Loving My (Different) Neighbor, Part 1

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

     But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” (Luke 10:25-37)

In recent days, weeks, and months, the Lord has been focusing my attention on the Gospel. If you’ve followed or read much of this blog, you know that is the overall theme. Lately, though, I’ve been learning about the implications of the Gospel and barriers to receiving the Gospel that many have.

As I’ve been reading a book on discipleship and spiritual formation, I took a fresh look at the parable of the Good Samaritan. Some surprising things jumped out–both directly in the text and implied by the text.

Framing the Discussion

Most of us probably know this story. But, it’s a good idea to revisit it. So, here we go. First, we need to understand why Jesus told this story. A certain lawyer asked Him a simple question: What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Instead of answering directly, Jesus and his own question: What does the law say? To which the lawyer (correctly) replies, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” 

Now, let’s stop there for a moment. Jesus told the lawyer the he’d answered correctly. In fact, He said, “If you live by these commandments, you will have life.” Notice that He didn’t separate them. The implication of this? Eternal life consists of loving God with all we are and loving our neighbor as ourselves. It’s not possible to do one without the other.

Back to the story. The lawyer, as lawyers tend to do, focuses on one part of that. Luke says he was trying to justify himself by his question: Exactly who is my neighbor? He was confident that he was loving God, but wanted to make sure he was loving the right people. So, he wanted clarification of the term neighbor. It’s in response to this question that Jesus tells the parable.

A Man in Need

Now we get into the parable. We know the story. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way, he was attacked by robbers who took everything and beat him badly, leaving him for dead on the side of the road. Jesus doesn’t identify this man, but it’s reasonably safe to believe he is a Jew (we’ll touch on this later). A priest was going down the road and passed by on the other side (the sense of the text is that he crossed the road). Also, a Levite (a temple servant, a teacher of the law) came along and also crossed the road and passed by on the other side. Neither man stopped to help.

But, a Samaritan did stop to help. We read that the man “had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back’” (vv. 33–35).

We might be tempted to see this story simply as a story of a man in need and how we likewise should help those who are in need. And it certainly teaches us that. But, looking closer, we find more.

The People Involved

In this story we have four people. A priest, a Levite, an unidentified victim, and a Samaritan. Why did Jesus choose these people for this story, to answer that question? As I mentioned above, it’s reasonably safe to believe that the victim here is Jewish. From the context, it’s clear that Jesus is first teaching that we should be willing to cross ethnic barriers and help those in need, even those who are different than us.

In this context, it would make sense for the priest and Levite to come to the aid of a fellow Jew. Their “pass[ing] by on the other side” had nothing to do with the man’s ethnicity, but with their religious duty. They looked, and for all they knew, the man could be dead. If they touched a dead body they’d become unclean and have to go through numerous rituals of purification. But notice something. Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” Do you notice what the lawyer’s answer is? He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” He didn’t say, “The Samaritan.” He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word, so great was the animosity between Jews and Samaritans. 

Likewise, think of the victim, who was likely unconscious from the beating. If he was Jewish, and if he had been awake, he might have even refused help from the Samaritan. Yet, he was in no condition to do so. One wonders what his reaction was when he woke up and found that a Samaritan had helped him. Might his views of Samaritans have been changed? Or perhaps he was in such a desperate place he would have accepted assistance from anyone.

A Misunderstood Point

As with all Scripture, we need to ask, “What’s Jesus’ point here?” To ask our question earlier: Why did Jesus choose these people for this story, to answer that question? If His point was simply one of sacrificial giving, He could have chosen to tell the story of a Jewish man helping a fellow Jew. If His point was merely that the term neighbor crosses ethnic lines, He could have chosen the Jew as the hero and a foreigner as the victim. After all, the Law had much to say about helping the stranger and foreigner.

Jesus, however, framed His answer to the lawyer’s question in the context of two ehtnic groups with long-standing animosity between them. What does this tell us? First, a neighbor is indeed anyone in need whose path we cross. Second, as “ministers of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18-19), we are to intentionally act neighborly toward those who are different from us and whom we often have a tendency to dismiss as our neighbors. Third, when acting in a neighborly way toward those who have animosity toward us, we should be prepared to encounter resistance. Some will refuse our help. Fourth, as ministers of reconciliation we are to actively engage in the ministry of ethnic and racial reconciliation. 

That last statement may well (and often does) spark controversy. The fact is, the first real issues within the church had to do with ethnic tensions. The very young church had to deal with such issues quickly. In Acts 6, we read this:

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists [Greek-speaking Jews] arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. (Acts 6:1–6)

We won’t go deep into this passage at the moment. Notice, however, that the dispute was over how one group (Greek-speaking Jews) were treated by the other group. The Hellenists often would have been looked down upon by the other Jews, and now we see the fruit of that. Strict orthdox Jews would have shunned the Hellenist ideas and regarded the Hellenists as just short of apostates.

Then, several years later, after Paul’s conversion, we read this:

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” (Acts 15:1–5)

Notice again that it is one ethnic group against the other. One group, followers of Christ who were Jews, was seeking to compel the Gentile Christians to be circumcised and obey the law of Moses. In essence they said, “You have to become like us to be saved.”

Both of these situations arose because one group failed to view the other group as their neighbor. More specifically, they failed to act in a neighborly way. Too often in the church today, we likewise fail to act neighborly. We still have groups (especially in the American church) who insist that other cultures adopt their way of thinking, believing, worshipping, and acting, instead of embracing those parts of the Body who are different but have the same Head (1 Cor. 12:12:20)

And these conversations are uncomfortable. People in the church are so afraid of becoming (or being labeled) “woke” that they stifle the voice of the Spirit who simply seeks to awaken them. 

Let us be the church. Let us be awakened by the Spirit to be neighbor to “the least of these,” especially to those who are the marginalized, broken, and forgotten in society. As we will talk about in another blog post, they are Christ to us.