Who Is My Neighbor?

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

I am a recovering political junkie. At one point my college major was political science. I have been know to stay up until the early hours of the morning to watch election returns. And I even ran for office once - and unfortunately got elected.

But over the last several election cycles I have become increasingly disheartened at the entire political process. Rather than a civil conversation about opposing views on the issues political campaigns have turned into nothing more that character assassination that attempts to destroy the reputation of one’s opponent. And people are becoming more and more partisan and largely consider those with opposing views to be their enemies.

This week I was reading the results of a survey done last year about how people in the two major parties view the other party, and believe me, it’s heartbreaking to see that Republicans think Democrats are immoral, lazy, and unpatriotic and that Democrats think Republicans are close-minded and bigoted. And unfortunately the church is not immune to this kind of thinking. I have observed people who I believe with all my heart are genuine disciples of Jesus resort to calling those with differing political views horrible names.

Tension

Today we are going to look at a familiar story that answers a couple important questions. Most of us won’t be too uncomfortable with the first question:

Who is my neighbor?

We got a hint of the answer to that question last week when we said that the Biblical definition of “neighbor” is actually very broad and goes well beyond just the people who live next door to us.

The second question may be a little more uncomfortable for many of us:

Do I have to be a good neighbor to my enemies?

Or to put it another way:

If I’m a Republican, do I have to love someone who is a Democrat?

If I’m a Democrat do I have to love someone who is a Republican.

To answer those questions, let’s turn to the parable of the Good Samaritan i Luke 10. I know many of you are probably familiar with that story, but I want to encourage you to look at it with fresh eyes today.

Truth

Luke 10:25–37 ESV

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.”

Here is the main idea that I want to develop from this passage today:

When it comes to love, Jesus erases all the boundaries.

One of the things that I love about the parables that Jesus told is that they all have so much depth to them and they can almost always be approached from two or more different angles. And this one is no exception. In fact, I have previously preached on this passage on at least two occasions and when I went back and looked at those messages, I found that each of those messages looked at this passage from a different angle, which is actually what I would expect.

So this morning, I want to address both of those different levels, because each of them has something important to convey to us.

Two levels:

Level 1: Answers the question: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life”

The lawyer in this account was not a lawyer in the sense that we think of it today. This guy didn’t have his pictures plastered all over billboards and buses around the city or run television commercials offering to help you get rich as a result of your accident or get you off of your DUI charge. He was actually more of a religious authority on the Jewish law. But I suppose he is like a modern day lawyer in a sense because he thinks he is the smartest guy in the room and he thinks he can trick Jesus.

So when he asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life, he isn’t really wanting to understand the answer to that question. Rather, as we will see more clearly in a moment, he is seeking to get Jesus to put some “boundaries” around the requirements for eternal life.

Unfortunately that is not uncommon in our day. There are a lot of people, even some who call themselves Christians who are seeking to reduce the entrance requirements for God’s kingdom. They want to know the minimum that they can do to just get into heaven by the skin of their teeth when they die, but they have no intention of changing the way they live right now.

Jesus, as He often does, answers the lawyer’s question with a question of His own. He is masterfully leading this man to answer his own question. And, not surprisingly, since he is an expert on the Jewish law, he correctly answers Jesus’ question. But his answer at this point is merely academic. It doesn’t reflect the heart change that is needed to actually love God and love his neighbor.

It’s important to understand that this lawyer, and most Jews, limited the idea of a neighbor to their fellow Jews. And when the lawyer asks a second question, he does that with the expectation that Jesus is going to confirm his understanding. He wants Jesus to “draw a circle” that just includes his fellow Jews. But Jesus proceeds to tell a story that completely erases those boundaries. The circle is a lot bigger than the lawyer ever could have imagined.

A Jewish man makes the dangerous trip from Jerusalem down to Jericho and is robbed and left for dead. First, a priest passes by and the robber figured he would stop to help. But the priest walked all the way over to the other side of the road to avoid him. The same thing happened with a Levite. I suppose today if we were to adapt this to our culture, we could say someone from Thornydale Family Church was robbed walking down Thornydale Road. And as I was driving to church on Sunday morning, I saw him lying in the road, but I swerved into the other lane and just drive on to the church. And then a few minutes later Ryan Fregoso was on his way to church and he did the same thing.

