Who Is My Neighbor?

~ by Ryan Bell, the Senior Pastor of the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church, currently completing his Doctor of Ministry in Missional Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary. To read more from Ryan go to his blog Intersections.

One of the most familiar and enduring stories from the Christian scripture is known as The Good Samaritan. This story has achieved popular status in the form of “Good Samaritan laws,” which in the United States and Canada, protect from prosecution bystanders who help a person in need. In some countries you can actually be held responsible if you don’t at least call for help. But in spite of the popular recognition of this story, its basic message still eludes us.

The story is found in New Testament of the Christian Bible, Luke 10:25-37. Jesus tells a story of a Jewish man who was traveling the dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers and left for dead. Two religious men came along and saw him lying in a pool of his own blood and then passed by on the other side of the road, each for their own religious reason.

As in all good stories, the third man to walk by is the central character in the story – a Samaritan. In a shocking twist, the Samaritan does what the Jewish religious elite was unwilling to do. He stops, bends down, bandages the man’s wounds, and takes him to a house where he can get rest and care, promising to return and pay all the bills.

There are so many ways this story speaks into our human situation, but over the years I have missed one central observation. At first, Jesus is asked a question about how a person could obtain eternal life. When he puts the question back to the clever lawyer who asked it, he answers correctly, “love God and love your neighbor.”  But because the lawyer lives in a divided world, he inquires of Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” And it is this word “neighbor” that becomes a central teaching point of Jesus.

For the listeners of the time, using a Samaritan as the protagonist of the story and a hero was not merely radical. It was repulsive. Centuries old hatred between Jews and Samaritans resulted in a belief that God cannot possibly be engaged with Samaritans. They were the worst kind of apostates – using half-truths to twist the truth into a lie. Samaritans were not only wrong.  They were enemies of God and therefore worthy of all contempt.

It’s an ancient blood feud that finds its way into our living rooms in the form of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of today. Both Jews and Samaritans claimed to be the true descendents of Abraham and Moses, and therefore the rightful inheritors of the land. Sound familiar?  This ancient hostility is also similar to the way that Protestants and Catholics have vilified each other through the centuries. Protestant churches often refer to the Catholic Church as “the beast” of Revelation. On the other hand, the Pope recently issued a statement saying that non-Catholic “churches”, while not being totally rejected by God, are still not, in the proper sense, “churches,” because they have left the mother church.  While Protestants and Catholics may have many legitimate disagreements, excluding one another from belonging to God has a history of massive bloodshed.

So, when Jesus finishes telling the story and asks this religious lawyer which of these men was neighbor to the man in need, he cannot even utter the word “Samaritan” and so he says, “The one who had mercy on him.”

In the story, Jesus brilliantly strips this elite man of his power and prestige by making him a victim of a roadside mugging, and then makes him the recipient of mercy and hospitality at the hands of someone he despises. Then Jesus, in a moment of rhetorical brilliance, presses home the central question: Can this Jew experience the grace of God through a Samaritan?

What was so shocking for the listeners was not that Samaritan was merely a good person.  It was the fact that Jesus used a Samaritan to teach them a lesson about God!  Jesus taught about the commandments of God by embodying his teaching through the actions of a “wrong person.” 

It’s easy to love our neighbors when we get to decide who our neighbor is.

The real test of our love comes when we stand face to face with “the other” – the one who is different from us in every way. It is only as we are stripped of our power, prestige, and arrogance about being right all the time (like the lawyer) that will we be able to rightly discern God coming to us from “those people” whoever “those people” might be for us.

Are neighbors only those who live in my neighborhood? My literal neighborhood, my socio-economic neighborhood, my ideological neighborhood, my religious neighborhood.  Can we be the recipients of God’s blessing at the hands of someone we do not consider to be our neighbor at all?  That was the surprise Jesus had for the lawyer that day.  That is the surprise lesson for our world.  And the lesson I need to learn and re-learn all of my life.

Comments

[alvin Poblacion]

This story hits it right on the head for me. An old story to me, now with new and deeper meaning. Thanks for sharing your insight with us Ryan. It is 11:00 pm eastern time right now, but I had a surge of cool adrenaline just now. Peace.
-al

[Sean Evans]

Ryan,

I really enjoyed reading your post tonight. That passage of scripture feels like a hinge upon which the Gospel hangs for me and allows the love of God to enter into the space within my soul. The timeless wisdom of the Good Samaritan parable-like all hinges-is that it is highly dynamic and useful to peoples of all times across the globe. I really liked your use of the word “repulsive” to describe the sentiment that must have been experienced when hearing the word “Samaritan” in Jesus’ day. To be honest, this word has lost much of its poignancy for me. The word “Samaritan”-for me- radiates this rosy, positive vibe about helping people out who are “beaten” down; hardly any repulsion there. It feels more like the REM song, Shiny Happy People. However, when I think of words like “homo,” “humanist,” “illegal immigrant,” “extremist,” “crack-ho,” “psycho,” “abortionist,” “poor,” “lazy,” “liberal,” “stupid,” “freak,” and so on, I begin feeling as though I am more closely approximating the visceral reaction that many listeners that day must have experienced while hearing the parable. I say “approximating” only because the list provided is hardly repulsive to anyone with eyes and ears in our (post)modern day culture; the “true” list would be difficult for Samir to put on this website The word “Samaritan” must have had the same irritating and penetrating sound as a squeaky hinge, making that annoying noise that forces you to grind your teeth (kind of like the fingernails on the chalk board). I wonder if we, as Christians, have “oiled down” (through comfortable metaphors and acceptable analogies) that “squeaky scripture” enough so that we don’t have to be bothered by the annoying resonance of the Kingdom message? I also wonder if we, as Christians, have integrated this seminal scripture into our lives, then why are the above mentioned folks so poorly represented in our churches, not even to mention the near absence of these “others” behind our pulpits? Perhaps the future of our church’s relevancy hinges on our ability to practice this wisdom by learning to love well by welcoming the sound of Grace walking through the “squeaky” door.

-Sean

[Ryan Bell]

Thanks, Al and Sean, for your words. Sean, I think you've really put your finger on something. Two quick stories:

First, I preached this passage a few weeks ago in my church...the above is a condensation of my sermon. Someone after church said they really appreciated it and, like Al, saw this passage in a new light. She went on to say that she had heard dozens of sermons about The Good Samaritan but they all boiled down to one common theme, "be nice to people." How many times have we heard that? I think is is precisely the thing Sean is saying when he muses, "I wonder if we, as Christians, have “oiled down” (through comfortable metaphors and acceptable analogies) that “squeaky scripture” enough so that we don’t have to be bothered by the annoying resonance of the Kingdom message?" That's not only an amazing point, but that's some beautiful prose! Thanks!

Second, in my actual sermon that day, I came to the part about receiving God's blessings at the hands of the hated Samaritans and I asked the congregation, "Do I really need to spell out for you who the Samaritans are in our culture today or are you guys getting this?" Many chuckled and affirmed that they got it and I could leave the list unspoken. You've really compiled a nice list.

[Ryan Bell]

One more thing....
A friend of mine pointed out that my post above might leave the impression that the Samaritans and the Palestinians are the same people. Clearly, they are not. Samaritans, as I mentioned, are more akin to Jews than anything. Most Palestinians are Sunni Muslims, though there is a significant minority who are Christians. The term, Palestinian, refers to people from a geographical region while Samaritan refers to a Hebrew word, Shamerim, which means "keepers" - keepers of the law.

The analogy that I intended to convey is simply that the conflict is ironically similar. Both claim God's blessing and stake claim to the same land. There is deep animosity between both groups. Samaritans are to the Jews what Palestinians are to Israelis, by analogy. The Samaritan/Jew pairing is more about theology. The Palestinian/Israeli pairing is more about ethnicity, though it is also deeply about theology.

Anyway, sorry for the confusion. It was an analogy, not a direct comparison. I probably could have made my point without muddling it up with all that. :)

[Sean Evans]

I appreciated the comments...and I connect with the statement made by your church member about having heard the Good Samaritan being about "nice to people." The world is full of nice people "waiting for the world to change" (like John Mayer and his misunderstood friends). Unfortunately, there are far less "good" and decent human beings making a difference for the Kingdom of God. Blessings to you Ryan, your family, and your church.

[Tina Bratlund]

Enjoyed the article very much...the theme of "judging" has been recurring in my world a lot recently. The concept of loving a person because at the core we are all people seems to be difficult for us. We try to figure out what that (to love) means...we try to be "good" to people or deny that we have any prejudices. We rationalize why we should walk on the other side of the road or even avoid eye contact with people. I don't know if you all have noticed this in life, but when I start doing that with a few people, I find myself doing it to more and more...if I keep this up, I end up cutting myself off from everyone and I end up alone and afraid in this world. I've unfortunately watched someone do this to their own life. They hide and are literally afraid of everybody. They put down everyone, including themselves.

But I'm going off on a slight tangent...I wanted to mention the word "good."

A friend once brought it to my attention that Jesus never called the man the "good" Samaritan. It is a word that we have added. In my opinion we've added it, like Sean so eloquently stated, to take the edge off. I think the addition of it has drawn more of the attention to the fact that a "good" deed was done, rather than the point Ryan shared with us. We need to focus on love, not good. Ask God to teach us how to love others. If we try to do it on our own, we will just try to be good, but it goes so much deeper than that. We need to learn to love well. My favorite bumper sticker right now says "God bless everyone, no exceptions." My prayer: God teach me to love everyone, no exceptions.