The Fool Next Door
Proverbs 27:14
Derek Helt
I’m supposed to do more than just ignore him, I’m supposed to show Christian love to him, too.
Nearly sixteen years ago, my wife and I were married and set up house in a very tiny apartment in Boise, Idaho. It was there that we were treated to our first set of neighbors as a married couple. The door of our apartment opened into a small hallway, which led outside. Also opening onto that hallway was the apartment of a couple named Tom and Juanita. Tom and Juanita weren’t married, at least they weren’t married to each other. He was of average height and thin as rail, whereas she was fairly tall for a woman and looked pretty tough. They were nice enough — they were usually pleasant, I mean. However, they were what we’d all call — I think — bad neighbors.
They didn’t steal from us or throw loud parties. There was none of that kind of behavior, but sometimes the hallway that both our doors opened onto would smell of certain controlled herb that is smoked for its deleterious effects. Between the two of them, they only had one old clunker of a car; so sometimes they would hit us up for rides. That is how we came to know the location of "Mort’s Biker Bar" in downtown Boise. Juanita liked to frequent that establishment because, she told us, they had food there that didn’t bother her ulcer. Sadly, we never made it inside to sample Mort’s fine cuisine.
Once Juanita applied for a job cleaning rooms at a motel and she asked us if she could put down our phone number as a "message phone" for the interview process, since theirs had been disconnected, mysteriously. We were young and foolish
— plus we wanted to be sure and act like Christians (after all, we were in Bible college at the time) — so we agreed and told her she could put us down as a message number only. However, later on, after she got the job, the phone rang at 6:00 one morning and it was the motel, asking for Juanita.Probably the greatest treat that came our way because of living next door to Tom and Juanita happened when we were awakened one morning at 2:00 AM to the sounds of them having a loud, drunken fight outside our bedroom window. We waited for a while for them to either calm down or at least go inside; but when neither happened, we called the police. No one got arrested, but they did get quieted down. After that, we were much less accommodating of Tom & Juanita. They had tried our patience greatly and frankly, it was difficult to even want to be good neighbors to them.
If my tales of living next door to Tom and Juanita remind you at all of any situation you’ve had with some neighbors, then let me tell you that this message this morning is for you.
The Bible calls the people we live next to, the people we work with, the people we frequently conduct business with—
in fact, everybody we have contact with on a regular or semi-regular basis — "neighbors." And while we probably all earnestly desire to be "good neighbors," the fact is that some people make it very tough.The Bible has a lot to say about neighbors
— particularly in the book of Proverbs. That book is chock full of all sorts of pithy and practical advice for getting along with our neighbors. Proverbs 25:17 says, "Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house — too much of you, and he will hate you." It’s easy to wear out your welcome at a neighbor’s. Proverbs 26:18 tells us, "Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, ‘I was only joking!’" This is a warning about sarcasm, or perhaps taking April Fool’s jokes too far — you’ve got to be careful because you’re playing with fire and if you go too far, you just can’t undo everything by declaring, "It was just a joke." Proverbs is full of all sorts of advice and warnings about our relationships with our neighbors.The Bible also has a lot say about fools. Fools, in Proverbs, are described as people who lack wisdom
— not necessarily because they haven’t lived long enough to learn from their mistakes, but because they will not learn from others and always need to open their mouths and make their lack of wisdom known to everyone. These two subjects (neighbors & foolish people) sort of come together in Proverbs 27:14, where Solomon says, "If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse." When I came across this verse, I thought to myself, "That really does describe some people, doesn’t it?"Either the fellow Solomon is talking about here isn’t smart enough to know to keep quiet early in the morning
— maybe he runs his lawnmower before 8 o’clock on Saturday mornings, or he won’t keep his dog from barking after dark, or some such nuisance — or he’s a hypocrite who is loudly calling attention to his good deeds at inappropriate times, thereby annoying everyone around him. You know the kind of person I’m talking about: a man or woman who is not only constantly blowing their own horn, but must do so in your presence when you are trying to get something done or talk to someone about something that is truly important. Either type is insensitive. Rude behavior does not a good neighbor make.David began the 133rd Psalm this way: "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!" The next verse does not say, "How rare it is when people live together in unity," but it could. The ability to get along with people in a community requires a great deal of effort. We once had neighbors who left their garbage can out at the curb all week. The neighborhood dogs knocked it over all the time. One Sunday, we came home from church and saw that their garbage can was tipped over in our driveway and garbage was strewn everywhere. I just about lost it. I went over to the can, picked it up, and chucked it into their driveway, simultaneously shouting in the direction of their house, "Pick up your garbage!" Not one of my finer moments of Christian maturity and nothing I’m proud of.
A while ago someone told me a story about a friend of theirs who had a neighbor actually fall trees across their fence and threaten to kill their livestock. They were worried for their safety in their own home. No doubt everyone here has at least one story of a "bad neighbor"
— someone who was more than just a little annoying, but who tempted you to abandon your principles, at least temporarily, and do something vengeful, spiteful, and maybe even little bit dangerous in retaliation. This may be understandable — it’s probably been a temptation for all of us at one time or another — but that doesn’t mean that it’s all right for us to follow through on that desire for vengeance.In the book of Colossians, chapter 3, the Apostle Paul explains that through Jesus Christ, all those who claim Him as their Savior leave behind those old distinctions that separated them from each other. He says, in essence, that we’re all part of a different family now. Then he says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
The key to getting along with our "neighbors" is remembering who we are. All of human experience tells us that just struggling with our neighbors is a no-win situation. Either we’ll lose, or, if we win, we almost certainly will become exactly the kind of person we don’t want to be. We are not barbarians; we are not people who settle differences with our fists; or with clubs, knives or guns. We don’t believe that "might makes right." Our golden rule is not "those with the gold make the rules," but "treat other people the way you would like them to treat you." And while we see God’s wisdom, His plan, in all this and we try our best to live by the law of love that Jesus taught us; we also realize that quite often this way of life is full of frustrations and disappointments. Sometimes doing the right thing seems less agreeable to us (in short term, at least) than doing what we know is wrong.
Some years ago, a man I consider a friend came to me and basically chewed me out for how I was not doing my job properly, in his estimation. He didn’t yell at me
— we had a conversation — but since he was an elder in the church I served, it still amounted to him pointing out my flaws as he perceived them and where he believed I wasn’t doing some things I should be doing. It hurt, and my first inclination was to just "bail out," to send out résumés and leave that church as soon as possible. I didn’t think on that too seriously, though. In fact, soon I had an opportunity to talk to another friend who was also in the ministry at the time. I told him of the conversation I had with my elder friend, and of my disappointment and feelings of inadequacy. He reminded me of something I knew, but needed to be reminded of at the time.He said, "You really can’t do anything about this man’s feelings towards you or about what he’s said; but what you can do is choose to react properly. Your response is all you can control. What someone else does is beyond your control, but what you do in response is our choice." Then he encouraged me to take the high road and not give in to the temptation to try and retaliate or react defensively.
I believe that the same advice applies to us when we have to deal with "bad neighbors." We cannot really change how they treat us or how they react to us
— true, we can call the police or animal control; we can take them to court, etc., if we need to — but probably none of these things will change them. In fact, doing any of these things might just make them more belligerent. However, what we can do — what we are called to do — is to respond to them the same way Jesus would and remember who we are — God’s children — and resist the urge to "fight back," to give as good as we get, to exact revenge some other way. None of these are appropriate ways for Christians to deal with bad neighbors.The Bible tells us that once a religious man came to Jesus and said to him, "Teacher, what do I have to do to get into heaven?" Jesus answered him by saying, "You know what the Bible says." "Of course," he countered. "It says to ‘love God with my whole being and love my neighbor as myself.’" Jesus said, "That’s right, you’ve got it." However, this fellow was looking for a loophole and so he asked Jesus, "Yes, but who, exactly, is my neighbor?"
