Last week I planted a new yard sign near the sidewalk in front of our house. Here is an image that accurately portrays it. What do you think? Is this a good, positive message for my neighbors to read and ponder as they walk up or down the sidewalk?
Where the Slogan Works
As
a challenge to the scope of “neighbor”—refusing to exclude people by ethnicity,
nationality, religion, sexuality, or politics—the slogan does real theological
work. It echoes the lawyer’s question to Jesus in the Good Samaritan parable (“who
is my neighbor?”) and doesn’t allow him to constrict his understanding of who a
neighbor is.
In
the current cultural moment when Christian nationalism narrows “neighbor” to
those who embrace the same ethnic background, national identity, or even the
same religion, a sign refusing that narrowing says something real and important,
even from a sidewalk.
It
is quite clear, surely, that the sign is talking about “neighbors” both near
and far. Many of those who see my yard sign are literal neighbors who walk by, many
of them going for a longer walk in Canterbury Park, which is just a three- or
four-minute walk from where they see my yard sign.
And
while there is not a lot of diversity in my neighborhood, it is likely that
they will meet someone who is represented on one and maybe more of the strips
of the yard sign. Thoughtful people will also comprehend that the sign
encourages branching out to respect differences of people far from our local
neighborhood. At least, that is my hope.
Where It Gets Harder
The
slogan is challenged, though, not by the question of who counts as a neighbor, but
far more by the question of what love requires when you consider multiple
neighbors. For example, how do you love neighbor A if he/she is
mistreating/harming neighbor B? Doesn’t that call into question the last line
of the yard flag?
To
make it more concrete—and please note I am not talking at all about my next-door
neighbors—what should be done if my neighbor is apparently sexually abusing the
teenage girl who is his next-door neighbor on the other side?
What
does “love your neighbor, no exceptions” signify in cases like that? Doesn’t love
of the vulnerable neighbor require action, even though such action would have serious
negative effects on the other neighbor?
Love
of the one doing harm doesn't mean protecting him from consequences. Silence to
preserve the relationship, or treating exposure as unloving, gets this
backwards. Real love for the offender includes wanting him stopped—for the
victim's sake, of course, but also because continuing the abuse damages his own moral
and spiritual condition.
The
two loves are not actually in competition. Protecting the vulnerable neighbor
is the loving act toward both parties—it is not a trade-off between loving A
and loving B, but a recognition that stopping harm serves everyone's good,
including the person doing it.
What a Yard Sign Can and Can't Carry
A
yard sign is a public signal, not a treatise—its job is narrower than a full
theology of love. It can answer the lawyer’s question (who is my neighbor?) but
is not built to answer the harder question of what love does amid conflict and
harm.
That’s
not a defect unique to this sign; most bumper-sticker theology doesn't survive
its hardest edge case, and that's not the standard it needs to meet. Silence on
a question is different from a wrong answer to it.
Here
is the real test for a sign like this: does the simplification it makes point
roughly true, or does it point false? On the question it actually answers, this
one points true.
One seam worth noting
"Vote
like you" sits in a different category from the rest of the list. Looking,
praying, speaking, and loving differently are matters of identity. Voting is a
chosen act with public consequences. It is closer to a person who acts/does
differently than merely one who is different.
The
list quietly slides from identity categories into an action category, which is
exactly the seam where the abuse scenario also lives. The flag’s implicit
answer, “you still love them,” seeking what is best for them, holds for those
who vote unwisely as well as for those who, like Neighbor A (mentioned above),
abuses his neighbor.
But,
again, loving is not condoning. So, sure, we should still love the neighbor who
voted for the current POTUS as well as those who are still among his devoted MAGA
supporters. But the latter need to be made aware of the harm that Mr. Trump has
done to this nation and the world. And our love for them must be "tough love."
[My A.I. “buddy” Claude provided limited assistance researching
and drafting this post.]
