The Question of Neighborliness

Our passage begins with an expert in the law approaching Jesus with a test. He asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus turns the question back: "What is written in the law? How do you read it?"

The lawyer responds with the two greatest commandments: "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 affirms him: "You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live."

But the lawyer, wanting to justify himself, presses further: "And who is my neighbor?" This question was as loaded then as it remains today. In Jewish law of the time, the command to love one's neighbor was understood to apply only to fellow Jews. The lawyer was trying to draw Jesus into a scriptural debate about the boundaries of obligation. Instead, Jesus responds not with argument, but with a story.

A Dangerous Road

Jesus describes a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho—a notorious 17-mile road known for banditry. The rocky, winding path with caves on either side was treacherous; it was even called "the Bloody Pass" because of its violent reputation. This man is attacked by robbers, stripped of his possessions, beaten, and left for dead.

He lies there vulnerable and helpless. A listener might have thought: It's his own fault for traveling alone on such a dangerous road.

The Priest and the Levite

As fortune would have it, a priest comes along the same road. He has just completed his temple service in Jerusalem and is returning home to Jericho, where many priests of the time lived. Surely, one would think, a man fresh from worship and familiar with God's law would stop to help.

But he doesn't. Verse 31 tells us: "When he saw him, he passed by on the other side."

Why might he have done this? Perhaps he feared becoming ceremonially unclean by touching a bloody, possibly dead body—which would prevent him from leading worship in the temple for some time. Perhaps he didn't know the man's ethnicity and, knowing that his obligation extended only to Jewish neighbors, decided not to take the risk. Or perhaps he simply didn't want to get involved in the messy, dangerous, inconvenient situation.

We know these excuses well. It's inconvenient. It's not my problem. I don't have time or energy. I might get into trouble. These are the reasons we use to pass by on the other side.

Then comes a second ray of hope. A Levite—a temple assistant of lower status than the priest—approaches. Perhaps he has less to lose if he becomes unclean. Surely he will stop.

But no. Verse 32: "He too passed by on the other side."

The tension mounts. Is anyone going to help this man?

The Shocking Samaritan

In a story written for a Jewish audience, the next character should be the hero: perhaps an ordinary Jewish commoner who would show the mercy the religious authorities had failed to provide. That's what the script demanded.

But shockingly, verse 33 introduces a Samaritan.

Samaritans were despised by Jews. They were seen as traitors—once Jewish people who had intermarried with surrounding nations and abandoned faithful worship. Rather than worshiping in Jerusalem, they worshiped on Mount Gerizim in a ruined temple. To a Jewish listener, a Samaritan arriving on this road was the worst possible news. Some might have feared the Samaritan would finish off the job and kill the man outright.

Yet what happens next shatters every expectation: "When he saw him, he took pity on him." The Greek word is splagnitzomai—to be moved deeply in one's bowels, to be utterly gutted with compassion for someone.

This deep compassion moves the Samaritan to six successive acts of mercy:

1. He comes near. Unlike the priest and Levite, he doesn't cross to the other side. Love draws close and gets involved.

2. He binds the wounds. He likely tears strips from his own clothes to bandage the injuries, marring his own appearance in the process. A wealthy businessman, perhaps, willing to ruin fine garments to help.

3. He applies oil and wine. Wine disinfects the wounds; oil soothes the pain.

4. He loads the man on his donkey. He gives up his own transportation and will walk the rest of the journey.

5. He takes him to an inn and cares for him. He watches over him through the night, tending to his needs until he's stable.

6. He pays in advance and promises more. He gives the innkeeper two dinarii—roughly two weeks' worth of room rental—and promises to reimburse any additional expenses when he returns. He secures the man's full recovery at extravagant cost.

Unlike the priest and the Levite, the Samaritan does everything within his power.

The Shift in the Question

Jesus asks the lawyer: "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

The lawyer cannot even bring himself to say the word Samaritan. He replies: "The one who had mercy on him."

Jesus tells him: "Go and do likewise."

Notice the genius of Jesus's response. He shifts the question from "Who is my neighbor?" to "Who am I a neighbor to?" This is subtle but profoundly powerful. If you are a neighbor to someone, they automatically become your neighbor. Your neighbor is not determined by their ethnicity, proximity, or status. Your neighbor is determined by whether you show them mercy.

So who is your neighbor? Your neighbor is anyone you meet who is in need. They are anyone you encounter in their distress, anyone toward whom you are called to show love and mercy, treating them as you would hope to be treated in their situation.

This doesn't collapse the overwhelming reality of billions in need into your personal responsibility—you haven't met them, so they're not yet your neighbor. But it does expand your neighbor beyond just those you know. Your neighbor is anyone you encounter who is in need.

A Health Warning

Before we celebrate this teaching, we must be honest. There's a painful irony in this story: a few years ago, seminary students at Princeton were asked to prepare a talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan. As they walked from the preparation room to the lecture theater to present it, they had to pass through an alley where a person was slumped in a doorway, groaning.

