love your neighbor as yourself (and other praises)

on saturday, i was sitting on the stairs in our house (which look out the front door) talking to jamie. i happened to notice that our next door neighbor, as she was mowing her front yard, began crossing into our yard. and then she went all the way across our yard. and then down and back again. i looked at jamie and said, "i think lucy is mowing our lawn." now, we certainly knew she wasn't crazy, so it's not like we thought she didn't know whose lawn was whose. but we were dumbfounded at the the thought that lucy was actually mowing our lawn on purpose. so when i noticed that she'd stopped to take a break, i walked out and asked her, "lucy, are you mowing our lawn?" of course, she said yes. and when i told her she didn't have to and explained that my dad is giving us a lawn mower, but we don't have it yet, she matter-of-factly said, "but the bible says to love your neighbor as yourself. if i mow my lawn, i can mow yours too." what? are you serious?

it's strange to me that we were so surprised by lucy's service on our behalf. i think it makes me realize that sacrifice and generosity are pretty much lost in our culture that worships individualism and materialism so much so that even christians are surprised when other christians go out of their way to "love their neighbor." and i think i see that lucy's act of service on our behalf was so radical to me because, honestly, i probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to mow their lawn if the situation had been turned around. it was hot that day. i had other things to do. and yet i'm so grateful that lucy not only loved us as she loved herself, but i'm also grateful that she taught me about what it means to be generous. i have been learning and thinking a lot about generosity and sacrifice as we have begun walking through this adoption process, and i'm constantly convinced that, as christians, our hands are always meant to be open wide. and i don't mean open only to giving money, but open to serve and to love.

we translated the parable of the good samaritan in greek a few days ago (which, as a sidenote, i should say that i cannot read the bible now without thinking of how i could translate whatever i'm reading from english to greek). the parable itself is great because if you think about it (and this is the irony of parables), the story starts with a lawyer asking jesus to tell him exactly who his neighbor is but ends with jesus asking him which one was a neighbor. the beginning question is quite different from what jesus asks in the end. his point is to show that the question we should be asking is not "who is my neighbor?" (ie, "who should i help, and who can i avoid helping and still be OK?); rather, the question should always be "am i being a neighbor?" ... am i going out of my way, throwing my hands open wide, and loving everyone i can with every part of my being? in the bible, both the hebrew and greek words for showing compassion refer to the literal deepest organs of our human bodies. the root of the greek word for showing compassion is actually the greek word for those organs. what a challenge to love our neighbors -- all of them -- with that kind of deep, deep compassion. who is up for it?

lastly, 3 more quick praises. 1. the movers broke our TV, and we're getting a flat screen as a replacement. considering everything i've just said, this is incredibly superficial to post about, but it's free and jamie is very happy. 2. we found out we can claim that $8000 new homebuyer's tax credit right now, so we're sending off our paperwork to the IRS tomorrow. we are pumped because this gives us a lot more money on this end of sending off our dossier (remember, that's the huge packet that gets sent to ethiopia along with about...$8000.) please pray we'll get the money back sooner rather than the 8-12 weeks they estimate for processing because we still need to pay our first agency fee! 3. we're hosting a home group for our church at our house. we had a first get-together tonight. it was great fellowship, and we look forward to more sharing, more laughing, and more koinonia...which reminds me, praise 4... greek ended today and i made an A. oh yeah.