The Neighbor According to Jesus
Perhaps one of the most illustrious parables of Jesus, the parable of the Good Samaritan is found only within the Gospel of Luke. In the 10th chapter, beginning with the 25th verse, Jesus is confronted with a question by an “expert of the Law,” who asks, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Instead of giving the answer, Jesus throws back the question to the lawyer, who in turn answers his own inquiry. Drawing his response from the Torah, or the Law, the expert responds, “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Jesus, then, commands the man to do similarly. However, to justify himself, the expert again queries Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reaction, Jesus begins to tell the man a parable, the parable we now dub the parable of the Good Samaritan. In his story, Jesus talks about a man, who came from Jerusalem, and is heading to Jericho. On the journey, a band of robbers comes into the scene, beats the traveler up, steals his possessions and leaves him to die. Subsequently, a Jewish priest comes by the same road; sees the injured man, and passes by the other side. Next a religious Levite treads around the place, and does the same as the priest. Finally, a Samaritan turns up, and upon seeing the man, the readers are told that he bandages and cleans the half-dead man, and takes him to an inn to recover. Of course, the Samaritan’s benevolence is further demonstrated as he pays, also, the bills of the wounded person. After finishing with the parable, Jesus again asks the Torah expert, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The lawyer answers, “The one who had mercy on him.” Then, Jesus charges the man to do likewise. (The New International Version, Luke 10.25-37)
From the reading of the passage, it is clear that the Law requires its adherers to love their neighbors, implying that the neighbor is the object of the act of love. However, Jesus’ view of the neighbor does not just encompass the traditional perspective. Rather, he challenges, if not redefines, what a neighbor should be to his listeners. Thus, through the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus includes that a neighbor is not only a person who is in need, but also one who is different from us and simultaneously, us.
Firstly, in the parable, in accordance to the Law, the injured man can definitely fit into a definition of a neighbor. After all, he is the recipient of the mercy dispensed by the Samaritan. This certainly matches with the Random House Dictionary’s definition of the word neighbor, “one’s fellow human being,” as the Samaritan shows mercy to an equal species, the injured traveler. Yet, one may question why Jesus’ parable ends up with the Samaritan as the neighbor instead of the beaten-up traveler. Assuming that Jesus has not misheard the expert’s question, one can either witness Jesus as he detangles a common stereotype, or conclude that he has no shred of intelligence to come up with an adequate answer. However, for the sake of a purposeful evaluation, let us assume the former, and discard the latter (with no hint of regret, lest the reader turns into a pillar of salt). As such, Jesus is not trying to undermine the traditional view of one’s neighbor. On the contrary, he desires instead to unravel the often times clouded, misled and discriminatory perception of who a neighbor can also be.
Since the neighbor is the Samaritan, rather than a Jew, it can be implied that Jesus is hinting that the neighbor can also include a person who is different, perhaps even despised. Of course, Jesus’ tactics in proving his point can be argued against. Obviously, it is only Jesus who can set up such an elaborate trap, which requires the poor lawyer to choose the Samaritan as the only suitable answer to his own question. Even then, the expert fails to utter the word Samaritan, only able to pronounce weakly, “the one who had mercy.” This indirectly reveals his discrimination of the reviled half-Jewish inhabitants of Samaria. From the subtle example, one can unquestionably observe the expert’s intolerance of a person dissimilar from him. Therefore, when Jesus portrays the Samaritan as the neighbor, he is essentially jabbing at the man’s prejudice of someone or something different from him. Furthermore, to compliment his point, Jesus depicts the Samaritan as helping a non-Samaritan – an act of showing love to a stranger. Doing so, Jesus is helping the lawyer to see beyond his discrimination, and recognize that a neighbor too can be the one he hates.
Finally, as Jesus commands the expert of the law to “do likewise,” he is also implying that the man should be a neighbor like the Samaritan. In other words, Jesus means that the neighbor is us, as well. This certainly ties well with another definition of “neighbor” found in the Random House Dictionary, “a person who shows kindliness or helpfulness toward his or her fellow humans.” When the lawyer asks the question about the identity of his neighbor, his intent lies in his desires to hear an answer from Jesus that he can easily digest. Thus, his motivation to is to show that he has done all he can to love such a person. However, instead of addressing the lawyer’s issues of the neighbor’s identity, Jesus points back to him, almost as if accusing him, “Have you yourself been a neighbor to others?” Then, he commands the man to be a neighbor, just like the Samaritan, who shows mercy in the parable. So, in this case, Jesus desires that we should be neighbors to others.
Thus, it is irrefutable that, according to Jesus, a definition of a neighbor transcends stereotypical beliefs and personal prejudices. On the wide spectrum, Jesus offers his view of a neighbor, that he is not only a person we are able to love, but also includes our enemy, while at the same time being ourselves. Apparently, the conclusion of who should be our neighbor ends up differently from what is expected. Such a feat is nothing less from Jesus, who is intentional in not mouthing out clichés. On the contrary, the Lion of Judah is aggressively out to take captive a people to make into critical thinkers.
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