Gulp.  This is a pretty straightforward and harsh rebuke to each of us from Jesus.  There is no parable here.  No hidden message.  These words are straight forward and direct.  And, the message is loud and clear – we are to love and serve even those we don’t want to love.  Gulp.

I think it’s actually pretty revealing that we have the examples of those who have gone before us in Scripture.  They are just like us.  They mess up.  They get it all wrong.  They go the complete opposite way Jesus wants them to go.  They judge; they condemn; they hate their neighbor. Just like us.  But, I am so very comforted also seeing how amazingly patient God is with them – and us – as He teaches us the way in which we should go!

I think about the disciples and how utterly human they are.  Sometimes, I’m like “How did you not get this, Jesus told you this three times!!!”  But, then, God inevitably reveals to me how I am just. like. them.   How many times must He tell me something before I get it?  And, once I get the log out of my own eye, I realize God has been telling me something much more than three times and I still haven’t gotten it!  Gulp.

In “The Parable of the Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37), an expert of the law stood up to test Jesus.  He asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  The Scripture says that Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law?”  (I feel like He is asking, “What have I already told you?”) The man responds, “‘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.’”   Jesus told the law expert that he was correct and to “Do this and you will live.”  (Ugh….there’s that DO word again!) . But, then, immediately after Jesus said this, Scripture states that the man wanted to “justify himself” before Jesus and asked, “But, who is my neighbor?”  From what I can tell, this “expert of the law” (I read this as “church law”) was trying to justify himself by deciding for himself who “his neighbor” was or why he didn’t need to actually be a good neighbor.  And, we all know the rest of the story about how the people of the church walked by the man that was helpless and bleeding on the ground, but that it was a Samaritan who was the righteous neighbor to the man in need (his neighbor).

So, all this begs the question, who really is my neighbor?  Does my neighbor live next door to me?  Or, how far do I have to go to count someone my neighbor?  Do I really have to love the man who walks his dog and lets his dog do his business on my yard?  Because I really don’t want to love him!  How about the shopkeeper across town who is always rude to me!  Do I have to love him?  Or how about the neighbor across the world who is from a different culture that I don’t understand?  Do I have to love him or can he be someone else’s neighbor to love?

Like the lawyer in the story of the good Samaritan, we will try and find excuses to justify ourselves for not actively loving our neighbor. What I find interesting about this parable of the Good Samaritan is that the people Jesus told this story to were Jewish.  And, the Jewish Israelites despised the Samaritans!  They hated them so much they would literally walk around the entire city rather than having to walk through it and deal with or talk to a despicable Samaritan!  So, I can only imagine with this mindset, how unnerving it must have been for this Jewish, learned leader to listen as Jesus made the EXAMPLE of righteousness to be the very person he hated, condemned, and avoided at all cost!   (Have you ever avoided someone on the street by walking the other way?  Can you imagine Jesus coming to you at the moment and using them instead of you as an example of someone “good”?  How utterly unsettling and completely unnerving I know it would be for me!)  What is also keenly interesting about this parable is that the “church folk” – the priest and the Levite – both passed right by the hurt man as he lay beaten and naked in the street!  And, given that this man was a traveler (presumably not from the area), the Samaritan likely did not know or even recognize this man.  But, what the parable does say is that the Samaritan “had compassion” on him.  The Samaritan had a heart soft and tender enough to see someone in need – even someone he didn’t know and someone that likely was not like him – and to have compassion on that person.  He saw the stranger as a “neighbor.”  Having compassion for another – whether we know them or not – seems to be an indicator of what Jesus expects from us as a “good neighbor”.