Despite having studied Jesus's teaching on this very parable, most of the students walked past. Some even stepped over the person, especially those in a hurry.

The health warning is clear: We can be full of knowledge about God's word while remaining useless unless we put it into action. As James writes, "Be doers of the word, not just hearers."

Our Failure and Compassion Fatigue

We must admit that Christians have often been like the priest and Levite. At times, others around us—even those with no faith—have shown more compassion to the hurting than we have.

A pastor named Jeremiah Steepek once disguised himself as a homeless person and arrived at a 10,000-member church where he was to be introduced as the new head pastor. He walked around for 30 minutes before the service. Only three people greeted him. When he asked for money for food, no one gave him anything. When he tried to sit at the front, an usher directed him to the back.

Only after the church elders announced his arrival as the new pastor did the congregation realize what had happened. He came to the microphone, quoted Matthew 25—Jesus's call to care for the stranger and hungry—then shared his experiences that morning. He ended with a devastating challenge: "Today I see a gathering of people, not a church of Jesus Christ. The world has enough people, but not enough disciples. When will you decide to become disciples?"

It's a convicting moment. Yet it's not entirely bleak. Christians motivated by faith have been responsible for extraordinary acts of mercy throughout history—establishing hospitals, fighting for justice, working tirelessly in mercy ministries worldwide. Many of you in this room are involved in such work. But the picture has been mixed.

Why do we fail? Sometimes it's poor theology—not truly hearing Jesus's words. Sometimes it's poor discipleship, being controlled too much by the individualistic culture around us. But I suspect that often, for many of us, it's simply compassion fatigue. Given the overwhelming need around us, we don't have enough energy to keep loving and loving and loving those in need.

So the question becomes: How do we keep doing what Jesus commands? How do we "go and do likewise" day after day?

Jesus as the Truest Neighbor

The answer is this: Jesus is the truest neighbor. If we truly see what Jesus has done for us, it will enable us to be neighbors to others in need.

Look back at the parable. The man on the road to Jericho—beaten, bleeding, dying—is us. We were those who walked away from God's presence, away from Jerusalem (the place of God's worship and protection), heading toward Jericho. We were beaten up by sin, by the world, by the enemy. Paul writes in Ephesians 2 that we "were dead in our sins and transgressions." We lay like dead on the roadside, and no one could help us.

No dead religion, no human philosophy could meet our need. They all passed on the other side. But Jesus intervenes.

Despite us once counting God as our enemy—an obstacle to our freedom and our desires—God draws near to us in Jesus. He crosses the road. He comes and gets involved intimately. He doesn't stay at a distance shouting words of salvation; he enters our plight personally.

Jesus comes and binds up our wounds through his love and life, becoming marred for it. He rubs into those wounds both wine and oil—his blood shed for us, and the work of his Spirit bringing healing and making us new.

He substitutes his place for ours. We get to take his place; he takes ours at the cross.

He brings us to a place of ultimate healing—the inn, a picture of what the church should be, where we are made new and reformed in a community of healing.

And he pays for it all in advance at extravagant cost through the precious life he gives at the cross. He promises to return again to make sure it's all complete, to turn all things new and bring to completion what he started.

If you can really see that you are the person on the road to Jericho, beaten and bleeding and dying; if you can really see your desperate need for mercy and rescue; if you can truly see the extravagant mercy, compassion, love, and costly action of Jesus to redeem, rescue, and make you holy—then that vision is what will enable you to do the same for others, day after day after day.

The key is seeing Jesus.

Love Your Enemy

Let me end with one final story. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was killed by a Muslim extremist. The killing sparked retaliatory violence. Mosques and churches were attacked; bombs went off at an Islamic school. A nation once proud of its peace and openness erupted in rage and hostility.

In the midst of that firestorm, a pastor named Keith Siebert—a traditionally conservative Dutchman living in a community that had become home to poor Middle Eastern immigrants—made a decision. That week, he walked to his neighborhood mosque and knocked loudly on the door.

To the shock of the Muslims huddled inside, he announced that he would stand guard outside the mosque every night until the attacks ceased. He called on other churches to do the same. And they did. Pastors and church members stood outside mosques across the country to protect them from attack. It was a remarkable witness.

When the secular press, bewildered by his actions, asked him why he had done this, he didn't recount interfaith dialogues or personal relationships with Muslims. He didn't know a single Muslim. He came from a conservative, traditionalist background that wouldn't typically engage in such work. He wasn't motivated by multiculturalism or the modern Dutch openness around him. He was radically traditionalist.

But when pressed on what enabled him to overcome his background and do what he did, he simplified it to one thing: "It was Jesus. Jesus commanded me to love my neighbor and even my enemy too."

The way that we meet everyone in their need and love them as a neighbor—even those we don't naturally like—the answer is Jesus. Both who he is, what he did for us, what he models for us, what we receive from him daily, and what he commands us to do.

And he commands us clearly in this book: "Go and do likewise."

So can I ask you to do that? Amen.