Who Is My Neighbor?

So it’s an important question that the self-justifying lawyer asks Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29).

The usual answer is “everybody.”  But some Christian nationalists are offering a different take on the question.  They are saying that our neighbor is “our own kind.”  We are to love people who are close to us and who are similar to us:  our kin, our friends, the people in our own community and country, the people with whom we share an ethnicity or even our race.

In support of this contention, at least one author quotes a passage from St. Augustine:  “Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.”

But Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy challenges the notion that our neighbor has to be someone like us in his article Augustine and the Order of Love: Debunking a Dumb Christian Nationalist Argument.  Actually, he says, Augustine is saying the opposite of that restrictive use of the word “neighbor.”

Here is the context of that line in Of Christian Doctrine.  Note the first sentence, which I’ve bolded:

Further, all men are to be loved equally. But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you. For, suppose that you had a great deal of some commodity, and felt bound to give it away to somebody who had none, and that it could not be given to more than one person; if two persons presented themselves, neither of whom had either from need or relationship a greater claim upon you than the other, you could do nothing fairer than choose by lot to which you would give what could not be given to both. Just so among men: since you cannot consult for the good of them all, you must take the matter as decided for you by a sort of lot, according as each man happens for the time being to be more closely connected with you.

Comments Meador (my bolds):

In other words, for Augustine the test is not shared ethnicity or culture, but rather simple proximity—which is regarded as a kind of “accident” of time and place ordained by providence. The reason for the order of love is not grounded in ethnic solidarity, but in simple human finitude. We do not have infinite resources of time, energy, or money, and so when we consider who we owe those resources to as acts of neighborly love, it is reasonable to regard those who live closest to us as the proper outlet for those kindnesses simply because providence has placed them in front of us. But the test is actually proximity, not ethnicity.

Augustine goes on to make the case that everyone is our neighbor with a rather brilliant exegesis of Romans 13:9: “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Augustine comments,

Whoever then supposes that the apostle did not embrace every man in this precept, is compelled to admit, what is at once most absurd and most pernicious, that the apostle thought it no sin, if a man were not a Christian or were an enemy, to commit adultery with his wife, or to kill him, or to covet his goods. And as nobody but a fool would say this, it is clear that every man is to be considered our neighbor, because we are to work no ill to any man.

Says Meador,

In other words, if we read Augustine’s concept of the orders of love as saying “some people are our neighbors and others aren’t and we only owe love to the first group,” we make Paul absurd. For Paul treats the entirety of the decalogue as being a summation of what it means to love neighbor—and if there are any people we can regard as not being our neighbors, it therefore follows that there are people we can commit adultery with or even murder. Since that is obviously absurd, we rightly regard everyone as our neighbor.

I would add that the most authoritative answer to the question “Who is my neighbor?” is that given by Jesus who responded with a story about a Jew and a Samaritan, members of ethnic groups that hated each other (Luke 10:25-37).

And if that were not crystal clear enough, Jesus also addresses the issue in the Sermon on the Mount, where he seems to be correcting this limited understanding of “neighbor” and whom we should love:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. . . .For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers,what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (Matthew 5: 43-44; 46-47)

A “neighbor” is a concrete, particular person.  The Bible is not interested in projecting our love onto abstractions.  I have known of people who love “humanity” but who treat the actual human beings in their lives atrociously.

In our vocations, God brings neighbors into our  lives whom we are to love and serve:  In the vocation of marriage, our neighbor is our spouse.  In the vocation of parenthood, our neighbor is our child.  In the workplace, our neighbor is our customer.  In the church, our neighbors are the pastor and our fellow members.  In the state, our neighbor is our fellow citizen.  And sometimes our enemy is our neighbor.  But there is no one whom we may exclude by saying “you are not my neighbor.”

Illustration:  “The Good Samaritan” by George Frederic Watts via Picryl.  Public Domain