This text leaped out at me on a day when I was dealing with the feelings of neighbors in a community in which a congregation and the company I represented were planning the construction of a church. Mixed with facts and conjectures, rumors were flying. Persons were called upon to take sides for or against the reconstruction of the burned out Church. Would it impact the neighborhood negatively by increasing the traffic? Would the expanded vision of the church enlarging programs be inappropriate for the homes surrounding the property? Would the young people, with exuberant programs, be running back and forth in noisy groups from morning into evening? Would social welfare programs bring unwanted transients into the area? Would the expansion affect endangered insects that inhabited the woods behind the property? Would there be too much garbage to manage so to make the area unsightly from the street? Would there be a child-care center against city ruling? The list expanded. Who is to be accommodated – the people favoring the project or those against it? Manufactured problems ended the onsite project.
There is little doubt that there are times when the Lord’s people must take a stand that is at odds with neighbors and community. Invariably that stand should relate to morality, the concept of righteousness in the conduct of society. To keep the community laws, to avoid violating the rights of others, to contribute to the improvement of a neighborhood, even to adjust the situation for persons who dislike us, is our duty, sometimes privilege. Scripture makes such matters incumbent upon us. To insist on our own way, even when it appears to honor God – as it does when we propose to build a church as the House of God – may be just the opposite of what God wants. God is not comfortable where the people do not want him, so shake off dust and exit. Our purpose is to function in a way that persons welcome us in the community. We are made the persons with hat in hand, and we are to be wise to win, not lose, our neighbors – if possible.
Christians should desire community support. One of the honorable things that ought to accrue to the Christian is that even unbelievers will speak well of us. (Proverbs 16:7) Following his apology for remarks made decades earlier interpreted as anti-Semitic, but not meant to be so, Billy Graham must have been gratified with a letter to the editor of Christianity Today that praised Graham for the occasions when, before he traveled to the Near East, he called a Jewish leader and asked what might be done to help the cause of harassed Jews. The letter pointed out the beneficial difference Graham made, and if the Jewish leader of the reputed offense were alive he would warmly engage with the evangelist. The correction against a repeated rumor was heart-warming.
Some followers of any movement become arrogant. They see themselves as pure. For anyone to resist that they believe in is to resist God. (On a particular point that may well be true, but we speak in love and permit God to take care for himself. He is able.) It takes the humility of Jesus and the sweet character of the Holy Spirit to teach us how to give the soft answer that turns away wrath. Our calling is to find peace, if possible, and sometimes that takes time, patience, love, strategy, amendment, and prayer. To shrug off the wishes and opinions of neighbors, pagan or Christian, violates Scripture. The most severe act one might do is to shake off the dust of effort and move on. It is in common grace that Christ treats all persons with equity. The human loss in rejection of God’s participation is not in him who gives aid in problem solving. We do well in studying the responses of the apostles to secular society in Scripture. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020