Jesus gives an excellent example of being a good neighbor in Luke 10:25-37 when he talks to a lawyer who inquires about how to inherit eternal life.
Jesus basically asks the man what his understanding of the law is and the man replies with “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Eventually, the man asks Jesus “And who is my neighbor?”
This is where we see Jesus giving the most incredible answer. Jesus begins by telling a story to this man.
Jesus says there was “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
Jesus continues his story by telling him that a Priest and a Levite came by and both of these people didn’t help this man. Priests and Levites were important people in the Temple of God in those days. These people supposedly knew God but they chose to not stop and help this “Certain man”. But then comes the Samaritan. The Samaritan did stop and went the extra mile to make sure that this “Certain man” was taken care of.
Now for some of you who may not know, a Samaritan was part Jew and part Gentile. Samaritans were considered to be a racially mixed people. Because of this, they were looked on as less important and often hated by the Jews of that day.
In fact, if you look at the story of The Woman at The Well found in John 4, you will see that the woman who Jesus was talking with was a Samaritan. Jesus spent time with this woman and even asked her for a drink. She said to him “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” (vs. 9).
Imagine how she felt when she later learned that the Son of God spent time with her.
If we were to ask Jesus today “Who is my neighbor”, what do you think Jesus would say?
Jesus never mentioned who the “Certain Man” was that got mugged by the thieves. I mean we don’t know if he was rich or poor, gay or straight, fat or skinny, black or white, all we know is that he was “a Certain Man”.
Jesus was all about spending time with anyone and everyone. He didn’t care about color, he didn’t care about religion, he didn’t care about opinions. He cared about PEOPLE.
What if we do the same. What if we stop trying to change people and instead start loving them? What if you be The Bible they read, rather than preach your opinion of it to them.
What if you leave all judgments to God and just LOVE people instead? Imagine how quickly God’s word would spread.
So as Jesus continues his conversation with this man who asked about eternal Life, he asked the man “so which of these three do you think was a neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” and the man answered Jesus and said, “He who showed mercy on him”.
Then Jesus said to him “Go and do likewise.” (NKJV).
Jesus didn’t say “Only help those who are like you, or who believe like you do, or who think like you do”. He said, “GO AND DO LIKEWISE.”.
Imagine if we do that. What if we don’t see the status, don’t see color, don’t see gay or straight, don’t see anything else other than people. What if we help each other, leave everything else up to God, but simply show Love, Compassion, and Kindness to one another and Let God do the rest.
What would things look like if we chose to be a good neighbor to people?
I say we all start now.