I certainly do not claim to know much of theology or the history behind Scripture.  But, one thing that stands out to me is why the Israelites hated the Samaritans, and why Jesus would use the very people the church of His day hated and condemned to be the example of the “good neighbor.”  The Samaritans were the “demonized” group of the Irsaelites.  Scripture says, in John, “Few Jews travel through Samaria.”  The Israelites would walk 5 days instead of 3 to get from Jerusalem to Galilee – apparently just to avoid these wretched people!  The Samaritan woman at the well was surprised a Jew would even speak to her (there’s Jesus doing the opposite of what we do!).  The Israelites certainly had some pretty harsh hatred and condemnation for their neighbors the Samaritans.  And, even in Jesus’ final journey, He intended to go through Samaria again (“toward Jerusalem”) and He sent some messengers ahead of him.  When the messengers returned and said the Samaritans did not want to receive Jesus because He was headed “toward Jerusalem”, Jesus decided to take a different route.  But, what did His followers ask when they heard of the Samaritan’s refusal?  They said, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”  Why do us Christians always slide so easily and so quickly into hatred and condemnation?  Ugh.  Thankfully, Jesus always teaches us in the way we should go: “But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.”  Why is our heart so quickly and easily filled with what is not of God before what is of God?  Why are we so very ready to condemn our brother rather than to have compassion on him as we love and serve him?  And, why does this hatred flow so easily into our hearts for groups of people we don’t even know personally?

But, what is most interesting is while my focus is on how awful my neighbor is being to me, I am completely missing the fact that (as a Christ follower), I am the one not having compassion on nor being a good neighbor to him!  Too often, I forget compassion when I am wronged! All of this challenges me to have compassion on my neighbors.  All of them.  Maybe that neighbor that lets his dog do his business on my lawn has a bad back; maybe it is too hard for him to bend down.  Maybe he is struggling with something unimaginable and the “clean-up” of his dog’s mess is the furthest thing from his mind.  Maybe he moved into my neighborhood from a farm where there were no “dog ethics” or need for cleaning up after your dog.  Maybe no one was compassionate enough to kindly teach him the ethics of city life and dogs.  Maybe he was never very loved by his own family and he has grown into a bitter man.  Too often, I let my own flesh lead the way instead of remembering God’s compassion on me and relying on God to lead the way in how I treat others!  Thank God, He doesn’t treat us the way we treat others!!  What I take from this passage is that in order for ME to be the good neighbor, I am challenged to have compassion with everyone – even those I do not know, those who disagree with me, and especially those who do me wrong.  As Christ followers, we are all challenged by the Gospel to forgive the unforgiveable, to extend grace when someone has wronged us, and to even offer the coat off our backs to  our enemies!

I know I cannot do this without the help of God and His Holy Spirit.  I simply cannot forgive the unforgivable on my own!  I cannot love my enemy on my own!  And, I certainly don’t want to offer the coat off my back to anyone who has wronged me!  But, then there is no difference between the me who didn’t know God and the me who now does know God!  And, I recognize:  it is ONLY with God’s help that I can truly be a good neighbor – the kind of neighbor God calls me to be.  To love my neighbor as myself, and even as Christ loves me.  To be at peace and in unity with anyone and everyone who crosses my path.  To pray for those who persecute me.  To extend the love of God, even when I cannot love them myself.

Honestly, it is easier not to do these things than to do them.  And, only with God’s help is it even possible to do them, because it is literally the opposite of what I want to do.  What did Paul say?  “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”  But, Jesus challenges us to follow in His footsteps in the example of the Good Samaritan and in the example of His own life.  And, He empowers us with His Holy Spirit in order to be able to NOT given in to the evil in which we – ourselves – have a tendency to do.  It is just up to us whether or not we lean into that power or we lean into ourselves.

The next time I become angry at my neighbor or seek to divide from my neighbor, first I hope I remember whose I am – I am a new creation in Christ – and I hope that with God’s help I will look deep inside my own heart to see whether or not I am the one being a good neighbor.  Remember, this is the crux of Jesus’ greatest commandment and directive to us:  love your neighbor as yourself – or even more – love them as I have loved you.  This is it!  Remember, it is always about people with God!  Every single person He created was made in His own image!  And, we must – we have to – see ever person in the truth of this light!  We do not want to stand before Christ as He sits on that Judgement Seat and have to answer for why we did not love our neighbor as ourself!  May we never stand before Him and say, Jesus I did all these things in your name and He responds back to us, “I do not know you!  Depart from me!”  Two. Simple. Commands. Changes the world.  And, it is up to us to…live. them. out.