Who Is My Neighbor?
Last week my lesson centered around a simple concept. All of the law and the prophets hang on these two things…
Love God, and love your neighbor.
Several times in the gospels these words are highlighted. In Luke 10, it is actually the questioner that makes the case for this.
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:25-27
Jesus affirmed this answer. Essentially, Jesus tells him, “sounds like you got it.” That clearly was not good enough for the “expert.” Scripture tells us he wanted “to justify himself,” so he continued the questioning.
“Yeah, Jesus, but who is my neighbor?”
Jesus, true to form, answers this question by telling a story, actually, one of his most famous stories - The Good Samaritan. We won’t retell the story here, as it will be the text of an upcoming sermon. However there is a sweet reversal that takes place during this story, a reversal that takes place in many of his stories. He took the character who should have been the bad guy, and made him the good guy. And, he took the guys that should have been the good guys, and made them, if not the bad guys, then at least the indifferent and disengaged guys. The punch in this story is this…
The guy who you would never think of as your neighbor, he’s the real neighbor in this story.
The “expert” was clearly looking for more of a straightforward answer to his question. He asked, “who is my neighbor.” Jesus’ answer was, “you, you are the neighbor.” Jesus even says, “Go and do likewise.”
When it comes to loving my neighbor, the question is less about who is my neighbor, and more about how do I be a good neighbor? It’s less about defining who fits in the category, and more about empowering his followers to understand that they themselves are the neighbor, and everyone fits into the category of those who are to be loved.
If I am the neighbor, then everyone else is as well.
When we categorize and codify who exactly our neighbors are, we shrink down the potential people we have to love. Jesus isn’t paying that game. Everyone belongs in Jesus’ neighborhood.
George Welty
