Who is your Neighbour?

Which of these three do you suppose became a neighbor of the man who fell among the robbers?” So he said, “The one who showed mercy to him.” And Jesus said to him, “You go and do likewise.”
Luke 10:36–37 (LEB)

In Christianity we often hear about “loving our neighbour”. When Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, he first stated that loving God was the most important, then loving one’s neighbour was the second most important.

Luke 10:25–27 (LEB): ²⁵And behold, a certain legal expert stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do so that I will inherit eternal life?” ²⁶And he said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”* ²⁷And he answered and said, “You shall love the Lord your God from all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus, or the name he was given at birth, Yeshua, was quoting the Shema. Many Christians are not familiar with these verses in Deuteronomy because it was a law of the church to forbid saying these verses. Christian Emperor, Justinian, even banned the Jews from reading this in the synagogues.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (LEB): ⁴“Hear, Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is unique. ⁵And you shall love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might. ⁶And these words that I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. ⁷And you shall recite them to your children, and you shall talk about them at the time of your living in your house and at the time of your going on the road and at the time of your lying down and at the time of your rising up. ⁸And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as an emblem between your eyes. ⁹And you shall write them on the doorframe of your house and on your gates.

Yeshua fully embraced these words and “every word from the mouth of God”. The command to love our neighbour comes from Leviticus 19.

Leviticus 19:17–18 (LEB): ¹⁷“ ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely rebuke your fellow citizen, so that you do not incur sin along with him. ¹⁸You shall not seek vengeance, and you shall not harbor a grudge against your fellow citizens; and you shall love your neighbor like yourself; I am Yahweh.

When Yeshua went on to explain how to love one’s neighbour to the “legal expert”, he told him the story we know today as the parable of the good Samaritan. A Samaritan was one who was a descendant of the tribes of Israel that were not dispersed by the Assyrian empire. These would be who Yeshua described as “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.

Luke 10:30–37 (LEB): ³⁰And Jesus replied and said, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who both stripped him and beat him. After inflicting blows on him, they went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹Now by coincidence a certain priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. ³²And in the same way also a Levite, when he came down to the place and saw him, passed by on the opposite side. ³³But a certain Samaritan who was traveling came up to him and, when he saw him, had compassion. ³⁴And he came up and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine, and he put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵And on the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him, and whatever you spend in addition, I will repay to you when I return. ³⁶Which of these three do you suppose became a neighbor of the man who fell among the robbers?” ³⁷So he said, “The one who showed mercy to him.” And Jesus said to him, “You go and do likewise.”

This was a hard hitting parable because the two Levite priests who went out of their way not to go near the person laying half-dead on the road did so not because they were being complete jerks, but because if they came in contact with a dead person they would be considered ritually unclean and not be allowed to do service in the temple until they went through a multiple day waiting period. They could have been on the way to work at the temple as they passed by. Yeshua was reinforcing his message of “mercy not sacrifice” to this legal expert.

To make it worse, Yeshua also made the hero of this story a Samaritan. The Samaritans were the prodigal sons that were lost, as far as those in Judaism were concerned. They were descendants of the tribes of the Northern kingdom of Israel that were scattered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The Northern kingdom of Israel, called the house of Israel or Ephraim, is not taught in Christianity, yet the house of Israel is discussed frequently in both new and old testaments of the Christian Bible.

Matthew 15:24 (LEB): ²⁴But he answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Yeshua is showing the “legal expert”, likely a Pharisee, that mercy is more important than sacrifice, and used a people group that he came to save and reunite with Judah. There is a lot of information packed into the story of the good Samaritan. We, as Christians, learn the importance of the Torah teachings of loving Yahweh and one’s neighbour, showing that Yeshua’s intention was not to make the law obsolete, but to uphold and explain its application. The Levite priests were so distracted by their duties as priests, that they overlooked the importance of human life. Human life always takes precedence over other laws. If one of these priests had become ritually unclean in the attempts of helping the half-dead man, there was a protocol they would have to follow. It may have disrupted their daily routine for a few days, but Yeshua was saying “big deal”, and used the hated Samaritan as the hero to emphasize these principles.

Matthew 9:12–13 (LEB): ¹²And when he heard it, he said, “Those who are healthy do not have need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³But go and learn what it means, “I want mercy and not sacrifice.” For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sometimes we have to step out of our daily routine and get involved in messy situations. We need to study the word of God and learn to apply it as Yeshua taught us. Yeshua never made the law of God obsolete and Christianity is in this stupor thinking that God’s eternal laws do not apply to them. If this is the case, one would have to rewrite the Bible. Some have done this very thing by qualifying scripture with 19th century theology to ensure no one thinks we have to actually do what God said to do.

Matthew 5:17–19 (LEB): ¹⁷“Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one tiny letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all takes place. ¹⁹Therefore whoever abolishes one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps them and teaches them, this person will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash