But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" - Luke 10:29 (ESV)
We often exegete the Parable of the Good Samaritan because it is rich with lessons on Jesus cutting through our biases. The Jewish people loathed the Samaritans at this time and they considered them half-breeds. That was why Jesus specifically made a Samaritan the hero of the parable because it challenged the inherent racism and hatred that His people harbored in their hearts. Jesus died for the Samaritan as well as the Jewish people. God is not about hating His creation. The parable is so poignant because it cuts deep into using religion as a reason to not help people. The priest and then the Levite both moved to the other side of the road to specifically avoid helping the man who had fallen victim to the robbers. Perhaps the Levite was afraid of becoming unclean. Perhaps the priest was late for whatever service he was heading to. It does not matter because they showed zero compassion. When our religion takes precedent over helping people then we no longer are following God, period. For today however, let us look to what prompted Jesus to tell this parable:
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" And he answered, "You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." - Luke 10:25-28 (ESV)
Let us not lose sight that when answering what God has said regarding how we attain eternal life, the answer was not, well who do vote for? The answer was not, well what memes did you post? The answer was not, well who did you hate in my name? The answer was love God and love your neighbor. That is it. There is no secret sauce or gnostic deeper understanding. Love God and love your neighbor. This leads us to the key verse above where we see the lawyer trying to justify himself. Gill's Exposition of the Enite Bible correctly points out that he gave no concern at all to God or loving Him. He only sought justification based upon loving his neighbor. In his mind he was already justified regarding loving God but he was clearly deceived regarding this. He did not love God because if he did, he would be trying to justify how he treated his neighbors. The lawyer fancied himself as very learned and the traditional Jewish perspective at the time was that the term neighbor was reserved for fellow Jewish people. We see a lot of that today in the church in America. If you sit next to someone in a pew, they are your brother or sister but if not, we simply do not view them very neighborly.
I saw a post today that accurately correlated the justification this lawyer was asking to the sentiment offered up by the NAR apostate church today. Who is my neighbor is the same thing today as, are they here legally. We are seeking to justify ourselves by dehumanizing the suffering of people based upon carnal legality. In some cases, such as the lies about Haitian immigrants, we do not even care about the question of legal status. The Haitiain immigrants for example are here completely legally and most are our brothers and sisters. Even if they were not however, that misses the point of the Good Samaritan and why we should not be seeking to justify ourselves before God by hating people. We are not called to defend or criticize immigration policy. Before you start trying to justify yourself by saying you do not hate them, that is exactly what you are doing by demonizing them and lying about them because that sure is not loving.
When we post racist memes about hating people we do not even know, we are saying to God - who is my neighbor. When we make faux-biblical arguments about Israel having borders so we should too or references to law, we are saying to God - who is my neighbor. Here is an example from this week of how this corrosive, ungodly behavior totally corrupts who we are. Idaho State Senator Dan Foremen, who describes himself a "Christian Conservative Republican" verbally assaulted a Native American Democratic opponent by screaming at her to "go back where you came from!" That is some masters level racist stupidity. The number one topic in the bible after salvation is taking care of the neediest in this world. The bible clearly says that blessing and cursing should not be coming out of the same mouth and do not deceive yourself. That is exactly what you are doing when you demonize people based upon who they are, what they look like, or what country they came from.
The bible says we will be held to account for every careless word. When you repost hateful lies that is the definition of careless. You do not care who is hurt by your lies. You do not care about their suffering. You just do not care. It does not matter how you think you have justified yourself in your own mind because that is exactly what the lawyer in this story was doing as well. We hit the geographical equivalent of the lottery by being born in America. Some were not so lucky. Some were not as blessed. That does not make them lesser. We did absolutely nothing to deserve being born here. NOTHING. Instead of being gracious, merciful and thankful however, we can be mean, hateful and vindictive. The parable ends with Jesus asking who was truly the neighbor to the man who needed compassion and the answer was the one who showed him mercy. I will conclude with the words of Jesus following this:
