Who is Our Neighbor?

“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  “What is written in the Law?”  he replied.  “How do you read it?”  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.”  “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied.  “Do this and you will live.”  Luke 10:25-28

Watching the news every night, it’s hard to understand why “we all just can’t get along.”  With wars in the Middle East, the Ukraine, Sudan…violence, sacrifice, and death are pictured in graphic horror.  Until scenes of modern cities being leveled and people wearing western clothing similar to ours began to show up, it was easy to think, “the people who can’t co-exist are religiously, ethnically, socially different than I am.”  Now the scenes of violence look like our home country. 

We don’t have to look far to realize there are violent rifts among citizens of the United States.  We haven’t devolved into the same level of aggression seen in other countries, but hatefulness and repulsive verbal attacks have become common and are accepted with complacency. 

Luke brings us a message that is straight from Jesus’ words, “Love your neighbor.”  When the expert in the law asks, “Who is my neighbor?”  He may be hoping Jesus will exclude the people whose skin is a different color, who came into the county illegally, who speak out against the political leaders, who insult and denounce the poor, but no!  Jesus says everyone is our neighbor. No exceptions, no prerequisites, every person who exists deserves our love.

Jesus is asking us to do something that is very difficult and sometimes socially unappreciated.  If I show mercy to someone hated by many, am I weak?  Am I a sucker?  Shouldn’t they get a job, sober up, or go back to their home country; what do I owe them?  Jesus says you need to use all your strength and all your resources to help them simply because they are your neighbor.

I have wept in the night

For the shortness of sight

That to somebody’s need made me blind,

But I never have yet

Felt a tinge of regret

For being a little too kind.

                                  --C. R. Gibson 

Prayer:  Dear Lord God, help me to see my neighbor’s needs and respond to them with love and mercy.  Let me use my resources, my heart, my soul, my strength, and my mind to minister to my neighbors and help them see the hope God brings to all of us.  Amen. 

Carol McClain