A Good Neighbor
The friendliest neighbor I ever had was Richard. I was living at the time with several other research students in a terraced house in the hills of Sheffield, England. Two of us would regularly drink an early morning coffee just outside the back door, as the sun rose over the valley. Richard would often pop out and have something interesting to say. We learned over the course of time that Richard was a bit of a hippie back in the day and boasted an extensive collection of Bob Dylan’s records. We learned that he had a granddaughter of whom he was very proud. And we learned that he was suspicious of the university students who were renting all over his neighborhood.
Of course, we were university students ourselves. But we were different, he said. We were good neighbors. What he meant, I think, was that we did not throw loud parties, we spoke the same language that he did, we had the same color skin, and we drew from a similar cultural heritage and could appreciate together the finer things in his life—like his record collection. In other words, a good neighbor (according to Richard) is someone who lives near to us and someone who is rather like us.
When the lawyer in today’s passage asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” I think what he’s really asking is, “How far must my love extend? To the students next door who throw loud parties? To the people down the street who speak a different language? To people who have different stories and traditions—who cannot appreciate my record collection?” Must I care for them the same way I would care for my own? Where’s the line?
“It's a Trap!”
Luke tells us the lawyer was “testing” Jesus, which suggests his question may have been a trap, intended to make Jesus say something that would ruin his reputation. Perhaps the lawyer had earlier heard Jesus say something about loving your enemies, and he wanted to see if Jesus would follow that statement through to its ultimate logical heresy. Would Jesus actually say, “Yes, you must care for the oppressive Roman soldiers who regularly spill Israelite blood the way you would care for your grandmother”? Or “Yes, you must care for the greedy tax collectors who bleed you dry the way you would care for your own children”? It would be like, today, if Jesus visited America and a Christian asked him, “What about undocumented migrants? How must I love them? Or what about Antifa—or the Proud Boys—or the Capital rioters—or Black Lives Matter?” If Jesus were simply to say, “Yes, they are your neighbors, you must care for them as you would your own family, no exceptions, no ifs ands or buts,” then Jesus might well find himself on his way to another crucifixion.
A Neighbor Is as a
Neighbor Does
If the lawyer’s question is a trap, then Jesus deftly sidesteps it the way he regularly does: he tells a story. Like all his stories, this one does not answer any questions, but rather turns things around and puts the listener in question.
The lawyer assumes that neighborliness is a matter of identity. He essentially asks Jesus, “Who’s in? Who’s out? Is it a matter of ethnicity? Religion? Politics? Just tell us how far our love must extend.” But through his story, Jesus transforms neighborliness from a matter of identity to a matter of behavior. The priest and the Levite are both meant to be model Israelite citizens, holy in all their conduct. Yet when they see a fellow Israelite half-dead on the side of the road, they move away from him. They may be neighbors in the common sense of the word, but they do not act like it at all. Then there’s a Samaritan—and suffice it to say, Samaritans were considered enemies by many Israelites due to historical differences of culture and religion. This Samaritan, Jesus says, draws “near” to the Israelite and cares extensively for him. He’s not a neighbor in the traditional sense of the word, but he acts like one.
When Jesus reaches the end of the story, he has not answered the lawyer’s question. He doesn’t say, “Your neighbor is of the same race, or the same religion,” or anything like that. Instead, he asks the lawyer, “Who in this story was the neighbor?” The lawyer cannot even bring himself to say the name of “Samaritan.” He can only identify the man by his action: “The one who showed…mercy” (Luke 10:37). And thus Jesus has changed the definition of neighbor from what a person is to how a person acts. A neighbor is as a neighbor does. A neighbor is not someone who is near (such as the person who lives next door), but someone who draws near.
Whatever Distances Us
There’s a part of me that really wishes Jesus had shared why the priest and Levite do not draw near, why they actually do the opposite and go to the “other side” of the road (Luke 10:31-32). Some commentators suggest that they were afraid the man was dead; if they touched him, they would be rendered ritually impure for seven days and unable to fulfill their services at the temple. I think this is unlikely, as they were actually leaving Jerusalem and thus had just finished their temple service. Seven days of ritual impurity would not have been a problem for them.
