The Good Neighbor

Sometime after Jesus sent out the seventy-two disciples to an area that Jesus himself was about to go, telling them to heal people and to say to them that “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10:9), the seventy-two returned with great joy concerning their mission. Jesus rejoiced in this good news when a lawyer (i.e., a religious man who was an expert in the law of God) nearby asked a question. “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Rather than answer the lawyer directly, Jesus asked him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” The lawyer then correctly stated the law (Luke 10:27), and Jesus answered him simply by saying, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28).

For whatever reason, the lawyer felt moved to ask Jesus a further question regarding ‘your neighbor,’ which was part of the answer he had just given Jesus. Again, Jesus did not answer him directly; instead, he spoke a parable.

That parable is referred to as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. And we all know the story, which involved a man who was attacked by robbers while traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. The man was left half dead on the side of the road. Then Jesus tells of a priest who came by and saw this man, but instead of assisting him, the priest traversed to the other side of the road and continued on. Likewise, a Levite came along just as the priest had, and he, too, traversed to the other side of the road and continued. But then a Samaritan, a member of a class of people that the Jews had disdain for, came along, and Jesus said that the Samaritan saw this injured man and had compassion and went to him and bound his wounds, took him to an inn and paid for his lodging, and took care of him.

Then Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The lawyer answered correctly that his neighbor was “The man who showed him mercy.”

The lawyer, asking the question about the neighbor, was probably looking for a definition of who a neighbor is. This lawyer wanted a rule from Jesus. The Jews limited this concept of neighbor to national Israel (i.e., their fellow Jews) because they had not yet understood the love towards all human beings that Jesus taught. At any rate, a rule that defined ‘neighbor’ is not the answer Jesus gave him.

Like most people today, this lawyer thinks of his neighbor as someone who lives on the same street, in the same community, a family member, a member of his or her church, or all Christians. In other words, what geographical, organizational, or relational group contains my neighbors? But that’s not the answer Jesus gave him by teaching this parable. Jesus turned the lawyer’s question around by teaching that we learn who our neighbors are when we first understand whose neighbors we are. A person is our neighbor because of his or her need, not because of his or her membership in a particular group.

The Pharisees misunderstood the ‘neighbor’ issue. The Mosaic law taught, “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 19:33, 34). Strangers and even enemies are our neighbors, too, and we are to love them and pray for them (Matt. 5:44).

Jesus is teaching by this parable that you are the neighbor of anyone in need, that a good neighbor has compassion for suffering people, that a good neighbor is merciful, that a good neighbor is willing to suffer inconvenience on behalf of others, that a good neighbor is willing to sacrifice to serve others and that a good neighbor should love others as he or she loves himself or herself and this love for his or her neighbor arises from his or her love for God.

The question we should ask is not “Who is my neighbor?” Instead, we should ask, “To whom am I a neighbor?” We need to understand that being a good neighbor to others in need through love is not merely an act of kindness, but this love of our neighbor is a way of life. In the end, the practical manifestation of the command to love God and to love one’s neighbors exists not in finding limits to one’s obligation to neighbors but in seeking the extensive opportunity that one has to love his neighbor in need.