and left him laying beside the road nearly dead.

Before too long a minister came walking down this same road and saw the man who had been beaten laying beside the road bleeding. [What do you think he did? You think he stopped to help him? Well, that would have been the neighborly thing to do wouldn't it?] But the minister in Jesus' story didn't stop to help - he went on by (on the other side of the road so he wouldn't get any blood on his shoes).

The next person to come down the road was a very nice person, a lady I think. She might have been a school teacher (and all school teachers are very nice, right?) But this teacher was also scared. She was afraid that the gang that beat up the man who was still bleeding might be hiding nearby, so she got back in her car and drove off without helping.

How do you think the beaten, bleeding man must have felt when no one stopped to help him?

Wait! Somebody else is coming now. Riding a bicycle. He sees a pile of something over beside the road - no, it's a man and he is bleeding. The Good Neighbor gets off his bicycle and goes to help. He takes his handkerchief out of his pocket, get his water bottle from his bicycle, gives the man a drink and then wets his handkerchief and begins to clean off the blood. He helps the man onto his bicycle and pedals off toward town where he takes the injured man to the emergency room of the hospital.

Now, as Jesus' story comes to an end, he asks this question: Which of these three, the minister, the school teacher, or the bicycle rider, was a neighbor to the injured man? Who do you think acted like a good neighbor? The bicycle rider? Why? Because he stopped to help him, right.

Jesus said that is what we should do as well - we should be a good neighbor to those who need our help. Does Jesus' story help us to understand who are neighbor is? It's not just those who live next door or down the block from us - our neighbor is anyone who needs our help.

Before you go back to your seat, I want to tell you about another neighbor. This is a neighbor who I never met ... although he used to talk to me a lot, and sometimes he evan sang to me. I don't sing very well, so let me read you the words of the song this neighbor used to sing to me:

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor.
It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood, a neighborly day for a beauty.
I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you! Won't you be my neighbor?
Let's make the most of this beautiful day, since we're together we might as well say,
Would you me mine? Could you be mine? Please won't you be my neighbor?

Mr. Rogers would sing me that song when I watched the TV show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" with my children many years ago. Have you ever watched "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood?" I remember that Mr. Rogers had some neighbors as well: Mr. McFeely, the deliveryman; and Handyman Negri; and Lady Aberlin. Sometimes Mr. Rogers would take us on a visit to other neighborhoods - it was like an adventure to learn all sorts of interesting things.

And Mr. Rogers also had a little trolley that would run from his living room all the way to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe where we met such interesting characters as King Friday XIII, Queen Sara, Prince Tuesday, Henrietta Pussycat, timid Tiger Daniel, and X the Owl. Here in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe our friends who share their joys and their worries with the adults and be helped to find good ways to live with one another.

I don't spend much time anymore in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood or the Neighborhood of Make-Believe since my children have grown older; but I do remember that Mr. Rogers always told me how special I was and he always wanted to be my neighbor. Mr. Roger's Neighborhood was a special place to visit for a little while every day. It always left me with such a good feeling. Oh, that's another song Mr Rogers would sing:

It's such a good feeling to know you're alive.
It's such a happy feeling: You're growing inside.
And when you wake up ready to say,
"I think I'll make a snappy new day,"
It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling,
The feeling you know you're alive.

Like, I said, I don't visit Mr Roger's Neighborhood any more (maybe I should); but I have found another place that's a lot like that Neighborhood, a place that makes me feel special and loved and leaves me with such a good, happy feeling. That place is the church for the church is Jesus' Neighborhood and Jesus makes me feel very special and loved ... and so do the people at the church who live in Jesus' Neighborhood.

I want to thank you for letting me come into your neighborhood today. You've been very good neighbors and I thank you.