Who is My Neighbor, or How Do I Inherit Eternal Life?

(The following is an excerpt from the book I am writing on forgiveness, called Loosening the Cords)

When an expert in the Jewish Law asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” he replied with one of his most well-known parables.  To understand the significance of his answer to the question we need to understand a few things about the characters in this parable.  There are four main characters in this story.  The parable goes as follows:

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10: 30-37, emphasis added).

The one who asked the question that prompted Jesus to tell this parable was a lawyer.  He was someone who was very aware of all of Jewish law and prided himself on living by that law.  His question, “Who is my neighbor?” was designed to discredit Jesus – to show that Jesus was not a follower of the law.   

The other members of the audience who were listening to Jesus tell this parable would more than likely identify themselves with the man who had been attacked.  The road that Jesus was talking about was well known for its lack of safety.  His listeners would have known this.  As the story progresses they would more than likely nod their heads in agreement as Jesus told of the priest and the Levite passing by.  “Of course they would pass us by.  They don’t want to take the chance of becoming unclean by touching the body of one who might be dead.”  The lawyer would also agree that the priest and Levite would pass him by.  They were concerned with maintaining their purity.  Their desire to follow the letter of the law would often trump any possibility of acting with compassion.

Then comes the big twist to the story.  The next person to come along is a Samaritan.  The Samaritans were despised in Jesus’ day.  They were descendants of gentiles and Jews – “half breeds” as they were often called.  The Samaritans were considered spiritually defiled and were certainly treated as outcasts.  Jesus’ listeners would have been shocked to hear him cast a Samaritan as the hero of his story.

Yet, it is the Samaritan who acts with compassion – not the priest or Levite – but, the Samaritan.  Jesus’ parables were often filled with reversals and exaggerations.  His listeners would expect another Jew to act with compassion.  Jesus challenged this view.  He throws them a curve ball and has the Samaritan go above and beyond what most of them would have done for a total stranger found almost dead on the side of a road.

To understand the power of this parable, perhaps we can replace the characters with more contemporary examples.  Here is a version told by Clarence Jordan in his “Cotton Patch” version of the Gospel of Luke.  The “Cotton Patch Gospels” are set in pre-civil rights movement, twentieth-century America.

One day a teacher of an adult Bible class got up and tested him with this question: “Doctor, what does one do to be saved?”

Jesus replied, “What does the Bible say?  How do you interpret it?”

The teacher answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your physical strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

“That is correct,” answered Jesus.  “Make a habit of this and you’ll be saved.”

But the Sunday school teacher, trying to save face, asked, “But … er … but … just who is my neighbor?”

Then Jesus laid into him and said, “A man was going from Atlanta to Albany and some gangsters held him up.  When they had robbed him of his wallet and brand-new suit, they beat him up and drove off in his car, leaving him unconscious on the shoulder of the highway.

“Now it just so happened that a white preacher was going down that same highway.  When he saw the fellow, he stepped on the gas and went scooting by.  Shortly afterwards a white Gospel song leader came down the road, and when he saw what had happened, he too stepped on the gas.

“Then a black man traveling that way came upon the fellow, and what he saw moved him to tears.  He stopped and bound up his wounds as best he could, drew some water from his water-jug to wipe away the blood and then laid him on the back seat.  He drove on into Albany and took him to the hospital and said to the nurse, ‘You all take good care of this white man I found on the highway.  Here’s the only two dollars I got, but you all keep account of what he owes, and if he can’t pay it, I’ll settle up with you when I make a pay-day.’

“Now if you had been the man held up by the gangsters, which of these three – the white preacher, the white song leader, or the black man – would you consider to have been your neighbor?”

The teacher of the adult Bible class said, “Why, of course, the – I mean, er … well, er … the one who treated me kindly.”

Jesus said, “Well, then, you get going and start living like that!” 

With the original parable Jesus was challenging his listeners as well as challenging notions of ritual purity and several Jewish laws and norms.  In the “Cotton Patch” re-telling, he is challenging our notions of race and religion.  In the end he asks a question.  He is also asking us the same question.  “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”  He replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”  Jesus instructions to the man that follow are perhaps the most important words in this parable.  He says to him, “Go and do likewise.”

What does this mean – to go and do likewise?  Is he telling the lawyer to simply act with compassion?  If we take into consideration all of the context of this story and the audience that was listening to Jesus, we understand that he is saying much more than that.  He is telling the lawyer – he is telling us – to look past all of the many labels that we apply to people.  He is challenging our prejudices.  He is telling us that many of our laws, rituals, customs, and norms, if held too tightly and followed too literally, will prevent us from lives dedicated to love.  To act with compassion, we sometimes have to break from our normal ways of defining people and from our normal ways of circumscribing our behavior.

This exchange between the lawyer and Jesus began with the lawyer asking what he had to do to inherit “eternal life.”  He was more than likely shocked by Jesus’ answer.  There is no doubt that he was also challenged by his answer.  In essence Jesus was telling him to break with everything he thought he knew.  He was telling him to move past all of his mental constructs and limiting beliefs.  He was telling him to be led by love, not by the law.  He is telling us the very same thing.