Building Solidarity and Being Neighbors (the Jesus Way)
If I could boil down my desire for our churches and communities into one word, I think it would be solidarity. With a few more words, I would say our churches and communities share the joint task of building solidarity with God and neighbor.
The call to build solidarity and learn what it means to be neighbors has never felt more urgent in my lifetime than it feels now. Unfortunately, the word "neighbor" has lost a lot of its meaning in recent years. For many of us, being a neighbor is a happy accident and doesn't necessarily mean any relationship at all. We can easily go in and out of our garages and never meet even the neighbor that lives right next door. And increasingly, even the friendships that we do have only happen by convenience.
Certainly, when we think of "being a neighbor" nowadays we don't always have in mind the teachings of Jesus, like the parable of the Good Samaritan. We usually don't think about loving our neighbors next door like we would love ourselves. We don't think about getting down in the ditch with a wounded neighbor and risking ourselves in an unsafe, vulnerable place. When we use the word “neighbor,” we don't mean dressing their wounds, putting them on our own donkey, and paying for their care out of our own expenses. We also don't think about the fact that if we don't forgive them, our Father won't forgive us, or that what we do to the least of these, we've done to him. And we definitely don't think this neighbor-love extends to people who are very different from us, like the Samaritans were to the Jews.
But when Jesus talks about being a neighbor, the solidarity of the good Samaritan to his neighbor is the solidarity he means. Solidarity doesn't mean that I have the same exact burdens you do (that wouldn’t be possible anyway). It also doesn't mean that I always have the ability to fix your problem. But it means that I'm willing to bear your burden with you, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). And of course, if I have it in my power to help you like I would want to be helped, I will.
But even if I can't fix whatever you’re carrying, I will still be with you in solidarity. I will continue to weep with the one who weeps until I can ease their pain, or until God intervenes. I will represent your cause and advocate where I can, so that you know you’re not alone. And when we see liberation, we will rejoice together. Being a good neighbor means I’m not leaving. I can’t make your burden my own completely, but I can share it with you. I can love you, even as I love myself. I can do for you what I wish others would do for me.
And above all, I can do for you what Jesus has done for us. He did not count equality with God a thing to be controlled or held onto. Instead, he humbled himself and took the form of a servant. He came to be in solidarity with humankind in the most radical of ways—by becoming a child of humankind himself, and carrying everything that we carry. He even became the brokenness of the world, so that in him, we could become the wholeness and righteousness of God.
Jesus didn’t wait for people to join up with his movement in order for them to experience his solidarity. Despite this, Christians still try to say that when Jesus said “whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me,” he really only meant extending solidarity to other Christians (though many of us struggle even in this!). No, Jesus didn’t tell his fellow Jews that they needed to love other Jews. That was a given. Instead, he goes much further. Jesus chooses a religious outsider - a Samaritan - as the prime example of what it means to be a neighbor. The Samaritans of Jesus’s day were considered somewhat connected to the Jews, but they were still essentially people of another faith, much like Christians might think of Muslims today. Like Jews and Samaritans, Christians and Muslims share some scriptures (but not all) and have a common belief in one God, many of the same prophets, etc. Yet, Samaritans were decidedly “other,” as some Christians might understand Muslims. So when we try to apply the Good Samaritan story to our Christian community today, we must think about those who are outside our religious circles, those outside our Christian faith. Our solidarity must extend even and especially to our Muslim neighbors.
So what do we do now, with such a huge calling? We can start with building solidarity where we’re at, and asking how we can have better solidarity within our community, among those who we physically live close to. But even if we have a long way to go in that, we don’t have to wait on building solidarity with outsiders. In fact, sometimes God teaches us how to build solidarity with one another by following his call for solidarity with the “other” - the wounded, oppressed, marginalized, widow, orphan, and even enemy.
In the end, as we embark on a spiritual journey of solidarity with our neighbor, we will also find deeper solidarity with God, too, because we’re joining him in the work he’s already about and agreeing to meet him where he calls us. We are becoming like Jesus and moving toward the fulfillment of his promise that we would be one, even as he and the Father are one (John 17:22).
This blog was originally posted at: https://www.kristincaynor.com/blog/building-solidarity-and-being-neighbors-the-jesus-way
Kristin is Peace Catalyst Program Manager in Phoenix, Arizona. She brings scholarship to the streets through interfaith community organizing and peace building with Arizona Church Advocates for the Middle East, and through community chaplaincy. Learn more about Kristin here.
