Who Is My Neighbor?

26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

27He 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.'"

28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

This interaction lead to a wonderful parable about the Good Samaritan.

The parable was this. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. Then as the account goes, a Priest sees him and leaves him for dead. Then a Levite sees him and is too busy to get involved and leaves him for dead. At this point things are looking rather grim. Then along comes a Samaritan. Now if you are a Jewish person hearing this story. You are thinking to yourself well this guy is toast. There is now way in the world this enemy will stop and help. If anything he might come along and put him out of his misery. Samaritans in the that day were viewed with the same level of hatred as Blacks were during the civil rights movements of Dr. KingÍs day. As a matter of fact my mother told that as we grew up in the south, more than likely a white person there would rather die than have an African American give them CPR if they were dying of a heart attack. So here we have a Jew and a Samaritan and the unthinkable happens.

33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

What is really amazing about all of this is if the man had know who was helping him he probably would have rejected the help. And the Samaritan took a chance walking into town with this injured Jewish man on his donkey. The townÍs people probably assumed he did it. It was like an Indian walking into town with an injured cowboy. But I love what the text said. The Samaritan man looks on him and had pity on Him.

In the next section we get the purpose of this parable.

36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."

Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

To me this is the challenge for us today. To have mercy on those who are our neighbors. You see the dream is not complete. The work is not done. As long as there are people who are weak and disenfranchised we have work to do. As long as there are groups of people that face hatred and are oppressed the dream is not complete. As long as there are people that we walk by in need and we think we are too busy to stop and give aid the dream is not complete. We are called by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to be neighbor to the ones who need mercy. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. And who is our neighbor? Anyone we come into contact with. Not just the people who look like us and think like us. Everyone God places in our lives is neighbor.