Finally, a Samaritan comes on the scene. We don’t have time to go into all the details, but the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other - way worse than Democrats and Republicans do. About 700 years earlier, some from the northern ten tribes of Israel had intermarried with some of the pagan nations after the Assyrians had conquered them. They began to take on the pagan religious practices of those other nations and even set up their own place of worship to discourage people from making the trip to the temple in Jerusalem. Again, if we were to adapt this to today’s culture, that third man might be a Muslim man on his way to a mosque.

Think of this from the perspective of the man who was robbed. When he saw the Samaritan he figured he was probably done for. But instead, his enemy stops to help him.

When Jesus asks the lawyer which of these three men proved to be a neighbor, the lawyer couldn’t even bring himself to say “Samaritan” so he answered, “The one who showed mercy”. And then Jesus hit him with a dagger when he replied “Go and do likewise”.

Jesus isn’t just saying to care for an enemy like this once, or twice. He is saying that if you want to obtain eternal life by obeying the law, you have to do this perfectly day in and day out for the rest of your life. Do you see what Jesus is doing here? This lawyer is trusting in his knowledge of the law to provide him with eternal life. But Jesus holds up a mirror in front of him so that he can see that he may know the law intellectually, but he is incapable of carrying it out. And neither are we.

But you know who can? Jesus. We need to be careful that we don’t try to allegorize this parable to an extent that was not intended, but to me there is little doubt that the Good Samaritan in this story is a picture of Jesus. He left his home in heaven and came to our neighborhood and treated us with great compassion. He gave a lot more than some wine and oil and a couple day’s wages for us. He gave His life. There were no boundaries on His love for us.

Placing his faith and trust in Jesus alone is the only way that the lawyer could have inherited eternal life and that is still the only way that you and I can inherit it today.

So if you’re one of those people who has been trying to put boundaries on the entrance requirements to God’s kingdom, will you let Jesus erase those boundaries today and put your faith in Him? Maybe like this lawyer you know the Bible pretty well and you think you’ve loved God and loved your neighbor and that is good enough. But I can assure you based on my own observations, and more importantly based on the Word of God that you don’t do that perfectly, because none of us are capable of that on our own. And therefore the only way you will ever become part of God’s family is by putting your faith in Jesus. At the end of this message, I’ll share how you can contact us if you’d like to know more about how to do that.

Application

Level 2: How am I to “go and do likewise”?

As we’ve seen, none of us can do that perfectly and therefore it cannot possibly be the basis for inheriting eternal life. But because God has treated us with great mercy, He has called us to go and do likewise to our neighbors. And as we’ve already seen, when it comes to defining who our neighbor is, Jesus erased all the boundaries here. If a Samaritan could love his enemy, a Jew, then that means that we are not to put boundaries around who we are going to love either. As we said last week our neighbor is anyone we come into contact with in our day-to-day lives. In fact, the Greek word translated “neighbor” in this passage literally means “one who is near”.

So let’s see what we can learn from this passage about being a good neighbor even to our enemies:

Ask the right question

I’m going to draw on the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. here. In his last speech, delivered to a group of sanitation workers and their families and friends in Memphis, he made this observation about this parable:

And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

The priest and the Levite asked “If I stop to help, what will happen to me?” They were more concerned about how helping this injured man might affect them than they were about the man himself. Perhaps they were worried that if the man was dead, they would be religiously defiled. Maybe they were on their way to carry out their religious duties and they didn’t want to be delayed.

On the other hand, the Samaritan asked, “If I don’t stop to help, what will happen to this man?” As we’ll discuss more fully in a moment, he was willing to risk his own life and be inconvenienced in order to help the injured man because he wasn’t only focused on himself. As we saw recently in Philippians, good neighbors put the needs of others ahead of their own.

