Love for Neighbor

When asked which is the “great commandment” in the Law, Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Notice:  **Jesus doesn’t hesitate to say that there’s a command that towers over all others, and that stands at the very center of a genuine relationship with God.  **Vertical precedes horizontal; loving God must come first.  **The inquiry about one command prompts Jesus to identify two; evidently, neither love for God only nor love for neighbor only can even begin to sum up the Christian way of life.  **These two commandments are so central to the entirety of biblical teaching that Jesus says everything else “depends on” them—so any attempt to summarize what it means to follow Jesus faithfully that doesn’t highlight these twin directives is badly misguided.

When the idea of neighbor love comes up, we want to clarify just who is our neighbor: whom must we love; whom can we bypass?  That’s exactly the question a Jewish teacher of the Law put to Jesus (Luke 10:29), and in response came a story—the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  The long and the short of Jesus’ teaching here is to show that genuine neighbor love must be ready to take risks and cross barriers to meet real needs.

• The priest and the Levite were not willing to risk it (if they stopped would they get mugged too?).
• Only a foreigner, a Samaritan (and the story depends on the reader knowing that Jews and Samaritans despised each other), was willing to take risks and invest time and energy and resources to meet a real physical need.
• So the parable paints a picture of jarring contrast:  two men who should have helped but were unwilling to take lesser risks to show love, over against an outsider who would not be expected to help but was willing to take greater risks to show love.

Jesus then turns to his questioner:  “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (Luke 10:36).  And the man gave the obvious right answer, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus then gave the charge, “You go, and do likewise.”

Don’t miss this:  Jesus shifts the question from “Who is my neighbor?” (with its impulse to exclude) to “Who proved to be a neighbor?” (with the vision to include and care and serve—even if the one in need is despised according to cultural customs).

And further, the parable ends by pivoting away from abstract discussion to practical action:  Jesus commands us to go and do likewise.  Take action.  Step out.  Love those who are right in front of you.  And love those you might naturally be tempted to avoid.  Yes, there are risks, and costs.  Yes, it can be inconvenient.  But Jesus sends us out on mission—to love in word and deed, ready to cross barriers of culture, religion, race, language, you name it.  And obeying Jesus and following in his steps is the very best place to be!

Join me in praying for wisdom and direction as we ponder just how this should be worked out practically, for the meeting of real needs.  I’ll be back with further thoughts.