Why else, then, would these model Israelites shirk their duty of love and compassion? Your guess is as good as mine. They were both men of considerable importance in the community. Maybe they were on their way to teach Torah at their local synagogue, to visit the sick and dying in their community, or to resolve a legal dispute at the town gate. And maybe they were afraid of committing to yet another responsibility that would threaten to eat up their calendar. Maybe they rationalized that there were plenty of passers-by, and someone else would offer aid soon enough. Whatever their motivation is, I think Jesus keeps it hidden on purpose. He knows that his audience—us as much as the lawyer—wants to justify itself. As soon as we know what the priest and Levite’s motivation is, we can begin to justify how we are different than them, how if we ever avoid the needful it is for better reasons than theirs. By keeping silent about the priest’s and Levite’s motivation, Jesus invites us simply to identify with them, to accept that we too have crossed to the other side of the street.
There are many things that might distance us from those in need, that keep us from drawing near to them and acting as a neighbor. The boardgame Monopoly sheds some surprising light on the anti-neighborly forces in our world. Growing up, my family rarely played Monopoly...primarily because my mom said it turned it my dad into a different person! She might feel validated to learn that her experience has actually been documented by a social psychologist who ran an experiment with the game Monopoly and observed “dramatic” behavioral changes in the players who were winning. In the experiment, the game was rigged so that a randomly selected individual would be given all sorts of advantages, including more mobility and more money. Time and again, this privileged individual exhibited behavioral changes that seemed antagonistic to the other players: they talked louder, their movements were more forceful, and they assumed more arrogant postures and conduct (including hogging all the pretzels).[1]
Elsewhere in the gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a rich man and a beggar who lived beside him. But the proximity counted for nothing. The rich man ignored the beggar. The implication of the story is simple: money can create an unbridgeable chasm between people who live side-by-side. But not just money. Throughout the gospel of Luke, Jesus acknowledges a host of “cares” that can distance us from the needful, including religion (e.g., 6:6-11), social status (e.g., 9:46-48), heritage (e.g., 9:49-50), and even our own family (e.g., 9:61-62; 14:26). The point of the parable of the good Samaritan is to demolish the conditions of identity that distance us from others, and to invite us unconditionally into deeds of mercy for whoever is in need. To love our neighbor is to draw near to the needful, to make them our neighbors. The lawyer asks Jesus for information about who a neighbor is, but instead of giving him information, Jesus invites transformation. Make yourself a neighbor to everyone—no conditions, no questions.
What Draws Us Near and Gives Us Life
The parable of the good Samaritan begins with the lawyer’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” which is to say, the life that is full and abundant and worth living. Jesus answers, Love God, love your neighbor. “Do this, and you will live,” which is to say, you will live an abundant life, fuller and more meaningful than anything you can imagine or foresee.
What follows in Jesus’ parable is a suggestion of what keeps us from others, and what draws us near to them. Riches, social standing, nationality, religion, family pressures—all these may distance us from others. In so doing, they distance us from God and abundant life. What draws us near to others? In this parable, the doorway to neighborliness is not virtue or achievement or any standard of greatness. It is the opposite. It is weakness and woundedness. Jesus says that when the Samaritan sees the half-dead Israelite, he is “moved with pity” (10:33). He does not see an Israelite, a heretic, an enemy, someone who speaks in a different dialect and worships on a different mountain. Rather, he sees something closer to home: a wounded body. As an enemy Samaritan in Israelite territory, he would be familiar with the experience of being beaten and bruised, if not physically, then at the very least verbally and emotionally. When he sees this man, whose body has been wrecked, his own body churns within him. He can identify with the wounds of this man. And so he draws near and becomes his neighbor.
It is a paradox of our faith. In our weakness, is strength—the strength of God’s love and mercy. It cuts through all the barriers we might set up, whether language, or skin color, or nationality, or record collection, or sexual orientation, or income, or religion. Those conditions can determine an awful lot in our world, including who gets a loan for a house in the nice neighborhood, who gets a promotion or a pay raise, who really belongs in a church, and so on. But those conditions of identity say nothing about God’s mercy. In Christ, God knows the weakness and woundedness of every human, identifies with all of us in our brokenness, and shows us mercy. In Christ, God draws near to us and makes himself our neighbor. And in Christ, we are called to do the same for others.
Prayer
Merciful God,In Christ, you show us
Who a neighbor really is.
You draw near to us
In our woundedness.
Help us to see beyond the constructs of identity
That distance us from others…
Help us to see the wounds of others
Who live in our neighborhood, our workplace, our city.
Help us to identify with their wounds,
That we might make ourselves their neighbors
And know the fullness of life.
In Christ, whose kingdom is our neighborhood. Amen.
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