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Loving Your Neighbour
Many fields of work depend on what you know in your head. They require your intellect and knowledge. But life cannot be lived by a textbook. Faith is not about the knowledge in my head. It is about what is in my heart.
The lawyer in today’s story didn’t know this. When he asked the question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25) – he knew the right answer. He was able to boil down the 613 commandments in the Law to the two most essential laws: loving God and loving neighbour. He knew the right answer in his head. But he didn’t grasp what this really meant or looked like in life.
When he asks the question: “Who is my neighbour?” – he is trying to define who a neighbour is so that he knows whom he is required to love and whom he doesn’t have to. He missed the heart of God’s intention in this law. Loving your neighbour is not about loving those who meet this definition, and not loving those who don’t. The heart of this command is to take care of those who need help around you. That is the essence of this law. You don’t choose whom to help, but you help those you come across who need help.
Jesus uses the example of the priest and Levite. They are religious leaders. They know the law. You might expect them to know the right thing to do in this situation. But when they saw the man half dead on the road, they passed by on the other side. They may have had reasons to do this. They may have been afraid of their own safety. It might have gone against their religious requirements of purity. Whatever the reasons, they were not moved to action. This man was not their neighbour.
The Samaritan, however, was moved with compassion for the man on the road. He was the person you would least expect to do so. Samaritans were considered religiously deviant. They were of mixed descent – they were like half Jews. They kept many aspects of the common Jewish faith, but they also mixed in elements from other religions. They were impure, both biologically and religiously. But Jesus shows this man to be the one who loved his neighbour. He was the one in tune with eternal life.
The Need Decides
A neighbour, according to God’s law, is not someone we define or choose. It is not someone we decide to include in our circle or not. A neighbour is someone whom we come across that needs our help. We do not decide who our neighbour is; the need decides. When that need comes our way, there is really only one of two responses: we pass by on the other side, or we are moved with compassion to help.
I’m not talking about tackling the greatest challenges facing the world. I’m talking about everyday encounters that call for compassion and help. When someone needs our help, are we moved with compassion to do something, or do we pass by on the other side?
There are many reasons we may pass by on the other side. But the question to ask is this: when the need comes, is your heart moved with compassion? Or is your heart numb? How you respond to the need around you reflects the spiritual condition of your heart. If we are honest, life in the world has made our hearts numb. We are inundated and saturated with images of suffering. The demands on our emotional energy are so high. We’re just so busy with our own lives. It becomes too much for our senses to bear. The easiest thing to do is to turn our hearts off. We mentally pass by on the other side to the suffering around us.
The Right Neighbour
It is so much easier to choose and define who our neighbours are. Once we define who our neighbour is, then yes, we can love our neighbour. I can operate within this sphere. This is what I can control and do. I find safe refuge among the neighbours I choose. I find comfort and enjoyment there. If I belong to a group of neighbours, then I am fortunate. But what about those who don’t belong? When I choose who my neighbours are, boundaries are drawn. People are in or out of my boundaries. Those who are in, I love. Those who are out, I don’t. Those who are in the boundaries enjoy the love of that community, those who are not, don’t.
If we all live like that, the world becomes one of haves and have-nots when it comes to neighbours. Those who have neighbours and those who don’t. Those who have good support for life. Those who don’t. The good support of neighbours will be exclusive to those within it. Those who don’t have this will suffer on their own. They will want what others have. They will grow resentful from being rejected. Resentment will fuel animosity. It will blow over into conflict. Those who do have will seek to defend themselves against those who are not neighbours and further distance the non-neighbours.
Is it really possible to live in a world where we can all be neighbours to one another, just like the Samaritan was for the man on the road? Is this just too idealistic in thinking? I used to be an avid fan of the show “Walking Dead”. The outer premise is about the zombie apocalypse, but the show is really about how people respond to adversity. To survive, they must band together with others. In other words, they need to find the right neighbours. But whom can they trust? When they trust, someone violates that trust and hurts the group. But without trust in the community, it becomes anarchy and survival becomes difficult. There is a constant inner conflict among the main characters to be a community that welcomes those in need, while trying to protect themselves from those who would harm them. They fight to preserve their humanity in a world that has lost it (both literally and figuratively), and to be the kind of people they desire to be without succumbing to their worst instincts.
Wishful Thinking
Yes, this world is a hard place to be a good neighbour. It seems like wishful thinking. It IS wishful thinking. But this is God’s wishful thinking. God’s hopeful thinking. God’s heart has always been with those who don’t have neighbours. Those who are left to suffer on their own. Throughout the whole Bible, God is the God who welcomes the stranger and alien. It is for these people that God made the command to love your neighbour. This was the essence of Jesus’ ministry. This is how he saw himself as he read from Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus did his ministry among those who were not deemed worthy to be neighbours. To not be worthy of love. The irony is that those who deemed them not worthy to be neighbours were religious leaders. This was their response during his ministry:
“Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him (Jesus). And the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” (Luke 15:1-2)
For religious leaders, moral purity and having “good” neighbours became more important than compassion. It was more important to avoid bad neighbours than showing mercy. To eat with sinners and be with them would be to taint their purity. And so they separated themselves from those deemed sinners. For Jesus, it is clear what is more important. Compassion and mercy always triumph over moral purity. Jesus went to and ate with those deemed unacceptable. Jesus was a neighbour to the neighbourless.
