Who is my Neighbor? … Seriously?

You’re walking downtown when you run into Jesus. Naturally he has attracted a crowd of selfie-seekers and soul-searchers.

“What must I do to be saved?” asks a young mother holding a blond-haired toddler.

“It’s a good question,” Jesus says with an easy smile. “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And remember that true love is not a feeling. It’s an action verb. Loving your neighbor will cost you something. It’s a love you prove by making sacrifices that won’t always be easy.”

Some of the people nod while others frown or look disinterested.

That’s a tall order, you think.

“And who specifically is my neighbor?” asks an older man.

Jesus pauses. His bright eyes sparkle.

“It’s like this,” he says. “A woman was walking from Juarez to El Paso when bullies robbed her of her children, bound her wrists with zip ties and threw her into a dog kennel. When a respected religious leader saw the imprisoned stranger, he said a prayer of blessing and walked on. When a faithful church-goer saw her, he also passed by, saying, ‘The government ought to do a better job of handling these problems.’ When a pagan ACLU member walked by, she had pity on the foreigner. She freed the imprisoned refugee (at risk of herself being arrested), allowed the woman to stay in her home and worked tirelessly to get the children back. Now which of these three do you think was a neighbor to that stranger?”

“The one who had mercy on her,” says an elderly woman.

“That’s right,” says Jesus. “Now go and do likewise.”

You wrinkle up your forehead. A knot in your stomach tells you that something isn’t right.

So this guy expects me to believe that some left-wing liberal is better than all us good church-going folk …

~~~~~~

Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference; so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked. I love the pure, peaceable and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. — Abolitionist and Statesman Frederick Douglass[1]

You who are God’s servants are living in a foreign country, for your own city-state is far away from this City-state. Knowing [that], why do you acquire fields, costly furnishings, buildings and frail dwell­ings here? … Instead, buy for yourselves people in distress in accordance with your means. It is far, far better to buy this kind of field, prop­erty or building, which is quite different and which you can find again in your own City when you come home. This “extravagance” is beautiful and holy; it brings no grief and no fear; it brings nothing but joy. — The Shepherd of Hermas, 2^nd Century A.D.[2]

Image by Stephen Bartels / Flickr

[1] Frederick Douglass, Life of an American Slave (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845), 118.

[2] Ebhard Arnold, The Early Christians in their own Words (Walden, NY: Plough Publishing, 2015, 2011), 253-254.