Who Is My Neighbor?

In the Bible’s Book of Luke there is a culturally relevant story that speaks to today’s world. The story begins when an expert on the Scriptures asked Jesus a question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus recognized the man as highly learned and answered him with questions of his own. “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” Jesus is playing to the scholar’s strength by asking him what the Scriptures teach.

The equivalent of a Ph.D. in Bible must have thought, “What a slam dunk question. Everyone knows that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor.” The man’s chest no doubt swelled with pride as he showed off his knowledge of Scripture. Jesus compliments the biblical scholar on the correct answer.

But the star pupil was not yet finished with Jesus. He further queries, “And who is my neighbor?”

The question is meant to trap Jesus by forcing him to set boundaries on who is a neighbor. For many of the Jews in the first century neighbor was a fellow Jew, defined as a respectable and obedient follower of the Law of Moses. 

Even those of Jewish ancestry, however, were often relegated to second-class citizenship if they failed the respectable part. The religious establishment had seen how Jesus treated social misfits, beggars, tax-collectors and even prostitutes with compassion and love. If Jesus defined neighbor as one who falls into any of these categories of disrepute, the religious leaders would have had ample evidence to snub their noses at Jesus and accuse him of serious violations of the Mosaic Law. People on the margins--the poor, the sick and the social pariahs, were often considered guilty of sin that justified their dire predicament. These lower class people had earned their lot in life by sinful living, or at least that was the way some people understood the Bible.  

Not all Jewish scholars interpreted the Mosaic Law with such disdain for people who fell through the cracks. There were rabbis in the first century who were sympathetic toward the poor, the sick or even the stranger, but the biblical expert speaking with Jesus was not one of them.

Jesus answers the expert’s question with a story. He tells of a traveler who was beaten and robbed on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. Lying helplessly beside the road a priest and a Levite passed by and saw the stricken man, but continued on without even attempting to render first aid.

A little later a Samaritan passed by and saw the man and immediately stopped to help. He gave the man medical attention and took him to an inn where the wounded man would be looked after. The Samaritan even left money for those who cared for the man, and if more were needed, the Samaritan would reimburse those expenses, too. 

The story is stunning. Samaritans were viewed as outcasts, traitors and heretics, who had diluted their religion with so-called pagan practices. That Jesus would even tell such a story, depicting the Samaritan as a righteous man, was scandalous.

When Jesus further inquired of the now insulted biblical scholar, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?” the expert of the Law begrudgingly replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” So disgusting was the mere word “Samaritan,” he couldn’t even say it. It would have been bad enough had the merciful benefactor been a beggar or even a tax-collector, but Jesus totally upset the apple cart by equating neighbor with a Samaritan!

Jesus ends the conversation with, “Go and do.” In other words, treat everyone as a neighbor, regardless of race, religion or culture.

The priest and the Levite were not bad people. In fact, they were probably very good people. They loved God and studied the Law and the prophets and were kind and benevolent to fellow Jews, people like themselves, and were greatly respected by their community. Their knowledge of Scripture was extensive, and they could recite chapter and verse to a variety of questions.

But they had a blind spot: They could not see beyond their own interests, and by seeing the world only from their narrow perspective, they had set limits on “Who is my neighbor?” They simply could not conceive that God embraces all people and that neighbor stretches beyond the bounds of people like themselves.

These ancient biblical experts are not all that different from us, are they? I grow disheartened when people who know better define neighbor restrictively as one who is like them. A friend sent me a sermon recently by a pastor in Tennessee who told members of his congregation that if they had political convictions different from his own, they were to leave the church, they were unwelcomed. I do not think his words are neighborly, do you?

On occasion I hear Christian people, people who know the Scriptures, Scriptures that tell us we are to love the alien and the stranger (Lev. 19:34), harshly condemn Muslims and other refugee groups who seek a better life in America. I understand that immigration is a sensitive issue, but my stars, can’t we at least show compassion and love for these desperate people by being neighborly?

I hear rhetoric from church members that too often is filled with hate and vitriol for those who look differently, worship differently or think differently. Is that the kind of neighbor Jesus wants us to be?

What saddens me is that people who express these feelings are often good people, people who love their families and attend church regularly. Like the priest and Levite they have knowledge of Scripture. But they, too, have a blind spot. They are guilty of placing themselves above others, believing that God values some people more than others.

God understands the deep-seated human impulse to be wary of the stranger, the person who is different, but isn’t the person of faith called to rise above emotional impulses and put aside personal prejudices? Isn’t true religion supposed to help us identify with the forgotten and despised of the world? Yes, I think I read that somewhere.

The biblical expert came to Jesus wanting to know how to spend eternity with God. Jesus’ reply was simple and profound: Be a good neighbor. In other words, if we are not good neighbors, well, we will simply miss out on life with God, both now and for all eternity. The scholar should have known that a good neighbor doesn’t have to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”