Loving Our Neighbor, Want to or Not

As I mentioned before, Jesus had a group of religious followers who either really wanted to know what Jesus thought or were there to fulfill the roll of an undercover spy, destined to testify against Him later. They were constantly asking Jesus how His teachings coincided with the old testament writings.

As Jesus was teaching one day, in the temple, a religious man asked Him the question regarding the attainment of eternal life. Jesus asked the man if he knew what the law of Moses said about the subject and the man answered that the word of God said to love God with all of your heart, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as yourself. Jesus told the man that He thought that was the correct answer. The man then asked Jesus, “who is my neighbor?”. In response to this, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.

I have always felt that Christianity is great and that the only downside of it is us Christians. A case in point would be, that on Sunday, I can hear the greatest sermon and feel great about where I stand with God, as I have sung with the choir, was polite to the old woman who stood on my toe as she climbed to the middle seat, gave my tithe and received the blessing and after two minutes of waiting on fellow crabby church members in the coffee ministry (where my wife and I volunteer every week) I am ready to clock one of them. Don’t even get me started on how mad I get driving down the freeway less than two hours from my state of religious bliss.

We, all people, are a pain in the neck. Just ask the cop who gives tickets, ask anyone who gets a ticket, let a waitress bend your ear after serving a group of twenty “church” people who just had brunch and left a whole tip equaling 20 cents a piece along with an invitation to attend their church the following Sunday.

We, as people, gravitate away from getting too close to strangers. One of the reasons that I love my neighborhood is because my neighbors give me privacy and I give it back. In fact, right now in China, people are helping total strangers who have been affected by the recent earthquakes. The Chinese religious values and the communist political structure brought the focus for a person to help their family, not strangers. In fact, volunteer activity is so high in China, a certain amount of giddiness and newness has come with it and the Chinese seem to be enjoying the showing of compassion for their fellow citizens during this difficult time. When we look at this with a western mind set, we can fail to see the significance of this social change.

Countries that have a high degree of socialism and taxation show a lower rate of willingness to volunteer and help people. The reason for this is because the people are forced to give so much of their money to the government that they don’t feel a need for individual helping of one’s neighbor and they feel that it is the governments responsibility. It is no coincidence that in those same countries, Christianity is fading and the population is becoming more and more atheist in their beliefs.

This passage does two distinct things for us. First of all it brings to the forefront that Jesus came to fulfill the law and not to destroy it. This is critical when trying to understand His ministry. Secondly, this rule or law from God may well be the hinge that the door of society swings on. Think about it from this standpoint: without a love for your neighbor, you could never leave your home alone, without a guard to watch your possessions. For the longest time, one man watched another man’s house and went over to steal everything when they left. That is our nature. Until we understood that we needed to look out for our neighbor and they for us, we couldn’t leave our possessions so that we could go and make a living and feel reasonably certain those things would be there when we got home. Without that trust in our neighbor, we would still be a backward and impoverished society.

Now, if I could just remember to love my neighbor when he or she cuts me off on the freeway while talking on their cell phone and eating a cheeseburger. Wait a minute, I do that some times. Sorry!