Neighbors – Luke 10:25-37

In the beautiful 2018 documentary about Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, it chronicled the time on his show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, when he invited the African American police officer to share his wading pool and cool his feet.  It created a stir, to say the least.  But Rogers believed and taught the message of Jesus about who our neighbors are.

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 ESV)

There is no one like Jesus to cut through all our self-justifications.  He makes it clear here that knowing the truth and doing the truth are two different things.  I can come up with all kinds of excuses why I don’t or shouldn’t have to obey God’s law, but they are all disobedience.

How did the Levite and the priest feel after they passed the wounded man by?  Something died in them, in their conscience, as they wrestled with their guilt.  The Samaritan may have put himself in danger (really no more than the Levite and Priest did by simply being on the road) but was able to sleep well when he got to his destination.  He had really made a difference in someone’s life.  This is what God made us for.

Samaritans were hated by Jews.  They were considered ethnically hybrid and religiously heretical.  For Jesus to make the hero of this story a Samaritan is like making the heroes of the stories white evangelicals tell, African Americans, or Hispanics, or gay people, or Muslims, or transgender people.  They are the kind of neighbors Jesus told us not to justify hating.