Have you ever heard the saying that good fences make good neighbours? An interesting, but not a very Godly concept! Rather than endorsing barriers, shouldnt we be encouraging good relationships and understanding with those who live around us?
What a poor indictment on todays society, that even though we are all made in the image of God, we find it so hard to get along.
I think most of us have heard the story that Jesus told which has become known as the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). It goes something like this:
Early one Friday evening, a man was driving on the old Vereeniging highway, just outside Soweto, when his front wheel burst. He was badly injured as he was flung into a ditch alongside the road after losing control of his car.
Behind him, a prominent human rights activist, who saw the accident happen, rode past, thinking if I stop to help I will be in even more trouble with my wife, as I am already nearly an hour late for dinner.
A few moments later a pastor on the way to a Friday evening youth service saw the accident scene and the man lying in the ditch. I dont have first aid experience, but I must remember to warn the youth group about the dangers of drunken driving he thought, as he drove on by.
The taxi driver saw the injured man and had compassion on him. He used his driving skills to cut across oncoming traffic and pulled over to assist. Even though the man was bleeding profusely, the taxi driver took off his only jacket and placed it as a pillow under the mans head. He used the last of his airtime to phone for help, and held the mans hand and comforted him until the paramedics arrived.
Go and do likewise
The New Testament equivalent of this story was told in answer to the question asked of Jesus by one of the experts in the law: Who is my neighbour?
As he so often did, Jesus gets the man to answer his own question, after relating the story to him. The expert in the law answers: the one who had mercy on him.
The word translated as mercy 1 is defined as: kindness or good will towards the miserable and the afflicted, joined with a desire to help them.
Jesus replies that he has answered correctly and that he should go and do likewise.
Love and mercy are Gods defining attributes and as we are to grow to be more like him, this is obviously something that he expects from us too. As followers and ambassadors of Christ, it is expected that we should show kindness and goodwill to others, along with a desire to help them.
The story of the Good Samaritan starts off by Jesus explaining that we should have love for our neighbours. Love is a verb, not just a feeling. James explains that our faith needs to be accompanied by actions. Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? (James 2:15-16) We need to put Gods love into practice; after all, this is what defines us as his disciples.
Who is your neighbour? You probably wont come across accident victims or those in such dire need of physical help on a regular basis.
Being a neighbour means looking to reach out to the helpless and hopeless. It involves comforting the hurting, the broken, the confused and the wounded. We are surrounded by such people. Those who have committed their heart into a marriage, just to have it trampled on. Those who are living under a life sentence of HIV/AIDS. Those who have turned to alcohol or drug abuse because they have been able to find no deeper meaning in life.
As followers of Christ we realise that the road we travel is hard and many fall by the way, wounded through lifes battle, with little strength or desire to continue. Do we carry with us that drink of refreshing water to offer those who are thirsty and weary? Do we think of those around us who are hungry, and donate some non-perishable food items at a collection point? When we see someone with a sour expression, do we smile anyway? Or when an elderly neighbour complains about her aches and pains, do we listen and empathise? She will probably feel much better when shes told you all her problems. We read in James 1:27 that the kind of religion God our Father accepts as pure and faultless, is to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
In another place (Luke 4:18), he tells us that he came to to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind and to release the oppressed. If we are truly living in and through him, and allowing God to live through us, our hearts will ache for the things that cause his heart to ache and we will express his love to others.
Most hopeless of all
But perhaps the most hopeless of all are those who have not heard or accepted the Good News and saving grace Christ came to offer.
Recently on a Christian blog I came across a comment by someone of another faith, questioning the divinity of Christ. A more hopeless, lost and wounded neighbour one would be hard pressed to find! Unfortunately the group who answered him did not see the neighbour in the person and proceed to tell him that unless he found Jesus, he was doomed to spend an eternity in hell, and that they would enjoy watching him roast! Where was he supposed to find Jesus if not in his followers? Im sure the questioner was left with more doubts than ever before about Jesus divinity. Where was the expression of love that identifies Christs followers?
Not only are we all neighbours, but we are all made in Gods image and have all been offered adoption into his family. If we are to live together for all eternity, we had better start learning to live and love one another now!
Who then is my neighbour? When we fully understand this parable, we see that no one is excluded, and that we should show love and mercy to all people!
(1.New Testament Greek Lexicon – http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=1656)