WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

 “And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and “your neighbor as yourself.” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-37)

The most important question a person can ask is “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Because of the way Jesus responded to that question, it also deals with another vital question, “Who is my neighbor?” These questions are closely connected. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” the lawyer asked Jesus. This question is one that has been in the heart and on the lips of many people for centuries.

What must I do to be fulfilled? What do I have to do to have meaning in my life? How can I feel close to God? These are questions that many of you are asking. Behind them is the question that the lawyer in this scripture asked Jesus.

In the New Testament, “eternal life” meant more than some world we hope to go to after we die. “Eternal life” included our relationship with God after death, but it was seen as a relationship we can begin now. When we are rightly related to God and God’s purposes for our lives, we are living “eternal life,” that is, we are in agreement with God. In fact, any hope for life with God after death was based upon our relationship with God now, in this life.

So, in essence, the lawyer was asking, “What must I do to have a full, meaningful life with God?” Perhaps he had expected Jesus to enter into a deep theological religious discussion with him. But, all Jesus did was to ask him what the Scripture said, and the lawyer shows that he knows the Scriptures by heart. But as he quotes the familiar words of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 to Jesus, the lawyer perhaps senses that his conversation with Jesus is taking an unexpected turn.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind,” he says. Fine enough. The prime activity of any faith is the love of God. But, how do I love God? By going to church? By studying the Bible? By using all the gifts God has given us, heart, soul, strength, and mind to love Him.

But it was the phrase, “and your neighbor as yourself” that proved to be discomfiting. Jesus doesn’t want to talk about things up in the sky somewhere. He wants to talk about our lives right now, here on earth, about neighbors. From Jesus’ reply to the lawyer, we learn that we can not love God without loving our neighbor. Our love of neighbor testifies to our love of God.

Here was an earnest man who wanted to have a talk about God. But, Jesus turns the question back towards the lawyer’s life away from abstract ideas. He tells him a story that points right at his life. He turns the conversation into a talk about neighbors. What does that tell us about the religion of Jesus?

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

Still, the questions keep coming from the lawyer. “Love my neighbor? Fine, ¿but who is my neighbor anyway?” he asks.

This was not a simple question for people in Jesus’ day. Surely Jesus would not say that gentile unbelievers are neighbors. How can these people be our neighbors when they don’t worship our God? Surely the Romans are not our neighbor. Who, then, is our neighbor?

To be honest, “Who is my neighbor?” is no simple question for our day, either. The lines we draw across the world exclude other races, other nations, and other religions from our kindness. We don’t intend to be neighbors to folk who will not be neighbors to us. So in response to our narrow definitions of neighbors, Jesus tells a little story. This is one of the familiar and most challenging of the parables of Jesus. The emphasis is not on the poor man who was robbed and left for dead. It is on the Samaritan.

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers who stripped him and left him for dead. A priest and a Levite came by but passed the dying man on the other side of the road. But then, down the road came a Samaritan. To have the Samaritan as the hero of the story was to add insult to injury. The Samaritan, despised by the Jews, was the one who had compassion for the wounded person. The wounded man was not a despised Jew to the Samaritan; he was a person, a human being in need.

He was a man who was different from him, of another race, another nationality, another religion. Everything was “wrong” about this Samaritan, everything except what he did. “And when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him”

As a Samaritan, he might not have known all the biblical reasons for showing goodwill toward the injured man. The priest and the Levite knew the Scriptures. The difference was that the Samaritan acted compassionately. What is more, he not only moved to help the man, but he stayed with him and used his own money to make sure that the man was cared for until he made a complete recovery.

GO AND DO LIKEWISE

There was once a family that had fallen upon hard times. The father lost his job, became discouraged, he began to drink heavily, and eventually deserted his wife and children. The mother had little education and few skills so she found it virtually impossible to get a job. Besides, she had three young children to care for at home. They had no food or money.

In desperation, the mother went to a man who owned a business in town and asked him if he could help her out. He gave her twenty dollars and sent her on her way. The woman went home, spent the twenty dollars on a week’s worth of groceries, and, by the end of the week, was desperate again.

The businessman happens to mention the poor family’s plight to a friend of his who becomes interested. She visited the woman, made a list of her clothing needs, and presented the need to her church. Some of the members offered to take care of her children so the mother could get job training. Now, I ask you, who proved to be the neighbor to the family in need?  

Who is my neighbor? My neighbor is anyone who needs me, and anyone whom I can help. To help our neighbor is an expression of love for God. Go and do likewise!