Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Luke 10:27. He answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself."




The other day, my BFF Chris and I were bemoaning the fact that neighborhoods aren't what they used to be. Used to be, we said that neighbors helped each other out. You know, the guy with the snowblower did everyone's driveway without expecting more than a "Thanks" and you could borrow a long ladder from the fellow down the block to clean out your gutters without having to go on Takl and place a bid.  You knew your neighbors would watch your house while you were  on vacation and send a kid over to collect your mail. And if someone in your family was sick or in the hospital, your neighbors would provide you with casseroles and home made brownies. 


As an older woman with a disabled husband and an autistic son, I could sure use some neighbors like that.



But my conversation with Chris got me thinking. What happened to the day of the friendly and helpful neighbor? Linda Poon (2015) writing for the website CityLab, reports that a full third of Americans do not know the names of their neighbors. Yet only five decades ago--you know, those prehistoric days when the Flintstones and the Rubbles were spending every waking moment together--people interacted with their neighbors at least twice a week. It's true our hectic schedules--what Mac Dunkelman (The Vanishing Neighbor, 2014) calls "limited social capital"-- allow us less time for this sort of camaraderie, but is there more to it than that? And, more importantly, can we change it?

 
The Story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is often told in Sunday Schools; we want our children to applaud the acts of the stranger in stopping to provide succor to the man beaten and left for dead. We tell the kiddos that the Samaritans were pretty much despised by the Jewish people without going into detail. To get an idea of how far the loathing went, think Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books. How ironic, then, that the Samaritan--like Snape who was trying to protect Harry all along--turns out to be the hero.


But if that's all we see--the grumpy old Mr. Wilson coming to rescue Dennis Mitchell--we're missing the point. According to Marilyn Salmon, a Professor of New Testament Studies at the United Theological Seminary, we need to look at the story from the perspective of the robbed and beaten man, lying broken on the side of the road. He didn't care who offered him help. Priest, Levite, Samaritan. Heck, even Severus Snape would do.



And rather than casting ourselves in the role of the hero, let's realize that we ARE broken people, in desperate need of a hero to save us. And that hero is--ta da!--Jesus the Christ, who serves as an example of the most neighborly of neighbors. 


Remember the Samaritan left the injured man at the Inn and gave the Innkeeper two silver coins as a down payment on the man's care? While experts are a bit hazy on the exact amount, the two silver coins would have bought at least two weeks room and board! Getting involved is costly. Just look at the price that Jesus paid.So if we can put ourselves in the place of the wounded and beaten stranger, we realize that we need to look not at the "otherness" like race, religion, and culture of those around us but the humanness. We're all broken. Every single one. 


It is a young lawyer who asks Jesus, "What must I do to receive eternal life?" The irony here is that the fellow already knows the answer. But Jesus recites Deuteronomy 6:5, the "great commandment", not to embarrass the man but to make a point or two: the way in which we walk with God and connect with others in our lives cannot be separated.


So instead of complaining about the good old days and wishing someone with a ladder would just show up and offer to clean out my gutters, I have decided to take a cue from Jesus and be as neighborly as possible, and that means being open to what their needs might be. When the lady next door told me it was hot in her house because she couldn't carry her room air conditioner up from the basement, I grabbed my tall son and we headed over with a screwdriver. It wasn't two pieces of silver but it was what broken people could do.



It's what I would want someone to do for me.