Neighbours

So there’s this lawyer in Luke 10:25, an expert of the law in Israel, who asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus points the man to the law and asks him what he thinks the law teaches.

The lawyer gets it right and replies that we are to love the Lord and love our neighbour as ourselves. “That’s right”, says Jesus, “Do this and live”. But, wanting to look good in front of his mates, the lawyer shoots back (probably using the accent of a French waiter), “Ah, but who is my neighbour?”

Jesus is quick on His feet and presents the parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s a storyline that would be familiar to any expert in the Old Testament.

Like the events recorded in 2 Chronicles 28:1-15, the parable contains some Jews with a serious lack of compassion, some wounded, naked and half-dead Samaritans, and a trip to a healthy wellness clinic in Jericho.

In telling the parable, Jesus is challenging the lawyer on what it means to be neighbourly.

In Leviticus 19:18 God told Israel to, ”Love your Neighbour…”

You might also recall that it’s in Leviticus that we see that God had become a Neighbour.

I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. (Leviticus 26:1-12)

While Israel wandered around the wilderness, Holiness had built His House (the Tabernacle) and moved into the street. Now, Jesus had come. Holiness had once again moved into the neighbourhood.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is the neighbour that comes to us as one whose purse is limitless—”Whatever it costs” (Luke 10:35)—and offers everlasting life to wounded souls. He extends mercy to those who are dead in trespasses and sins.

The Levite and the Priest in the story both avoid the man lying by the side of the road. Why?

The issue is not uncleanness. The issue, just like the issue in 2nd Chronicles chapter 28, is that they lack compassion. In 2nd Chronicles, the Jews were indifferent to the half-naked and humiliated women and children. In the parable, those who profess the law are indifferent toward a dying man on the side of the road.

In other words, they are indifferent toward the law of God they profess to teach.

The Good Samaritan, as a parable of Jesus, doesn’t cross over when he sees this man in distress. And neither will Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t cross over when He sees you lying there in your uncleanness, in your humiliation. He knows that you’re a mess. But instead of walking by, Jesus covers you, bears your burdens, and applies the oil and the wine to gladden the heart.

How important is this parable for believers today?

Loving your neighbour is evidence of your love for God and is tied to the promise of eternal life (1 John 4:20; 3:17). That makes the question of neighbourliness very important.

Our religious friend wants a loophole, a line in the sand that says you don’t have to stop to help a Samaritan, and so he asks the question, “Who is my neighbour?”

Good question.

The story of the Good Samaritan redefines the “location” of neighbourliness for this expert in the law.

The neighbour you are to love is the person standing right in front of you. But more than that, when Jesus asks, “Which one of these was a Neighbour…”, He is putting the commandment back where it belongs, challenging us to ask not “who is” … but, “Are you?”

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Which means, “You shall love your neighbour as though you were that neighbour”, which is to say, “Be neighbourly”.

And what does it mean to be neighbourly?

Ethnicity was a stumbling block to the Jew when it came to charity. The average Jew reduced charity to other Jews. For us, though the names have changed, the problem is essentially the same.

For many today, the marketplace of modern charity has been reduced to simply helping the poor via bank transfer. By contrast, the scriptures teach that charity is not based on relative poverty or ethnicity.

The basis of charity in scripture is neighbourliness. This neighbourliness includes the stranger at my gate. A thing that some in Jesus’ day, as now, are want to forget.

I am to help a man because he is my neighbour, he is standing right there in front of me, not (in the first instance) because he is poor or Jewish, or anything else.

This means that if I find a cow in a ditch that belongs to Bill Gates I am to pull it out as an act of charity because they are my neighbour and they have a need that I can meet.

When the basis of charity moves from neighbourliness to poverty, or status, or ethnicity, (as in the example of the Good Samaritan), what you end up with is a kind of envy or malice in the form of, “I have no need to help Elon Musk since he can afford the loss.” (cf. Leviticus 19:15).

We might even find ourselves rejoicing at the misfortunes of others on the basis of their comparative wealth or wickedness rather than offering charity on the basis of neighbourliness.

The Law is Good, but we, like the Levite and Priest, walk right by. The law is good, but it’s unable to save because it’s unable to produce the change of heart needed in sinful man.

But Jesus does not walk by. His purse is open to sinners and is limitless. And so is His compassion.

And it’s that compassion and that grace that has the power to change otherwise selfish hearts.

To be neighbourly is to love our neighbour with everything we’ve got, just as Jesus loved us. To serve, clothe, feed and care for the person right in front of us, giving no thought to ourselves and showing no partiality on the basis of ethnicity, relative poverty, status or wealth.

As it is written,

He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.

And when we set our hearts to imitate Jesus in this grace, the people around us will see that God has truly moved into the neighbourhood.