Whose Neighbor am I?

Luke 10:29b

“And who is my neighbor?”

When we lived in a small town in Nebraska, Linda and I knew all our neighbors.  In that little town of 400 people Evonne lived next door and babysat our kids.  Vi and Charlie across the street adopted our kids as their grandchildren.  The boy across the street was Ben’s first buddy.  The family on the opposite corner were Jehovah’s Witness.  The Weerts brothers lived behind us.  Mrs. Berg down the street made the best raspberry pies.  Lorna across the street made the most delicious coffee cakes.  In Texarkana, we kind of new our neighbors.  We talked to the family next door but I could never remember their names.  The boy across the street was Ben’s friend.  His dog bit me.  Miss Marie down the street went to our church.  In Flower Mound we barely knew our neighbors.  The lady next door died and we didn’t know for two months.  We are Facebook friends with the folks on the other side. In Germany we did a little better.  We knew the couple across the hall, the pastors who lived next door, the policeman and his family down the street, the Dock and Ferris families from church.  Here, we know the neighbors immediately around our house. Now it can be easy to blame the neighbors when you don’t know them.  “They just aren’t friendly.”  But Jesus turns that upside down in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  He makes it clear that the problem is not with my neighbors.  The problem is with me.  The issue is not who is my neighbor, but whose neighbor am I?

In our text a lawyer tried to test Jesus. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus points him to the Scripture.  The lawyer answers with the two great commandments – “Love the Lord your God,” and “Love your neighbor…”  “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”  That’s not enough or the lawyer.  He wants to justify himself.  He asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  That’s when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus makes it plain that the problem is not one of definition. God will “define” neighbor for you.  He will lay him across your path, in the road half dead, in need of you. You won’t have any problem identifying your neighbor.  In fact, you will have to take steps to avoid him.  That is what the priest and the Levite do.  They see the man but pass by on the other side.  

I am sure the Priest and the Levite had excuses.  They had things to do.  They were busy people.  We have excuses too.   It’s so much easier to think the church should have some kind of program for  visiting the shut-ins, the elderly, or the hospitalized. The pastor should do that. And “where is the family? Why aren’t the kids taking better care of their aging parents?  This is their job not mine.  The Government should take care of the needy.  I found it all too easy to ignore the man I saw sitting each day on the bench in our German neighborhood. “It’s none of my business… I don’t have time… I have my own family to take care of…”   Too often we are more priest and Levite than  Good Samaritan.

 

Do you know who the Good Samaritan in this story is?  The one who “when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds?  The one who took him to an inn and took care of him?  The Good Samaritan is Jesus.  He is the neighbor you and I fail to be.  He welcomed sinners and ate with them.  When everyone else thought they were too good to be neighbor to a tax collector named Zacchaeus, Jesus is the one who came to his home and brought salvation.  He is the one who sat by the well and talked to the Samaritan woman.  When no one else gave her the time of day, Jesus listened to her. He spoke to her. He cared about her.  He called her to faith.  On the cross, suffering in ways we can’t imagine, Jesus took time to be neighbor to the soldiers… to his mother… even to the thief… to offer him eternal life.  Loving His neighbors is second nature to Jesus. 

It still is.  He is still that neighbor, not just to others, but to you and me.  He is the one who was born under the law to redeem those who are under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons.  On that cross, He was delivered over to death for our sins…  On Easter morning Jesus was raised to life that we might be forgiven.  When He came upon us, dead in our trespasses and sins Jesus in Holy Baptism made us alive together with Christ.  Just like the Good Samaritan Jesus carried us to an Inn, brought us into His church… At the Inn the Good Samaritan paid for the man’s care.  Jesus does the same here.  He provides all that we need for healing and restoration.  Here He provides people to offer to us the great gifts He purchased on the cross for us… Here He provides for His word of love to be taught and read… for His word of forgiveness to spoken to us again and again… Here He feeds us with His body and blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion..  Here He gives us friends to love and care for and support us... Through all the people around you Jesus seeks to be neighbor to you.

What’s more He desires to be that neighbor through you and me.    Whether it’s a shut in at church, or an old man on a bench, or a first-time guest at church…  Whether it’s the guy at work who needs someone to listen to… or the lady who can’t find something in the grocery store… or the old couple down the street who seem to have no family around… Jesus has laid those people across our paths.  He has brought them to us.  We are now the Innkeepers.  Jesus is saying to us, ‘Here is your neighbor.  Look after him. Love him.’   Instead of asking “who is my neighbor” ask the Lord – “help me to be a neighbor to each person You bring into my life… Help me to love them as you have loved me.  Lord, let that be second nature to me… let your way of life become my way of life.”  Amen.