“Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Well said. And, for those who walked with Jesus, there was no question about who God is. But, about the other guys: Who exactly is “your neighbor?” Well, there existed some disagreement about that crowd. In the tenth chapter of his gospel, St. Luke noted a scholar’s question of Jesus and the Lord’s response. “How do I inherit eternal life?” the legal scholar asked. Jesus responded with his own question: “How do you read it?” “Love God and your neighbor as yourself,” was the ready answer, one with which Jesus agreed. And yet, the Lord’s questioner had a follow-up. “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus might well have answered, “Everyone. That includes those you like and those you dislike, those you like living next door to, and those who’d cause you to list your home.” As he often did, the Lord answered the lawyer with a parable.                         

“A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him, and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise, a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” In the course of their entire conversation, Jesus’ question was the first rhetorical one. The answer was obvious. The legal scholar answered predictably, “The one who treated him with mercy.” “Go and do likewise,” Jesus said.

For a Jewish scholar of the law, those would have been bitter words, as the Samaritans were despised people. Imagine the reasons people groups separate still: racial, ethnic, religious, political, and socio-economic reasons, as well as everything from appearance to national origin. For many Jews, the Samaritans touched most of those bases. Jesus chose a hated people group to represent the most loving, merciful and neighborly of all the characters in the story. The lawyer was, thus, not allowed to streamline his definition of “neighbor,” discriminately limiting the concept to those with whom he found easy affiliation. “Neighbor” included everyone, even the despised Samaritan. Everyone was his neighbor, and everyone is ours. God calls us to be willing to love and serve all of our neighbors, even our enemies.