Who Is My Neighbor?

What Is Love? | Day 10A

He 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." Luke 10:27, NIV

Good morning. Some of the best questions we ask are really attempts to get out of something, and this morning's story starts with exactly that kind of question.

A Question to Get Out Of Something

An expert in the law once stood up to test Jesus with a question about eternal life. "'Teacher,' he asked, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 'What is written in the Law?' he replied. 'How do you read it?'" (Luke 10:25 to 26, NIV) The man answered well, repeating the command to love God completely and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and Jesus told him he was right. "'You have answered correctly,' Jesus replied. 'Do this and you will live.'" (Luke 10:28, NIV)

That should have been the end of it. Instead, Luke tells us plainly what happened next. "But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'" (Luke 10:29, NIV) That question was not curiosity. It was a request for a smaller assignment. If neighbor could be defined narrowly enough, the command could be kept without much cost. We share the instinct more than we admit. We do not usually ask God to shrink his commands directly, but we decide certain people are outside the reach of what love requires of us, based on how they voted, how they live, or how much they have already cost us. The lawyer wanted a fence. We build the same fences, just with different materials.

Long before this conversation, God had already closed off that kind of loophole. "'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.'" (Leviticus 19:33 to 34, NIV) The command to love our neighbor was never meant to stop at the border of our own comfort or our own people. It reached all the way out to the foreigner, the outsider, the one with no natural claim on our affection. The lawyer's question was not a new question. It was an old evasion.

The Story Without a Fence

Jesus answered with a story instead of a definition, and in his own words the story refuses to give us the fence we asked for.

"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii 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.'" (Luke 10:30 to 35, NIV)

We should notice what Jesus chose here. Jews and Samaritans held generations of mutual contempt, and the wounded man would very likely have shared that contempt toward the one who stopped for him. This is not a story about a friend helping a friend. It is a story about mercy crossing a line both sides had spent centuries reinforcing. Consider too the priest and the Levite. Both men served at the temple, and both would have had a ready religious justification for passing by. Touching a body that might already be dead could have made a priest ceremonially unclean and unable to serve. Their excuse would have sounded reasonable, even faithful, to anyone listening. That is precisely what makes it so unsettling. We do not usually walk past someone in need with a cruel motive. We walk past with a reasonable one. We are too busy, too unqualified, too unsure it is really our place. The Samaritan had every one of those same excuses available to him and used none of them. He did not ask how the man ended up in the ditch or whether he belonged to a people who would have refused him the same mercy in return. He spent real time, real risk, and real money on someone who could offer him nothing back. Need was the only qualification that mattered.

"'Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?' The expert in the law replied, 'The one who had mercy on him.' Jesus told him, 'Go and do likewise.'" (Luke 10:36 to 37, NIV)

Notice that the lawyer could not even bring himself to say the word Samaritan. He described the man only by what he had done. Jesus Christ was not interested in categories. He was interested in mercy that moves, and this is not the last we will hear from him on the subject.

Prayer

Thank you, Father, for sending your Son to remove the fences I would rather keep in place. Thank you for a love that never asked whether I was worth the trouble before it reached me.

Help me to see the people you place in my path today, not as categories to sort but as neighbors to love. Where I am tempted to reach for a reasonable excuse, give me the courage of the Samaritan instead. I ask this in Jesus's name. Amen.

The Samaritan's mercy cost him something, and tomorrow we will see that this kind of love was never meant to stay a story we admire from a safe distance. It is a debt we are still called to pay, and one that was paid for us long before we ever understood what it cost.

To God be the glory

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

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