Have compassion

This is the main difference between the two religious leaders and the Samaritan. Only the Samaritan is said to have had compassion on the injured man. In fact, this story is so masterfully told by Jesus that in the Greek, the word that is exactly in the middle of the parable is the verb translated “he had compassion” in verse 33. By putting that verb exactly in the middle of the story, Jesus is emphasizing that this is the key to being a good neighbor.

In the gospel accounts we frequently see that Jesus was moved with compassion to act in the lives of others. And because of that compassion, He often showed his love by erasing boundaries that might have caused His fellow Jews to refrain from acting in those same situations.

Now I understand that compassion is not something any of us can generate on our own. I’ll be the first to admit that by nature, I’m not naturally a compassionate person. But knowing that, I have prayed and asked God to change me in that area and over time I am happy to say He has done that. And I’m confident He will do that for you if you ask.

Be willing to be inconvenienced

As I said earlier, we aren’t really sure exactly why the priest and the Levite didn’t stop to help, but I think ultimately it came down to the idea that they didn’t want to be inconvenienced. Perhaps they were thinking, “I can’t take the time to help. I’m too busy doing the Lord’s work.” But what if helping that man was the “Lord’s work”?

There is no reason to think that the Samaritan didn’t also have some important things on his schedule. But the difference is that he was willing to be inconvenienced - and not just in a minor way.

First of all, just stopping to help put him in danger. Those robbers were likely still in the vicinity. Then, after he bandaged up the man’s wounds, he took him to an inn and took care of him for the rest of the day and night. Then the next morning, he made arrangements for the continued care of the man and offered to come back and cover any additional costs. So he took at least a full day out of his life to help this man and he also gave of his material resources - his oil, his wine and his money.

Almost always being a good neighbor is going to require us to be inconvenienced in some way and to give of our time, talent and treasure. Being a good neighbor is often costly, but remember what ever it costs us is nothing compared to what it cost Jesus to show mercy to us.

Do what you can, where you are

The Samaritan was probably not out looking for someone to help that day. He wasn’t part of a ministry to care for robbery victims or a project to make the road to Jericho safer. He didn’t quit his job or leave his family. He just saw someone in need and did what he could to help.

Sometimes I think we tend to make this Samaritan man into a superhero. Even people who know nothing of the Bible are familiar with the phrase “Good Samaritan”. We name hospitals and societies after him. But he was just an ordinary man who did what he could - no more and no less.

We cannot - and probably shouldn’t help every single person we come into contact with. But what we can do is have a mindset in which we are ready to help whenever and wherever we can.

Every Tuesday I deliver meals for Mobile Meals. On my route I always see a number of homeless people and my heart breaks for them. I genuinely have compassion for them. Occasionally, I have given one of them a bottle of water or a protein bar, but I can’t do something for every one of them. And I used to feel guilty that I couldn’t do more. But I’ve come to realize that I am doing what I can when I deliver those meals to those shut-ins.

None of us here can help everyone, but we cal all help someone.

Give to others what you have already been given

This last principle really summarizes everything that we’ve learned this morning. Because God has treated me with such great mercy, that is to be my default mode when I deal with others. Mercy is who God is and it is what He wants from me.

We are not to be good neighbors just because we “ought to”. We are to do that because we have personally received the life-changing compassion of Jesus so that we can share it with those around us. As John wrote:

1 John 4:19 ESV

We love because he first loved us.

When it comes to love, Jesus erases all the boundaries.

Action

Who is it in your life that you have not loved, that you have not been a good neighbor to because you have put up some boundary - race, economic status, what a person wears or how many tattoos and piercings he or she has, or even because of what political party they belong to? By the way, I’m pretty sure there is an exception here for anyone who is an ASU or Duke fan since their mascot is a devil and we are instructed to have nothing to do with the devil. Seriously, I want you to honestly answer that question this morning and then decide what you are going to do to be a good neighbor to that person.

Inspiration

My holiness is not measure by how much I know about the Bible. Instead it is measured by how well I show mercy to my neighbor. And as this parable shows there is no such thing as a “non-neighbor”. There is no one I can write off as an “outsider” or an “outcast”. So the question I must ask is this: “Am I being a good neighbor to everyone, even my enemies?”