In his book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller tells a story about going to a club one night and listening to a jazz musician play. Miller, who up to that point had not liked jazz, became a fan that night. What caused his sudden transformation?  Did the music suddenly change? No, it was still jazz, and it sounded like it always had. Instead, it was the way the musician played and “interacted with” the music. This drew Miller in, and made him see the same thing in a different way. Or, maybe he was seeing it for the first time. He ends the story by simply saying, “Sometimes, you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it too.”  I have had a similar experience lately. Let me tell you what I mean.

My family has lived in the same neighborhood in Collierville for over five years now. In that time, we have driven down the street on which we live thousands of times. We have jogged practically every conceivable route available on the streets and paths that twist and turn through the neighborhoods east of Collierville-Arlington Road. We know our neighbors immediately to the east, and have been friends with them ever since moving into our home.  We also know our neighbors across the street—the single dad who travels internationally for a living, and the retired couple who moved in from Arkansas shortly after he arrived.  No one lives immediately to the west of us; the house has been empty for a couple of years, and the current owners, who inherited after their mother died, are trying to sell it.

At first glance, it would appear that we are active participants in the communal life of our neighborhood.  Appearances can be deceiving.  While it is true that we have a great relationship with our next-door neighbors—in fact, they have been surrogate grandparents to Joaquin since the day he was born—that’s about where our relational connections pretty much dry up.  Did I mention that we don’t even know the last name of the single dad across the street?  Further, I know that he shares custody of his three daughters, but I can’t even remember their first names as I sit here writing.  As for the retirees, I don’t know their last names either, and the only thing that has caused us to even behave as neighbors has been a huge storm last June that knocked out our electricity, after which they graciously offered us space in their fridge and freezer to keep our food from spoiling.  The only other significant neighborhood relationship we have made has been with a fellow bicycle enthusiast and his family several doors down.  Sadly, though, they are preparing to move, and that serves as a bitter reminder that we waited entirely too long to get to know them.  So there it is: the sum total of “active participation in the communal life of our neighborhood” over five years.

It isn’t that there hasn’t been opportunity to know people who live around us.  We live on a bustling street, where people are always outside milling around, often chatting with one another in driveways or on the sidewalk.  My neighbors across the street (both the dad and his kids, and the retirees) are constantly outside doing gardening and yard work.  It isn’t that we don’t like our neighborhood, either.  We wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in Collierville.  It’s just that we haven’t taken time to love the people in it.  This is where the analogy to Blue Like Jazz comes in.  Just as Donald Miller had to see someone else love jazz before he could love it, we had to see others love their neighborhoods before we could do it. Like Miller, our hearts are changing too.

Over the last couple of years, but particularly in recent months, I have spent a great deal of time reading about what some theologians call incarnational Christianity, which is a big word that simply means that you put “skin and bones” on your faith by living it out in life-on-life relationships with folks.  This means that truth is communicated in the context of friendship and trust.  Hearing from these brothers and sisters in Christ—their successes, their failures, their hopes, and their fears—has been hugely helpful.  However, the Scripture has been meant even more to me.  In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham that he would bless his descendants, and that he would be a blessing. We see this pattern throughout the Bible—God calling his people to bless and love others, instead of just “looking out for Number One.”  We don’t do this by merely having warm and fuzzy feelings toward someone, or only helping when it’s convenient, or just saying hello without ever engaging in authentic conversation.  We do it by jumping into the fray with someone; by becoming a part of their lives, and praying that we can become a part of theirs.  This is how we live a life of blessing.

Of course, our model for living a life of blessing is our Lord, Jesus.  He took the unthinkable step of becoming one of us, and engaging us where we were, to save us.  Information was not enough.  We needed a savior, and the only way he could show that kind of love was to become one of us.  This meant the God of the universe chose to live a life of blessing for us; he engaged us relationally, so that we could have a relationship with him.