This is how the Holy Spirit leads the church in Acts as well. Mission and evangelism were not things that people planned and strategized about. They were led by the Holy Spirit through their circumstances. Through persecution, the earliest Christians became scattered. They scattered to areas like Samaria and among Gentiles, to those deemed outside the boundaries of whom God loved. In their new places, the Spirit led them to love the previously unloveable. This is how the church grew in its earliest days. I believe this is how the Spirit is trying to lead the church today too.
Muscles of Compassion
Being a neighbour is not something we strategize and plan with our brains. It is something the Spirit leads us to. We don’t need to wrack our brains and think of how we can be good neighbours. Simply live your life, and along the way, God will present opportunities for you to be compassionate. When these opportunities present themselves, simply be faithful to that opportunity. See it, and be moved to action. The very definition of compassion is “com” and “passion” – suffering with. Without intentionally planning it, you will always have opportunities to suffer with others. The retreat was a beautiful experience of sharing our lives together. Together, you suffered with the pain of others as you shared. It was not something you planned out intentionally, but once you were there, you were open and a faithful to that time of sharing. Just live your life and be faithful to the opportunities that God presents to you.
Compassion is not something that we get just because we want it. Compassion is a spiritual discipline. It is a quality that is developed through practice. The practice of serving and being present to others. Through serving others, you learn compassion. You build the muscles for it. It often comes very painfully.
This past week we began our summer camp. 15 counsellors answered the call to serve. They didn’t have to do this. Yes, for many it was initially a job, but even if that’s the case, this job became an opportunity to love the kids who would come. I told them that our only agenda for this camp is to love the children as they are. We may not have the most polished programs, but our secret weapon is love. That’s nice in theory, but once the camp began, the hard realities of loving children became apparent. Not only are they kids, they’re kids who have not had socialization like this outside of school because of the pandemic. After the first day alone, the counsellors were exhausted, physically and mentally. On Tuesday it rained all day, so they were stuck inside all day with stir crazy kids. Many of them wondered if they could last 4 weeks of this. Some even said they never want to have kids of their own. They didn’t know how to handle kids not listening to them. They learned quickly that it’s very hard to love kids who don’t seem to love and respect you. But over the week, they adapted and adjusted their mindsets. They are learning in a real way what loving someone, especially children, is all about. They are building muscles for compassion. I think this is a precious opportunity to build them.
Community and Compassion
The Samaritan did not take care of the man all by himself. After taking him to the inn, he had his own business to take care of. He asked the innkeeper to take care of the man while he was gone, and that he would cover any additional expenses on his return. In other words, it took a community to take care of the man in need.
Yes, it takes a community to live out compassion. We’re not called to carry the load all by ourselves. Many of the counsellors shared how they were able to get through the week because of the support from fellow counsellors. When some felt no more strength or energy to carry on, their peers stepped into help. When some were lacking in certain areas, others complemented them with their own gifts. They raised each other up. And together they were able to get through the week and love the kids.
It takes a community to show mercy to those in need. One of the pillars of our church mission statement is to be a compassionate community. Yes, we are compassionate together. We are compassionate to one another and practice that with one another. And together we reach out to those in need of help. I pray that we may do more of this as life continues to emerge from the shell of the pandemic.
Be Moved With Compassion
From the passage today, we learn that spiritual maturity is not knowing the right things or having the right beliefs. It is not about religious piety and devotion. Those are good things, but they are just means to spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity is having a heart that is moved with compassion. It is having a heart that is awakened by the suffering of another. It is a heart that is moved not only for my own people, but a heart of compassion that runs across boundaries to any human being I encounter who needs my help.
This is the kind of compassion we need in the world today. Young people, while you’re figuring out your careers and callings, always make room to serve others. Build up your muscles for compassion. Those who are older and nearing retirement: retirement is just retirement from your job. It is not retirement from serving and having compassion for others. It’s retirement from a career of earning a living into a new calling of service and compassion. Yes, enjoy your life. But be free to serve with compassion. Know that God still has plans to bring people your way, to care for with your love and wisdom.
The prophet Micah said this:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
Do this, and you will live.
Jesus answered the lawyer’s question on how to inherit eternal life. See the needs of those around you. Be moved with compassion. Let us build up our muscles of compassion by serving those who need it.
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