In response, Jesus told him the story we know as "The Parable of the Good Samaritan." You are all likely somewhat familiar with it. A man who was traveling a dangerous road was robbed and beaten up pretty badly. After a while, two different men, both of whom we would identify as members of "the clergy" today, came by and saw him. And even though they were of the same religion and ethnicity as this poor man, neither helped him because it was inconvenient for them at time. Finally, another fellow came by and he helped the crime victim
— indeed, he "went the extra mile" for him. This third fellow was of a different religion and class of people than the robbery victim, nevertheless, he still helped poor man. After Jesus finished telling the story, He turned to the man who had asked the original question and asked him, "Now, which of the three men was a ‘true neighbor’ to the man who was robbed?" The fellow answered — although he really didn’t want to — that it was the third man. Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."Several lessons can be drawn from that story. One is the definition of the word neighbor. The fellow who’d asked Jesus the original question just knew that there was no such thing as a "Good Samaritan." His kind of people hated the Samaritans for reasons that went back centuries. So when Jesus cast the Samaritan, a member of a hated group of people, as the hero of His story; that would be like letting the Dark Side of the Force triumph over the Light Side; or having the guys with black hats overcome the guys in the white hats. But Jesus was telling him that his preconceived idea of "neighbors" was wrong.
That is probably the main thrust of Jesus’ story. But I want to also point out another valid point that Jesus makes here: He’s also telling us that when it comes down to it, the adage that urges us to "live and let live" is not enough. We’re to be proactive in our kindness towards our neighbors.
If I understand Jesus’ point correctly here, it is not enough to simply "live and let live," or to simply mind your own business and not worry about other people. On one level, the saying some of our mothers used to repeat when we were little
— "If can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all" — is good advice because it is better to say nothing than to say something hurtful or damaging to another. But on another level, that saying is flat-out wrong because it implies that we’re in the right if we simply refrain from harming others and go about minding own business.Will Rogers had it right: "Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there." We can be on the right track
— minding our own business, doing no one else any harm — but Jesus says that Christian neighborliness goes beyond simply refraining from doing harm to people. He expects us to do something good for our neighbors. He expects that we go out of our way to be of service to people, to act even when have the option of not doing so. If we’re going to treat our neighbors the way that God would have us treat them, it means that we will not be satisfied with "live and let live;" but that we will do them a good turn when they’ve treated us badly.I don’t know about you, but this runs contrary to my natural inclinations. Suppose I have a "bad neighbor"
— maybe he lives down street from me, or I’m in school with her, or I see him at the store from time to time, or I work with her on a daily basis — and this neighbor is acting like the "fool" described in Proverbs. He or she is insensitive, self-centered, rude, you name it. My first inclination is to give as good as I get, to retaliate — to be as rude to them as they are to me, to mow my lawn on the day they sleep in, to turn my stereo up louder than theirs…But I need to remember who I am. I call myself a Christian, meaning I call Jesus my Lord"—
He’s the Boss of my life. So I resolve not to return evil for evil. I don’t retaliate in petty ways; but I try to be very patient and forgiving. I don’t provoke the "fool next door."So I’m doing all that and I think I’m in the clear, but then I read the story of the Good Samaritan and it hits me: I’m supposed to do more than just ignore him, I’m supposed to show Christian love to him, too. So, I bake some cookies and take them over to his house and I say, "I realize we’ve had some differences and I'm hoping we can work them out." And I hand my neighbor a plate of cookies. He’s wary, at first. Maybe he even insists I eat a random cookie before he bites into one. We chat for a while; then I leave.
Over the next few months, or maybe years, my neighbor warms up to me. We become, if not friends, acquaintances who get along. Maybe eventually, he says to me, "Why did you make the effort to be nice to me? Every other neighbor I’ve had has tried get even with me when we fought. You didn’t. Why is that?" So I tell him. I explain what I wanted to retaliate when he aggravated me. Then I tell him why I realized that I couldn’t do that. Then I tell him why I decided I had make the first move towards peace and friendship. You know what I’ve done? I’ve planted a seed; I’ve begun to tell him about Jesus Christ and living life in Him. Now I'm going to ask him if he’d like to worship with me at church next Easter Sunday. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll accept my invitation and eventually even go from being "the fool next door" to being a brother in Christ.
Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.- The author of this sermon, Derek Helt, may be reached at: dphelt@actionnet.net