Who is My Neighbor?

Jesus was asked a question by an expert lawyer in Luke 10:25-37, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus asked two questions back to the lawyer: “What is written in the Law and how to you read it?”  The lawyer quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord 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.”  Jesus affirms the lawyer’s answer and says, “Do it and you will live.”  As a lawyer will typically do, he asked Jesus another question, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus then takes the lawyer on a journey of what it looks like to be a neighbor no matter what ethnicity, skin color, social status, nor gender. 

The expert lawyer knows full well who his neighbor is, but because he is bent on justifying himself to limit his social obligations to treat everyone fairly and with dignity, he asked the question, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus uses three men to describe how a man who was left to die was treated by those who saw him bloodied and about to die. 

In Matthew 25:31-40 Jesus illustrates a fact that there will be a separation between the righteous and the unrighteous.  Jesus illustrates it by talking about how one treats others when they are hungry, thirsty, a stranger, needing clothing, sickly and a prisoner. The righteous responded to Jesus my asking, “When did we do these things?” Jesus said, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

The accounts of Matthew and Luke illustrate a unique way in which we are to help our fellow neighbor.  James Wiseman, writes about his experience of homeless men in Washington D.C., he entitled it, The Parable of the Good Samaritan and Those in Need.  James Wiseman seems to struggle with his own obligations to the homeless men due to his job and time restraints.  After all, he was a monk who had taken a vow of poverty, meaning he owns no possessions.  What could he really give to the homeless?  How could he actually help?  Busy could be an excuse like the priest and the Levite in Luke 10.  Or, he didn’t have food, water, or clothing to aide the homeless.  Jesus tells the lawyer to go and do like wise and Jesus tells the righteous, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”  The question remains: Who is obligated to help the homeless?  The answer is:  Every neighbor. 

Margaret Aymer’s writes about Fredrick Douglass’s Use of the Good Samaritan in Abolitionist Rhetoric, Douglass presents a speech to the Free Church of Scotland for their decision to take funding from the southern U.S. slaveholders.  Douglass metaphorically compares the one left on the side of the road in Luke 10 to that of a slave in the deep south of the United States.  Douglass goes so far as to call out the churches in the south as the perpetrators of hurting and leaving the man lying on the side of the road to die.  The men lying on the road to die are the slaves who were bought by the slaveholders.  These were the same slaveholders who were financially giving money to the Free Church of Scotland.  If we are going to take Jesus’ words literally in Luke 10, then we have to believe that our neighbor is everyone and everywhere.  If one is mistreating a neighbor no matter where they are in the world, we are obligated to help.  Douglass concludes that once we realize who are neighbors are, we have a moral and ethical obligation to help bandage the wounds and use all resources such as food, water, shelter and clothing to help the one hurt to heal. 

Our neighbor may be hungry, sick, or in need of clothes.  The question is:  What will we do about it?  Jesus said, Jesus said, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Remember, Be God Controlled!

Brian