And Who Is My Neighbor?
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Luke 10:25-37
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘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.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
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Diffusion of Responsibility
In 1964, Kitty Genovese was 28 years old. She lived in Queens, New York, and worked as a bartender. At around 2:30 in the morning on March 13, 1964, Kitty left the bar where she worked and began driving home in her red Fiat. But someone was following her.
Kitty arrived home around 3:15 a.m. and parked her car about 100 feet from her apartment's door, in an alleyway at the rear of the building. As she walked toward the apartment complex, a man exited his vehicle, armed with a hunting knife, and approached Ms Genovese.
Kitty ran toward the front of the building, and the man ran after her, overtook her, and stabbed her twice in the back. Genovese screamed, “Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!” Several neighbors heard her cry.
When Robert Mozer, one of her neighbors, shouted at the attacker, “Let that girl alone!”, the man ran away and Kitty slowly made her way toward the rear entrance of the building, seriously injured and out of view of any witnesses.
Witnesses saw the man enter his car, drive away, and return ten minutes later. This time he had put on a wide-brimmed hat. He systematically searched the area where Kitty had parked her Fiat and an apartment complex nearby, eventually finding Kitty once more.
She was barely conscious and lying in a hallway at the back of her apartment building, where a locked door had prevented her from going inside. She was out of view of the street and of those who may have heard or seen any sign of the initial attack.
Kitty was stabbed several more times, and assaulted sexually as well. The attacks spanned approximately half an hour, and knife wounds in Genovese's hands suggested that she attempted to defend herself.
Afer this second attack, Kitty’s neighbor and close friend Sophia Farrar found Kitty and held her in her arms, whispering “Help is on the way” until an ambulance arrived. Kitty died. The New York Times reported that dozens of witnesses had seen or heard the attack and done nothing.
In 1968, two researchers – John Darley and Bibb Latané – published a study to better understand the murder of Kitty Genovese. Darley and Latané suspected that people might actually be less likely to take action when there are others present.
According to the researchers, people may feel less of a sense of individual responsibility when other people who could also help are present. They may also assume that someone else has already taken action, especially if they can’t see how others have responded.
In fact, one of the people who heard Kitty Genovese being attacked said that she assumed others had already reported what was happening. This is called “DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY.” “Diffusion” meaning “spread out.” So, “RESPONSIBILITY SPREAD OUT.”
In their 1968 study, Darley and Latané had research participants engage in a group discussion over an intercom. Each participant was seated in a separate room, so they couldn’t see the others in the study.
One speaker mentioned having a history of seizures and seemed to begin having a seizure during the study session. The researchers were interested in seeing whether participants would leave their study room and let the experimenter know that someone was having a seizure.
In some versions of the study, participants believed that there were only two people in the discussion—themselves and the person having the seizure. In this case, they were very likely to go find help for the other person.
However, when the participants believed that they were in groups of six — that is, when they thought there were four other people who could also report the seizure — they were less likely to get help.
When participants believed only two people were involved in the conversation, 85% of them went to go get help while the participant was still having the seizure, and everyone reported it before the experimental session ended.
When participants believed that six people were involved in the conversation, only 31% of participants reported the emergency while the seizure was happening, and only 62% reported it by the end of the experiment.
Fascinated, the researchers conducted one more version of the study. This time, they tested the experiment where participants were in groups of three. The rate of helping was in between the rates of helping in the two- and six-person groups.
IN OTHER WORDS, PEOPLE ARE LESS LIKELY TO HELP OTHERS WHEN THEY BELIEVE OTHERS ARE PRESENT WHO COULD BE HELPING INSTEAD. PUT DIFFERENTLY, PEOPLE TEND TO NOT WANT TO HELP OTHERS IF THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT.
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What Do We Mean by Neighbor?’
The Parable of the Good Samaritan has become one of the most famous stories among all of Jesus’ teachings. Indeed, many people now only know the name of the Samaritans because of Jesus’ story from the Gospel of Luke.
We have “Good Samaritan” hospitals in almost every state. There is “The Samaritans,” the name of a charity in the United Kingdom, aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress.
So what’s going on in this very well-known parable? Jesus is preaching to his disciples, when a lawyer stands up and asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds by asking the man what the Bible says.
The man replies by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Then the scholar of the law quotes Leviticus 19:18, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus tells him this is the right answer. But the man asks: who counts as my ‘neighbor’? You see, the lawyer is trying to narrow the definition of what God’s Law might require him to do. The lawyer sought to appear as though he was keeping God’s Law.
That is why Luke prefaces the lawyer’s second question with the narratorial insight, “But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus…” (Luke 10:29). There is also a bit of a trick packed into this question that the lawyer asks.
The expert in the law is quoting, in full, Leviticus 19:17-18 “‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart… ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.’” AMONG YOUR OWN PEOPLE. You see?
So, when the lawyer answers Jesus by quoting Leviticus that we are instructed to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” I assume the lawyer likewise knows that the full passage from LEVITICUS DEFINES ‘NEIGHBOR’ AS ‘PEOPLE FROM YOUR OWN TRIBE.’
