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 telling the people that “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10:9), the seventy-two returned with great joy concerning their mission. Jesus had been rejoicing of 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).

The lawyer for whatever reason, felt moved to ask Jesus a further question regarding your neighbor which was part of the answer he had just given Jesus. Here again, Jesus did not answer him directly but instead 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 on. 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 by asking the question about the neighbor was probably looking for a definition regarding who is a neighbor. This lawyer wanted a rule from Jesus. The Jews basically limited this concept of neighbor to national Israel (i.e., their fellow Jews) because the love towards all human beings that Jesus taught had not yet been understood by them. At any rate, a rule defining neighbor is not the answer Jesus gave him.

This lawyer like most people today think of their neighbor as someone who lives on the same street or someone who lives in the same community or a family member or a member of his or her church or all Christians. In other words, what geographical or 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 neighbor we are. A person is our neighbor because of his or her need not because of his or her membership in a particular group of people.

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?” But, instead, the question we should ask is “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.