Who Is My Neighbor?

By Samy Rodriguez

“Then an expert in the law stood up to test Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘What is written in the law?’ He asked him. ‘How do you read it?’ He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘You’ve answered correctly,’ He told him. ‘Do this and you will live.’ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Jesus took up the question and said: ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.” ‘Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ ‘The one who showed mercy to him,’ he said. Then Jesus told him, ‘Go and do the same.’”—Luke 10:25-37 (HCSB)

Have you ever seen a “For Sale” or “For Rent” sign go up in your community and thought, “I wonder who will move in next . . . and I hope they’re good neighbors”? Watching someone move into my neighborhood always piques my curiosity. Perhaps you keep to yourself and don’t know much about your neighbors. Perhaps your neighbors broke the ice first and built an intentional relationship with you. Maybe you’ve had noisy and reckless neighbors, or generous and curious neighbors—perhaps even a bit too curious. Generally speaking, though, you don’t have a say in who your neighbors are.

In the passage above, an “expert” in the law asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus flips the question on him. The man answers by saying to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself. Yet just because we may know the right answer with our head doesn’t mean we’ve let it lead and transform our heart. The Scripture says this man wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” This man knew he wasn’t living this out, so he tried to find an answer that would give him a way out. Don’t we often do this with Jesus, too? We search the Bible and take verses that fit what WE want to believe and how WE want to live, instead of letting Jesus and His Word be the truth that guides us.

So Jesus tells him a story where a man is robbed, stripped, and beaten. While a priest and a Levite, Jews who would’ve known the law, pass him without thinking twice about helping, a Samaritan man ends up helping him. The Samaritans were a group of people who came from Jews intermarrying with foreigners centuries earlier. Not only were they ethnically different, but they also mixed Jewish worship with idolatrous religions. Jews despised them for all of these reasons.

So, instead of telling a story where a Jew shows compassion, Jesus tells a story where the Jew is the hurting one, and a Samaritan is the only one who extends compassion. Jesus challenges everything about his audience’s preconceptions. This command to love your neighbor places no bounds on who your neighbor is! Those who know and “follow” the law, yet refrain from extending God’s mercy to those in need right in front of them, are not obeying this central commandment.

This has always been God’s heart for us. In Leviticus, the book where God gives the Israelites the law after delivering them from slavery in Egypt, we see the first command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18 NIV). In that same chapter, God also commands them not to oppress any foreigners living in their land (Leviticus 19:33–34). In Deuteronomy, He says the same thing and depicts God as defending the cause of the fatherless, the widow, and the foreigner (Deuteronomy 10:17–19). Jesus goes even further by saying, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27–28 NIV).

Jesus flips the script on everything. Much like we usually can’t choose our neighbors in our community, God tells us that everyone around us, whether we like it or not, is our neighbor. This includes the kids on the other side of town, your boss, your coworkers, your literal neighbors on either side of you, or above or beneath you, your rival sports fans, the people you see at the grocery store or at the park, the people you disagree with politically, the immigrant and the foreigner, those of other religious beliefs, everyone at your church or in your family—even the hard-to-love ones, and on and on!

How will you love your neighbor?

Pause: A neighbor is anyone God places in your path to love and serve, especially those in need. Ask yourself today, “Who can I be a neighbor to?” and “Who has God placed in my life to extend compassion to?”

Practice: Be a good neighbor to someone today or this week. Whether it’s your literal neighbor or someone in the community who you know doesn’t have much support or care around them, do something to show them the love and care of Jesus in a practical way.

Pray: Father God, thank You for Your mercy and compassion! You show no partiality or favoritism. You want everyone to know and worship You. Lord, because of the mercy You’ve shown me, that I don’t deserve one bit, I pray You’ll help me to show mercy to others as well. Open my eyes to see the people in my path today, whether I know them well or not, who I can be neighborly to. I want to serve and love You by serving and loving others, even if it’s sacrificial and hard. Amen.