Love your Neighbor, No Exceptions

It’s a famous story.

We hear it every three years or so.

A man is accosted on the road by robbers and thieves.

He lays in a ditch bruised and bleeding.

Multiple people walk by, people who should know better, people who are taught to care for their fellow human walk past this man suffering in a ditch.

This happens twice until a man from Samaria walks up to the injured man, lifts him up from the dirt, and takes him to an inn where his wounds are treated and given a place to heal.

This is a wholesome act, the man from Samaria provides help physically and monetarily; it is wholesome and it is selfless.

This story as some of you might know it is known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

All over, many states and municipalities have laws to protect people trying to help people known as Good Samaritan laws.

We hear this story and we place ourselves in the context of the story.

Many of us might even see ourselves in this story AS the Good Samaritan.

We like to think if we came across such a situation, we too would help that man laying their, injured in the dirt.

Even when we learn of the nuances of the story, that Samaritans and Jews did not get along and highlighting the fact that the saving acts were performed by a perceived enemy and not a like-minded ally, we find they matter very little and we still see ourselves as overcoming social norms to help those most in need.

Imagine the Hatfields and McCoys, two families who feuded a long time ago in Appalachia for generations.

Now imagine Jesus was a Hatfield and he was talking about multiple Hatfields walking past an injured Hatfield.

And the injured Hatfield lay there without help until a McCoy came by to offer aid.

And the McCoy offered assistance because they saw the humanity of the Hatfield.

The McCoy saw in that humanity, a neighbor.

And we like to think we too would, and I’m pretty sure we all would, offer help to the injured regardless of social norm, regardless of one’s status as an enemy, regardless of who we might think the person suffering is.

Because whether we are taught to or it is just ingrained in us as human beings, we are mostly kind and mostly good to each other when it comes time to offer assistance and when assistance is needed.

So this is the story we know and identify with, and it all seems pretty obvious.

Of course, I would help.

Of course, I would bring that man to an inn.

Of course, I would give what I could to help.

And yet, despite its obviousness, Jesus tells this parable in response to a rather interesting question, “And who is my neighbor?”

See, a man came up to Jesus, an expert on the Torah the Jewish holy book; he was a lawyer.

And this man wanted to test Jesus, wanted to see if Jesus knew the law as well as he did, so he ask him a question, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus did not answer the lawyer explicitly, he does seem to do that a lot, instead he formed his response in a question: “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

And the man being a serious student of the law, replied: “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.”

To which Jesus responded, “You have given the right answer.”

Seems right to me, too!

Just love each other and act lovingly towards each other and everything will fall into place.

Love will cause us to lift up those most in need, the sick, the poor, the injured.

And if we take this loving each other thing seriously, then we won’t even have to worry about robbers and thieves because there wouldn’t be any: everybody loves each other.

A thief would not abscond with money that isn’t theirs for they would not steal from somebody they truly, deeply loved.

But then thieves do exist.

Loving each other proves somewhat difficult when we are victims of crimes.

So that question, “And who is my neighbor”, is important.

So, so important.

Do I, Lord, have to love the Hatfield if I am a McCoy?

Do I, Lord, have to love the Samaritan if I am Jewish?

Do I, Lord, have to love the thief?

You say, “love my neighbor as myself” and that is an easy thing to do when people are easy to love, but how am I to love those who are difficult to love?

Are the hard ones to love my neighbors as well?

Who, Lord, is my neighbor?

And by telling this parable, Jesus is telling us that everybody, each and every one of us is each other’s neighbor.

The rabbi was expected to be the good guy in this story, too.

The Levite, an ally, would have had the same expectations.

Yet it is the Samaritan who shows and delivers neighborliness.

The Samaritan loved their neighbor.

This is our example in loving our own neighbor.

To love those whose politics are most different from ours and not only love them in the sense of loving everything about them except their politics, but loving their whole selves.

This is difficult love.

It is hard to love.

And yet we must love.

We can look at this world as a world on fire, of declining institutions and relationships; we can shrug our shoulders at such intrigue and opt out of all that troubles us.

Doing so, though would mean we are not loving each other.

Lord, who is our neighbor?

No, we must cross the street to where the trouble lives and intercede with love.

When the heroes of the Civil Rights movement saw segregation and said it was bad, they did not just stop there.

They confronted evil through love and non-violence.

They knew they had to love those who would oppress them, who would keep them down.

They responded to such oppression by loving their oppressor, they did not set bombs, they resisted peacefully, for even though those that kept them down did not love their neighbor, their neighbor, their black and brown neighbors who were segregated and forced use different drinking fountains, have their property devalued, and otherwise dehumanized chose to peacefully say, “no, we will not be second-class citizens any longer.”

And it was only through love that they were able to see a better day.

Only through love and reconciliation, did they filter their dreams for a new tomorrow.

We do not attack those we love, even though we may be set up and attacked by those who do not love, we cannot attack those we love.

We can only love each other for we are followers of Christ but commanded to love and love wholly and in all of its holy entirety.

Who, Lord, is my neighbor?

My neighbor is the one who I would help on the side of the road regardless of who they are to me.

My neighbor is the thief.

My neighbor is the Rabbi.

My neighbor is the Levite.

My neighbor is the Samaritan.

My neighbor is the oppressor.

My neighbor is the one who would do me harm.

My neighbor is all peoples, ally and enemy, friend and foe.

My neighbor is you.

Your neighbor is me.

We can only overcome all that ails this world if we love those hardest to love.

“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.”

No exceptions.