Who is my Neighbor?

Have you ever been asked a question by someone that left you immediately with the impression that it was asked in a manipulative or leading way?

Jesus often seemed to be the target of those kinds of inquiries. This one began with a lawyer asking him how to receive eternal life—a legitimate and important question. Instead of giving an answer, Jesus asked a question in return. “What does the law that you have studied tell you?” The lawyer replied with the words of his law text that we are to “’Love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind’ And to ‘Love our neighbors as we love ourselves.’” To this Jesus replied that he was right and if he would do this, life would be his.

But looking for a loophole the lawyer asked: “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?” Jesus answered by telling a story about a man who was on a business trip and was robbed, beaten and left for dead. The first two people who came by the scene of the crime were well respected in the lawyer’s eyes, a priest and a Levite, religious men. They both avoided the injured man and passed by. Then a Samaritan came by who immediately gave First Aid to the injured, took him to a place that would take care of him and paid his medical bill. Jesus ended his story with a question for the lawyer:”What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?” “The one who treated him kindly” the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”

What was so significant about this story? The hero, the one who behaved neighborly was not the person who was well respected but the one who was despised by the questioner. Samaritans were despised as “half-breeds” and heretics by Jewish people.

In a disarming way Jesus had not only exposed the lawyers attempt to have Jesus define who was in his “in” group so he could treat them well, and those who were in his “out” group, so he could leave them alone and not care about them. Instead of answering “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus asked “Who is behaving in a neighborly manner.

Jesus showed that the Kingdom of God is inclusive. No one is excluded. God does not show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears Him and does righteousness is acceptable to Him. (Acts 10: 34-35)