This is the context for Jesus’ answer in the parable. Jesus goes on to tell the story. He says a man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by thieves who stole his clothes and wounded him, leaving him half-dead.
A Jewish priest came past, but although he saw the man, he passed by on the other side of the road. Then a Levite, a member of a different tribe and also a religious figure, came past and looked at the poor man, but he, too, walked on by on the other side of the road.
But then a Samaritan passed, and when he saw the man in need of help, he had compassion. The Samaritan went to the half-dead man. He bound up his wounds with oil and wine. He put the man on his horse and led him to an inn, where he looked after the man through the night.
The next day, the Samaritan has to leave the inn, but he gives the innkeeper some money and asks him to continue to look after the wounded man. He also says that if the innkeeper needs to spend more money on looking after the man, the Samaritan will repay him when he returns.
Jesus asks his listeners: which of these was the true neighbour of the man who was attacked by thieves? The answer is the man who showed mercy and helped him in his time of need. He instructs his followers to follow the Samaritan’s example. WHY A SAMARITAN?
In Jesus’ time, Jews and Samaritans hated each other. In John 4:9, we’re told that “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.” In fact, in the previous chapter of Luke to the one containing the parable of the Good Samaritan, we are told this:
“And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked,
“Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.” This is Luke 9:52-56. SAMARITANS DID NOT WELCOME THE DISCIPLES BECAUSE THEY ARE JEWS.
But this evidence elsewhere in the Gospels, of the hatred existing between the two groups, only helps to make Jesus’ point for him. Given the historical enmity between the two groups, the moral of the Parable of the Good Samaritan becomes even clearer.
NOTICE WHO IS THE “GOOD GUY” AND THE “BAD GUY” IN THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN. JESUS, A JEW, IS SPEAKING TO OTHER JEWS. AND YET HE TELLS A STORY OF HOW TWO FELLOW JEWS PASS THE WOUNDED MAN BY, WHILE AN OUTSIDER HELPS.
TO ME, THIS IS THE MAIN POINT OF THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN. NOT ONLY SERVICE TO THOSE WHO NEED OUR HELP. BUT SPECIFICALLY THAT A MEMBER OF A DESPISED, “OUTSIDER” GROUP OFTEN BEHAVES IN A MORALLY SUPERIOR WAY.
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What Do We Mean by ‘Love?’
The lawyer recognized he was unable to love his neighbor as the law required. However, instead of admitting he was a sinner who needed God’s grace and forgiveness, he sought to loosen the demands of the Law by narrowly defining who his neighbor was.
“And who is my neighbor?” he asked Jesus. You see, rabbinical teaching during this time taught that one’s neighbor could be narrowly defined as a fellow observant Jew. This is based on the passage from Leviticus. Tax collectors, gentiles, and Samaritans were excluded.
LIKE THIS FIRST-CENTURY SCHOLAR OF THE LAW, WE OFTEN RESPOND TO THE IMPERATIVES OF SCRIPTURE IN THE SAME WAY, BY ASKING “JESUS, WHAT IS THE LEAST I CAN DO AND STILL BE CONSIDERED ‘GOOD?’”
Remember: the lawyer begins by asking, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” THE LAWYER IS ASKING ‘WHAT ARE THE BARE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR ME TO GAIN SALVATION FROM YOUR TEACHINGS, JESUS?’ HOW CAN I BE A SOLID D-STUDENT WITH MY FAITH?
Jesus makes it clear in this parable that our neighbor is anyone around us, regardless of their ethnic, religious, or socio-economic status. To understand how Jesus teaches this to us, we have to understand the situation between Jews and Samaritans in His time.
Jesus highlights in verse 33 that loving our neighbor means we must challenge and reject the prejudice that exists in our own hearts and in our society against our neighbor. In Jesus’ day, there was open animosity between Jews and Samaritans.
Samaritans were seen as half-breeds and religious compromisers. Samaritans were “unclean,” and Jews were forbidden to eat with them or step foot in their homes. In fact, many Jews who travelled in Palestine purposely avoided traveling through Samaria.
When we think about our urban, poor, or minority neighbor, what immediately comes to mind? “They’re lazy.” “They lack personal responsibility.” “They’re just getting what they deserve.” Or, worse. “Those people are all like that.” Remember: THEORIES DESTROY FACTS.
Scripture tells us we need to challenge and reject this kind of thinking. TO TRULY LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR MEANS WE MUST BELIEVE THE BEST ABOUT OUR NEIGHBOR, AND REJECT THE STEREOTYPES AND GENERALIZATIONS WE’VE BEEN TOLD.
Further, Jesus highlights how we must acknowledge the reality and effect of sin on our neighbor. Jesus highlights in verse 30 that loving our neighbor means we must acknowledge the realities of our broken, sin-cursed world and their effect on our neighbor.
As Christians, we cannot stay cloistered in our bubbles. We cannot believe that our urban, poor, or minority neighbor experiences life like we do. We cannot pretend that prejudice and racism don’t have generational impacts on our black, Latino, or Native American neighbors.
