Loading...I attended our annual HOA meeting on Thursday evening this week. It was the first one I’ve attended here, and I wanted to meet some of our neighbors. I thought it might be a way to build community in this new place. We have met only a few neighbors. We’ve never socialized with any of them, but we’ve entrusted some with the care of our cats when we are away.
I must report: an HOA meeting is not the best place to try to meet neighbors. It is also not the place to build community.
There were no refreshments to encourage mingling—no time set aside for small talk. Two things that are so important to the building of relationships through eating together to learn about one another.
Nope. It was a leap into an agenda that had anticipated a visit from our representative from the company who manages our HOA. She never showed.
Of course, that created anxiety among the board members. They had voted to hire this company earlier this year, increasing our HOA fees by $75 to cover those and other minor increased expenses. According to the board’s report, the company’s representative has been less than helpful, and the company is likely to be fired, which will cause an uncomfortable ripple effect in the neighborhood.
You see, our HOA has, like all HOA’s, rules. And our neighborhood, like all neighborhoods, has people who have extremely high expectations that every rule be followed in the way that they interpret them. And in the past year, some very difficult arguments? fights? over the interpretation of a single rule has caused some, in my opinion, over-the-top reactions.
I mean, why complain to the HOA before having a conversation with someone?
Why not sit down and discuss the rule, how each party interprets it.
Then, explain the situation that causes the infraction.
Is there a compromise that could be reached?
Can a mediator be called in to explain the unclear bylaw?
And if the HOA is called upon to handle the infraction, how much time should be allowed for the situation to be resolved? If the HOA does not move quickly enough, or it appears at all, should the offended call the police on the offender, or recontact the HOA for an update?
Suffice to say, voices were raised, people interrupted one another, and nothing was accomplished except to divide a community over a misunderstood bylaw, and the inconsistent reporting of other neighborhood infractions.
I’ve been stuck on this for the past few days.
The thing is, building community takes trust. It takes communication. It takes eating together. It takes waving and stopping and offering to help someone struggling to get a large box into their house. It takes feeling comfortable enough to go next door for a cup of sugar or to borrow a ladder.
But we have generally become a world of people who do not find trusting others easy. We are defensive when we feel slighted. We fear repercussions. We hear of lawlessness and mayhem, and seem to live our lives with one eye open, watching for whatever we need to watch for to protect our individual self or our family and our belongings.
It can be easy to fall into this trap. This trap of distrust. We hear about it when we listen to the story of the Passion, we heard it today from Acts when Peter spoke to the Israelites about their glorification of Jesus and then the quick 180 turn to rejecting him when the crowd got louder and called for the release of Barabas.
It can be easy to fall into this trap. We hear in 1st John that we are all beloved and that we are to live lives that are pure, that we should not sin. Because if you sin you are guilty of lawlessness.
It can be easy to fall into this trap. We hear about it in today’s Gospel when the followers of Jesus are startled, terrified, disbelieving, and wondering if this is truly Jesus, or a ghost, or an imposter standing before them.
In these examples we hear not only about the sin—we hear about the power of repentance and of redemption.
Even though we are to strive to be pure, to not sin, to not live solitary lives, outside of our community, we fail. We fail daily.
Even I got caught up in the heightened emotions at the HOA meeting, requesting, or maybe firmly requesting, the bylaw in question be read, not once, but twice, because it is not clearly written.
Because of this bylaw and the way certain neighbors have reacted, our immediate neighbors, who are the ones being accused, have bought property to build a house and they plan to move within the year, and I’m both sad and angry.
Sad because they have been kind to us. Angry because if this was a true community, a friendly neighborhood, people would be able to have kind and helpful conversations to solve problems, to help one another, and to live just a little closer to the beloved community that I believe God calls us to live.
My neighbors have done their due diligence to get clarity on this bylaw, but others did not want to give them a chance to tell their story. They are going to contact a lawyer. They admit that if their interpretation of this bylaw is inaccurate, they will act accordingly. They are willing to leave what is becoming an untenable situation because some other people in the neighborhood have made them feel unwelcome in a place that has been their home for four years.
She said to me and to a couple others, where is the neighborhood spirit?
I am wondering that myself.
But I know that the loud voice of a minority of a population can change the personalities and attitudes of the majority.
I also know that when we build bridges across our differing opinions and get to know one another, communities can be strengthened, and they can thrive.
The followers of Jesus became our models of this. They went from loving Jesus to shouting “Crucify him” in an angry mob. And Jesus came back to them, loving them, forgiving them, and, like we heard in today’s Gospel, eating with them.
These fifty days of Easter provide us stories of fear and distrust, of conflict, and disbelief, of joy and wonder, of showing us how to overcome all these things through repenting, forgiving, and accepting one another with the same love Jesus has for each of us.
When Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” he is telling us it is possible to repent and to forgive.
I’m hoping that I can go back to feeling blissfully ignorant and comfortable in my neighborhood, knowing that ultimately, people are good. But for a little while, it will probably sting to think that some people do not have the tools for healing and would rather stand so firm in their convictions that they inflict pain on others without really understanding the unique lives and deep beloved-ness of all their neighbors.
Because even the disciples did not believe it was Jesus standing before them without seeing his hands and feet, eating fish with them, and being reminded that we are to love one another. If they need to relearn, so do we.
When we get to the questions in our Baptismal Covenant in just a minute, I am going to pause after you respond, “I will, with God’s help.” In that pause I invite you to consider what the question means to you in your life’s experience.
Let us pray. We believe in you, Creator, because through your son you have taught us what it means to love you by loving one another. Loving can be hard. We see examples of how hard it can be in many places in our lives. Give each of us courage to be examples of love in all our communities. Help us be people who listen, learn, and grow with others, accepting the unique ways in which you have created them. Help us know when rules or laws break the bonds of community rather than lift us into deeper awareness of one another. For Jesus taught us the importance of living together, of learning together, of relying on one another to your glory. Amen
