What Neighborhood?

Luke 10:25-37

This week we look at that old familiar parable, The Good Samaritan, which we might also call "The  Good Neighbor."  When Jesus says to love your neighbor as well as you love yourself,  one of the religious leaders is wondering just who Jesus would define as a neighbor, and so asks the question, "Who is my neighbor?"  Which, as you probably know, leads to Jesus telling this parable. In this parable these things happen:

A man is beaten, robbed and left for dead
A clergy person walks by and does not assist.
A leader in the church walks by but does not assist.
A person from a disrespected outsider group walks by and gives the man all the help he needs, including follow-up.

Jesus asks "Who became a neighbor to the man in need?"  The answer is easy to see... it was the person who helped.

Two things at play here:  Jesus condemnation of the religious insiders who often choose not to reach out to the neighbors they don't want to associate with.  And Jesus clearly showing a preference to inclusion... reaching across a divide that might make you uncomfortable no matter the differences.

In terms of us learning to be better neighbors in our neighborhood, what do we learn from this?  Jesus wants us to reach out to those we don't know. Jesus wants us to reach out to those in need. Jesus wants us to follow through with care, not just a one-time drive-by hello.

And what is our neighborhood?  Anything beyond our doors.  How do we go into it?  We don't stay in the building, or hide in the backyard,  which seems like the church people who walk to the other side of the road to avoid the stranger...we dive headlong into the roadway and seek those whom we might befriend or help... and we follow through as many ways as we can.

New Yorkers who lived through the chaos of 9/11 will tell you the word 'neighbor' was redefined for them on that tragic day.  The comfortable walls of city strangers were no longer there... they became neighbors that day. Everyone doing what they could for each other. Many will tell you that feeling of being a neighbor to those in need has never left them.  Sometimes it takes a tragedy like a man on the side of the road or skyscrapers falling to dust for us to recognize our common humanity in each other.

Thoughts? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment by clicking the link below.