We also need to recognize that our poor or black neighbor often has a different experience with the police and justice system than we do. WE ARE CALLED TO LOVE AND HELP ANY PERSON, REGARDLESS OF THEIR ‘TRIBE,’ IF THEY NEED OUR HELP.
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From Apathy to Action
AS CHRISTIANS, WE ARE CALLED TO EXPOSE THE EMPTINESS OF RELIGION THAT IS APATHETIC TOWARD OUR NEIGHBOR. Loving our neighbor means we must expose the emptiness of religious belief that lacks practical love for others.
Look, we can profess we believe the gospel, we can regularly go to church, and even evangelize the lost. But, Scripture is clear that all of that is just vanity and meaningless noise if we’re not living out the gospel by loving our neighbor in practical ways.
When our neighbor is hurt, we need to bind her wounds. When our neighbor is hungry, we need to feed him and, where appropriate, teach him to feed himself. When our neighbor is oppressed or experiencing injustice, we need to seek justice and righteousness.
Jesus highlights that loving our neighbor means we must be willing to sacrifice our own time, money, and convenience for the betterment of the poor, helpless, and oppressed. We must sacrifice our time, money, and convenience for the betterment of our neighbor.
If we are going to love our neighbor as ourselves, we need to get out our pocketbooks, get our hands dirty, and sacrifice some of the comforts of our suburban or rural life to meet the real needs of our urban, poor, or minority neighbors.
As James writes, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:15–16).
In other words, Christians are commanded to do more for our neighbor than offer cheap talk and well wishes. IN FACT, TWO ‘RELIGIOUS’ FIGURES PASS BY THE WOUNDED VICTIM, AND NEITHER HELPS. WE ARE TOLD TO FOLLOW THE OUTSIDER WHO DOES.
We must demonstrate love and mercy to the helpless, poor, and oppressed, and they are practical ways we can love our neighbor as ourselves. With that, Jesus ends his teaching in verse 37 with an emphatic command: “You go, and do likewise.”
Jesus didn’t give a vague command to a nameless throng of his disciples. Jesus commanded this specific lawyer to love his neighbor by showing mercy. By implication, each of us individually are commanded to “go, and do likewise.”
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Disciples Make Up the Church
In researching this sermon, I read through several articles and studies of the murder of Kitty Genovese. I even watched a documentary, THE WITNESS, about the case. I learned something utterly unexpected in my research.
YOU SEE, KITTY GENOVESE WAS GAY. She was married right after High School, but the marriage was annulled in just a few months. Both Kitty and her ex-husband cited the same reason: Kitty just didn’t want to be with a man.
As I was trying to understand how the police reported that 38 people had heard or seen her attack, I was absolutely shocked to find out this was the case. Do you know how I came to discover this detail of Kitty Genovese’s life? By digging into research on the police files.
You see, the police DID find her attacker, within two weeks of her murder. But they found him entirely by ACCIDENT. He was caught in a burglary, and one of the officers on site recognized that his white car perfectly fit the description of the car seen at Kitty’s murder.
It wasn’t through detective work that Kitty Genovese’s murderer was caught. In fact, the detectives on her murder case spent most of the week or so after her murder interviewing her live-in partner, going over and over again the details of their sex life.
IF IT WASN’T FOR AN ACCIDENT, KITTY GENOVESE’S MURDERER MIGHT NEVER HAVE BEEN CAUGHT. YOU SEE, HER NEIGHBORS SAW HER AS AN ‘OUTSIDER’ BECAUSE SHE WAS GAY. AND THE POLICE WERE MORE INTERESTED IN THAT FACT THAN HER MURDER.
Believing in the gospel should always lead to living out the gospel. When our lives don’t reflect the realities of the gospel, something is wrong. Based on what we read in Scripture, the gospel has tremendous implications for how we as Christians love our neighbor.
We are called to respond to prejudice, oppression, and racial reconciliation in our current cultural context. What this looks like will be different for each believer and congregation. But do it, we must.
Consider this passage from 1 John 4:20–21. “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” John is telling us that Christians who fail to love their neighbor in practical ways are most likely not genuine believers.
I STRUGGLE WITH THIS ON A WEEKLY BASIS. SPECIFICALLY, I STRUGGLE WITH MY DIFFICULTIES EMPATHIZING WITH FELLOW CHRISTIANS WHO SEEM TO HAVE HATE IN THEIR HEARTS. I KNOW THAT I CANNOT USE THAT TO SET THEM APART FROM ME.
It is worth pointing out here that Samaritans were, in the broadest possible sense, children of Israel too. They had descended from the Israelites and shared many religious beliefs with Jews. ‘Samaritanism’, the religion they practised, was in fact derived from the Pentateuch.
YOU SEE, JEWS AND SAMARITANS WERE LIKE TWO RIVAL SECTS IN CHRISTIANITY. AND WHEN ONE OF THESE SECTS VIEWED THE OTHER AS ‘UNCLEAN’ AND ‘UNWORTHY,’ JESUS TEACHES US TO EXPECT THE OUTSIDER TO DO THE RIGHT THING.
