Who is my neighbour?

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘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 neighbour as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Luke 10:25-37

A pet hate of mine is when people refuse to answer a plain question. I think of it especially in relation to politicians who, to my ear anyway, often seem to squirm and wriggle their way out of a straight answer when interviewed on radio or television. So annoying!

But perhaps I need to be careful. First, because no doubt there are times I do the very same thing myself. And second, and far more important, because Jesus often seems to do it too.

The wonderful story of “the Good Samaritan” is a case in point. An expert in the law asks Jesus a question: “Teacher… what must I do to inherit eternal life?” That seems straight and direct enough, doesn’t it? But does he get a straight answer? No: he gets another question in reply: “What is written in the law?... How do you read it?”

As if to say: “Well, given that you are an expert in the law and I am just an unqualified wandering rabbi from Galilee, that’s a very strange question to ask! What do you think, Mr Lawyer?”

The lawyer comes back with two quotations from the Jewish law: Love God (Deuteronomy 6:5) and Love your neighbour (Leviticus 19:18). Upon which Jesus congratulates him on a correct answer and says, in effect, “Well, just get on and do it, then”.

But the lawyer is a little miffed (perhaps a bit like me) at not getting a straight answer. He’s wanting to “test” Jesus – to catch him out – and Jesus isn’t rising to the bait. So he puts a second question: “And who is my neighbour?” Again, does he get an answer? Again, no, he doesn’t. What he gets this time is… a story.

And what a story it is! “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers…” (Luke 10:30-35). Yes, the “Good Samaritan”, surely one of the greatest stories ever told. It forces the lawyer to answer his own question, and as a result it is he and not Jesus who is “tested”; he ends up embarrassed and looking rather foolish.

The story depends on a fact that no Jew of the time would have been comfortable with: the man who showed compassion to the victim of the attack was… a Samaritan. And the Samaritans and the Jews were, to put it mildly, enemies. Jesus, by coming at the debate in this rather roundabout, indirect way, leads the lawyer to a point where he is forced to admit that it is the Samaritan who stands out as the hero, not his fellow-Israelite priest or Levite.

But he can’t bring himself to acknowledge this openly: when Jesus asks the innocent-seeming question “Who was a neighbour to the victim?” he chokes on the honest reply, “The Samaritan, of course”, and mumbles instead, “The one who had mercy on him”.

By not answering questions directly, and by posing questions of his own, Jesus has forced the lawyer to face up to a truth which he would much prefer to brush aside: God recognises goodness and compassion in anyone, not just among his own chosen people.

We can’t help noticing, too, that Jesus even declines to answer the lawyer’s second question “And who is my neighbour?”

That is where the punch of this parable lies. He is saying to the lawyer, in effect, “You are asking the wrong question! What matters is not ‘Who is my neighbour?’ What matters is ‘Who can I be a neighbour to?’ And that is a very different question!”

By asking “And who is my neighbour?” the lawyer was probably wanting to know who he could safely ignore – who he didn’t need to bother about. And probably he was assuming that the gentiles as a whole, and the hated Samaritans above all, would fall into that category: “Surely God doesn’t expect us to show kindness to them!”

I find this enormously challenging, for if I’m honest with myself I have to recognise that I have an inner list - if only a subconscious inner list - of people I’m not responsible for, people I can “pass by on the other side” with a clean conscience. That woman in the shopping centre selling the Big Issue magazine… that homeless man sitting with his dog under a huddle of blankets outside the tube station… that starving child staring at me from the charity poster…

An uncomfortable memory comes back to me…

I was visiting friends in Texas, and I took a walk along the San Antonio river. It was a pleasant day, so when I came to a seat I decided to sit down and enjoy the scene. I was joined by an elderly man who obviously enjoyed chatting to people he met. That suited me fine, and we got along well.

A young woman came up behind our seat and started to talk: “Sorry to bother you – I promise I won’t ask for money…” She looked very ill; her eye were strange and I suppose she had a serious drugs problem. But my neighbour - my friendly neighbour - turned on her with a truly shocking, vicious ferocity: “Clear off! Or I’ll call the cops!”

And clear off she did. She slunk away, shoulders bent, like a whipped dog (not that I’ve ever seen a whipped dog, but you get the point). It had all taken just a few seconds, and I was in a bit of a daze. It was only a few minutes later that guilt kicked in…

Why hadn’t I chased after her, if only to offer a word of kindness, to let her know that I felt for her? Why did I make excuses for, in effect, being hard-hearted? - I was a stranger in their country… It was none of my business… I didn’t want to offend my new-found friend… I didn’t have any means of offering the practical help she obviously needed… I was out of my depth in a totally unexpected situation… Above all, that young woman was no neighbour of mine, was she?

And I knew – What paltry, shabby excuses these were! No, she was indeed no neighbour of mine. But, with the benefit of hindsight, I couldn’t help but hear the voice of Jesus: “Who acted as a neighbour to that young woman?”

Not my friend, that’s for sure. But was I any better?

Father in heaven, please help me to absorb and act on the great lesson that there is no person on the face of the earth to whom I don’t have the responsibility to be a neighbour. Amen.