Won’t I be your neighbor?
What does it mean to love your enemy?
I would imagine this is a question you have wrestled with at some point. One of Jesus’ most radical instructions is to love enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
We could intellectualize the question and attack it with other questions. Well, we might ask, who counts as an enemy in an industrialized society? We don’t have rival tribes living nearby anymore. We do, on a global scale, have countries that our leaders tell us are enemies or who we refuse to do business with, or whatever, but these things don’t feel particularly personal to most people.
In middle school and high school I had bullies. They were clear enemies. But those days are long gone. You may have coworkers or bosses who you believe are out to get you or who treat you poorly. Those may be good examples of modern enemies for some. For others, this is merely a nuisance that doesn’t take up that much time or head space.
In recovery circles we often talk about the influence family has on us. And, in many cases, people end up at-odds with their family. It’s hard to think of family members as enemies, even in these circumstances, but this can be the case.
And yet, for me anyway, these examples seem somewhat trivial compared to the word enemy. A word that sounds like it requires a willingness to go to battle in order to justify. For you, this may not be the case. One of the examples above may strike a chord so deeply that “enemy” seems like the only logical word choice.
Either way, I don’t believe it’s necessary that we identify enemies. I’ll say more about this in a bit, but it has something to do with how Jesus answers the question, “Who is my neighbor?”
25 A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to gain eternal life?” 26Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?” 27He responded, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” 28Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”
29But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30Jesus replied, “A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death. 31Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 32Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 33A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. 34The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ 36What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?” 37Then the legal expert said, “The one who demonstrated mercy toward him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
~ Luke 10:25-37, CEB
This story loses a little of its impact for modern readers if we don’t know the history. So, let’s use metaphor to help you understand the dynamic between these characters. Imagine if the samaritan was a black man in the south in the 1950’s and the man in the ditch was a good ole boy. Or imagine if one was a Palestinian and one was an Israeli. Or a Russian and a Ukrainian. Imagine if one of the priests were Methodist, and the next Presbyterian, or Baptist, or whatever. Or maybe a therapist or a social worker.
The point is this: society’s helpers passed the victim by while a man who would otherwise be perceived as an enemy stopped to help.
It’s funny that they ask Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Because we know the instructions for neighbor and enemy are the same: love. So, in that way, it doesn’t matter who qualifies as a neighbor or who qualifies as an enemy. The response is the same in either case: Love. This is why I said earlier that I don’t think we need to identify enemies, or even identify neighbors.
No- the question is not, who is my enemy, or who is my neighbor. In fact it’s not a question at all. Jesus calls us to be neighborly to all, regardless of how we might categorize others. Just to hammer this home- the question is not who is my neighbor and who is my enemy, but how do I live as a neighbor to all people? And we get at least a partial answer to that, because Jesus tells us the primary trait of a neighbor is mercy.
This message is more radical today than it was then, because we live in a culture that teaches love your neighbor and burn your enemy and their children at the stake. Not literally- but we do live in a vicious culture. The question for all of us remains, even 2000 years later, how do we make space for the other? The question is not should we do this. But how are we going to make it happen. How are we going to be neighborly.
That’s the question Jesus ultimately answers. Not, who is my neighbor, but what quality should you prioritize if you’re going to live as a neighbor to all.
Jesus’ answer was clear enough: Mercy.
