Do you know your neighbors? Not just their names–do you know anything about the lives of the people next door? 

Let us take a step back into a warm Sunday afternoon from yester-year: front doors are unlocked, neighbors are visiting on front porches, children roam the neighborhood for playmates, and everyone goes about business expecting to be home for dinner. Everyone knows everyone, and the parents trust their neighbors to watch over the kids. Sounds like a movie, right? Surely not like something you see today–not even like something I saw in childhood during the early 2000s. 

My childhood unfurled in Smalltown, USA–Population: all the cousins. I grew up outside of town on a farm, and I was allowed to cross the field and visit my grandma’s cousin for a PB&J or walk to my best friend’s place two turns down the road. But there was no way my mom would let me ride my bike up and down the road for play time like she used to do. When she was growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the “warm Sunday afternoon” detailed above was her typical warm afternoon any day of the year. Though my roaming area was much smaller, I still knew most of my neighbors up and down the road.

Now I live on a busy road on the West-Side of Cincy with lots of houses, but I could only tell you about my college friends that live in the apartments next to my house. There is not a single soul across the street known by me or my housemates. When I moved in last October, there were no visitors saying, “Hi! I’m from up the street and thought I’d bring some food and introduce myself! Do you like peach cobbler?” That may be straight from a ‘50s-themed TV show, but where is the “just being neighborly” attitude nowadays? 

We cannot all be from rural America with relatives on every corner, but the city populace should be more acquainted with their neighbors. “City folk” live within “spittin’ distance”, as my grandfather would say. I often notice close-quartered houses and apartment buildings during my drives through the West-Side. I don’t see much neighbor-to-neighbor interaction on the front lawns or shared spaces. Of course, not all neighborhoods contain complete strangers, but it would be fair to say that most city dwellers do not know all of their neighbors. Those that have moved to the city, like myself, are more than likely not being neighborly themselves.  

What happened? Where has our sense of community gone? Do people no longer trust their neighbors? Have peach cobbler offerings totally gone out of style? 

Quite honestly, I cannot answer those questions, and they probably have a complicated, multi-part answer with a plethora of exacerbators from the past 50 years. Maybe we got too political or we started driving everywhere. All I know is that neighbors no longer feel neighborly, and people are more isolated than ever in an era that boasts of instant communication. 

So, how should we be responding as Christians? Turning to Scripture, like always, and heeding the Word of God. St. Paul writes in Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ”. Living in a community should mean more than just dwelling in houses adjacent to one another. We need to be like the early believers in Acts 2: 44-47, which says:

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Sharing, meeting, eating, and praising are what we should do. We need to share our joys and sorrows, our strengths and weaknesses, our wealth and possessions. If we are to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39), we need to put ourselves out in the yard and wave at the neighbor across the way and invite them for dinner. Once you’re acquainted, invite them to church. A “just being neighborly” movement could unite our communities and, with time, bring God’s kingdom about on earth.