The greatest commandment, Jesus said, is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The church has been given two commandments and a great commission. I won’t insult your intelligence but you can find the commission in Matthew 28.18-20. The great commandments are found in Matthew 23.37-40. The commandments and the commission deal with relationships. The greatest relationship we can experience is the one we have with our Heavenly Father and with Jesus and with the Holy Spirit. The second greatest relationship we must maintain is with the rest of humanity.

Question: how do you love your neighbor as yourself without communicating with them? Is it possible to find out what a person needs spiritually, physically, or psychologically without having a conversation and asking pertinent questions? And isn’t it true that before you can begin to ask questions you must establish a certain level of trust? Therefore, it is not imperative that we begin to have conversations with people that we do not know so that we can earn the right to ask the tough questions that will lead us to the revelation of their spiritual condition so that we might know how best to help our them?

Case in point; Richard Eberle at Taco Bell in Indianapolis, Indiana on Friday night the 13th of April. Richard loves people. He’s a curious little fellow. He sees a man eating with his wife and three sons at a table adjacent to his. The man is a rather large fellow with what appears to be a championship ring on the third finger of his right hand. Richard sees an opportunity for a question; “Pardon me but I noticed your ring. Is that from a championship that you won?” The man turns out to be a local high school football coach and the ring is a token from the state championship that they won this past season.

Richard and the coach strike up a conversation. Coach wants to know who we are and what we are doing in Indianapolis. Richard tells him all about the church and our schedule. Coach is impressed. He tells Richard that he and his family are on a mission of their own this night. It seems that a young lady in his community has Hodgkins lemphoma and they are going to participate in a fund raiser for her this very night. Richard asks where the fundraiser is being held and it turns out to be across the street from our hotel.

Coach and his family finish their meal and say their goodbye’s and we remain behind, finishing up our tacos and chalupas. Since the fundraiser is just a block or two from us, we decide to drop by and check it out. About two hours, six shaved heads, $600, and a prayer or two later we had become a part of the community. Our guys donated $600 to the cause. That got six of us a buzzed hair cut. We earned the respect of the families involved. We were invited and walked in a huge St. Patricks Day parade with Katie, the girl with cancer, and her family. We got the opportunity to talk about our faith with more people than we could name and we began a relationship that we hope will last us all a lifetime. There’s more to the story but I’ll save it for a later date.

How did all this come to pass? Richard Eberle loves people and he’s a curious little fellow and He couldn’t resist asking coach about that ring. Richard made contact. When’s the last time you made a contact? Don’t you think it’s about time you did?