Monday, June 18, 2018
Morning neighbour
Luke 10:29
But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”
Readers in Guyana or those of you with a Guyanese heritage would be familiar with the Guyanese folk song, “Marnin’ neighbour.” The song tells the story of a neighbour rejecting a man’s morning greetings because he believes him to be conniving.
You see, the person proffering the good morning greetings was shortly before that working in the highly profitable goldfields in Guyana and was making so much money that he had no time for his neighbours. However, now that this money is all gone in profligate living he is keen on connection with his neighbours to get help from them. He is being rejected.
The song raises several questions about human relationships and the definition of who our neighbour is. Whether our neighbourly conduct should be a function of the identity, character, or behaviour of the other person and, what is the place of compassion and forgiveness.
The neighbour test was first employed by Jesus in a parable about the Good Samaritan to respond to a smart-aleck lawyer who challenged him. The lawyer posed a question to Jesus and Jesus asked a counter question that made the lawyer answer his own first question. Well, the lawyer was not going to leave it there.
If the law says that, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbour as yourself'” then we have to define the term neighbour. But, by pushing for a definition of neighbour, the lawyer got himself into deep trouble not out of it.
It would seem as though the lawyer was looking for a loophole in the law that would limit the demands on him to inherit eternal life. It is clearly not that he didn’t know or understand the law, he was an educated and qualified man. He was a lawyer who, according to the text, intended to test Jesus.
Of course, Jesus responded with a story that the lawyer would never forget, others listening would never forget, and because of the biblical record, we would never forget. Jesus, in crafting this story, exploited every prejudice and bias to make a point that, instead of narrowing the definition of neighbour as the lawyer wanted, broadened it beyond his imagination.
Jesus picked on a priest as the first person to opt out of offering help to a man who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Then came a Levite who also opted out of offering assistance, he too crossed the road and went on his way. No doubt, this lawyer, who was debating with Jesus, would be one who held the priest and the Levite in high esteem. He would have been stung by their refusal to help after all of their teachings and working in the temple.
But Jesus wasn’t done yet. With the image of the man’s bleeding body in their heads, Jesus adds a Samaritan to his cast of passers-by. As we know from the scriptures, the Samaritans were despised people and the Jews had no dealings with them. Their historical differences were ethnic, social, cultural, and religious. That this parable has been called the parable of the Good Samaritan is a contradiction in terms. To the Jew, you could not be good and a Samaritan at the same time.
Yet this man, from a despised group of people, was the one to provide roadside assistance, arrange lodging, and pay for long-term care.
By the end of the story, Jesus established that our neighbour is the one who comes through for us when we are in dire need and no one else will. Being a neighbour is not about geography and proximity. It’s not a measure of physical nearness it is a measure of how far we are willing to go for someone else, even a total stranger.
I would have liked to hear Jesus tell that story today. And not to a religious lawyer but to someone who passed the bar and is practising in today’s courts in our very litigious societies. Our lawyers would not have allowed any of us to touch the man. Touching the man could have exposed us to a lawsuit especially if it could be argued that the way we handled him caused some complication in the emergency room when he got there and so on.
Also, if this happened today, rather than help the man, most passers-by would have taken out their smartphones to photograph the man and post to social media while he was bleeding to death.
Modern life, especially modern city life is making the idea of a neighbour being the person next door even more far-fetched than when this man spoke to Jesus. Many of us have no idea who our neighbours are.
My next-door neighbour and her three-year-old granddaughter for whom she was caring, were attacked in the middle of the day by a pair of bandits who pretended to be there on legitimate business. She was left on the floor bleeding with only the three-year-old there to provide assistance. She screamed as loudly as she could, and I never heard. Eventually, another neighbour who came outside of her house heard and rushed to assist. She called the police, ambulance and our neighbour’s daughter.
I felt really bad that this happened when I was home and I never heard and couldn’t have been of assistance and immediate support. Sometimes our physical neighbours are out of reach of our morning greetings. To be a neighbour in the sense that Jesus means requires a big effort on our part.
Think on these things:
- Do you have any meaningful relationships in the community where you live?
- What racial, ethnic, cultural, social or other prejudice do you have that may affect who you give assistance to?
- How could our church better train and equip members to be more helpful to those in need?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be of assistance to persons in need in our community.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
