We have landed in a new community. The Falinge district of Rochdale is very different from West Derby where we used to live. We have moved from bungalow to house, suburban to town centre and urban, private housing. It's a place of much diversity too. Down at the end of the street are some flats managed by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing. Here's a picture of one block - Glastonbury. Flats are currently available.......Wendy and I attended the launch of Near Neighbours on Monday. It's a Church Urban Fund programme which distributes money to help Churches and other faith groups work across difference to build up neighbourliness. As we look at our new community, indeed our new town, we want to get to know our neighbours.They are near but we don't know many yet.
I bumped into a man on the way back from the launch. He said "Please pray for me Vicar" and went on to describe how due to drinking his liver was failing. He certainly had a jaundiced yellowy look about him. I was pleased to talk to him and one of his friends - I had passed by this group of the local drinkers (as I may have described them) on the street a few times on my way from the vicarage to the churches in the town.
We became neighbours at that point. My eyes were opened to him as a person. I was moved when he said to me "Never be afraid of us drinkers, Vicar, we won't hurt you". He reached out to me, and I was privileged to "give him a blessing" and remind both he and me that we are made and loved by God and precious in God's eyes.
In the Gospel of Mark we are reminded that the Kingdom of God is offered first to "the outcast". Those who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy - in our day as in Jesus' day - are cast out by the rest of us. That's the ways societies do it, making someone into the other who is less than the rest of us. Jesus was always crossing boundaries, not afraid to meet those that the society deemed unclean. In Mark Chapter 7 he comes upon a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Jesus touches this man, even puts his fingers in his ears and spits, and touches his tongue. He is not afraid to break all the social and religious laws that put a barrier between them. Jesus is the archetypal good neighbour, and inspires me to get to know all my neighbours.