Who is My Neighbor?

Luke 10:25-37

 

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "and who is my neighbor?" Luke 10:29

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most well known stories in the bible. It is inspirational because it calls us to each look after the needs of those who are hurting. Jesus uses the story to make the point that we need to love not only those who are like us and believe what we believe, but we are to love all people, even our enemies. The Samaritans and the Jewish people were mortal enemies so when Jesus makes a Samaritan the hero of the story it would have been shocking for people. The underlying ethic is that we are to love all people, regardless of who they are. This is a powerful and relatively simple lesson. But like many of Jesus' teachings, just because something is simple does not make it easy to follow.

Understanding the context of this story is just as important as the story itself. A pharisee, or lawyer, was trying to test Jesus' knowledge of the bible and asked him: "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25) He asks this question not because he doesn't know the answer, but because of the ongoing tension and hostility between Jesus and the religious leaders. Jesus turns his question around and asks the lawyer to tell him the key teaching of the law. The lawyer responds with love God and love neighbor, to which Jesus responds: "do this and you will live." (Luke 10:28) Simply reading this exchange loses some of the power that must have been present in this moment.  The lawyer got up and was trying to publicly shame Jesus, but instead got a verbal smackdown. He ended up looking rather foolish compared to Jesus. But rather than conceding rhetorical defeat the lawyer, wanting to justify himself, asks who is my neighbor? It is this inclination, of self-justification, and this question that get to the heart of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The concept of love all people because all people are our neighbor is very simple to understand, but rarely lived out. We often make excuses for not helping or simply turn a blind eye to the hurting neighbors that surround us. Rather than love others, we seek to justify ourselves. We often blame those in poverty or addiction or oppression for their situation rather than helping. We congratulate ourselves for being faithful to God but we neglect the needs of others. Jesus' words to the lawyer are challenging because they cut to the heart of human nature: we are much more interested in ourselves than anyone else. The priest and the levite walk past because it would be ritually unclean to touch a dead body or contact blood. They can't help because they have more important things to do! Jesus' message is that nothing is more important than loving others. Nothing is more essential than helping those in need. Loving God requires loving others. We are all like the priest and the levite, convincing ourselves, justifying our behavior, that we have done all that we can and that someone else should help.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is not a feel good story of someone who does the right thing. It is an indictment against our sinful and selfish human nature. Jesus is calling us out. Will we repent and seek a more faithful way forward or will we seek to justify ourselves? Or perhaps we will do both.