Redefining "Neighbour"

The Mustard Seed currently has a picture featured predominantly on its website. The photo is of a man holding up a cardboard sign that says, “I used to be someone’s neighbour”. The scene reminds us that homelessness is closer than we might think- that people affected by this displacement are sometimes those just like our neighbours, co-workers and friends.

But I think the sign in the picture also asks us to think deeper about the full definition of “neighbour”. Are our neighbours just those who live geographically close to us? Because someone does not have a home, does that make them no longer our neighbour?

Whenever we have faith-based groups come to The Mustard Seed in Edmonton, a big part of how we talk about our inner-city community, about poverty, and about our mandate as Christians regarding these topics is to focus on the Gospels’ call to “love your neighbour as yourself.” We run a workshop with many visiting youth groups titled “Who is your neighbour?” in order to emphasize that our neighbours are not just those who live near to us, but include all people both locally and globally. We talk about what “loving your neighbour” looks like in action, and how groups can respond when their “neighbours” are faced with poverty and injustice.

Poverty and brokenness can have a devastating effect on neighbourliness. People affected by poverty and homelessness often have their right, God-created relationships as neighbours distorted and broken by sin and the effects of poverty. They are put in a position where they no longer feel like they are anyone’s neighbour- they are rootless, disconnected, and too often forgotten.

While the photo on our website tells us that its subject is no longer someone’s neighbour- in the traditional sense of no longer living in a home next to someone- this man is definitely still our neighbour in a wider, more significant way. In fact, as a person faced with homelessness, he is even more in need of the love of all of us fellow neighbours!