Who is my Neighbor?

One of my Facebook requests came from Meghan Brock who asked: "How a person can disagree with someone on beliefs, politics, or even laundry detergents and yet still love that person?"

This is a tough question because I have very strong feelings about how poorly the church is doing at loving the world. I want to start my response with Luke 10:25-37 a very common story:


²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]”
²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
³⁰ In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Are we all not like the expert in the law trying to justify ourselves? We want to know exactly what  we must do to inherit eternal life. We also want to be accepted for having given our best efforts without going above what is necessary. Samaritans were considered a half-breed race and they were hated by nearly everyone. I think that is precisely why Christ picked to use the Samaritan to be the good guy in this story. He was different, very different, and yet his love and compassion for the man who had been robbed reached beyond the differences they had. 

I think it is interesting to point out that the ones in the story that ought to have (by our standards) responded (the priest and the Levite) did nothing. Isn't that how the church acts? In our religious, self-righteous indignation we would never touch a beat, dirty man. Just like in our pious, self-serving "holiness" we would never associate with an alcoholic, drug addict, fornicator, or heaven forbid a democrat. Because after all, Jesus was a Caucasian republican that only had religiously sound friends. Oh wait, you never read that in the Bible? Me either. Christ calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves and it is abundantly clear that our neighbor may be MUCH different than we are.

Christians are constantly shooting themselves in the foot by not loving as Christ has commanded us to. We are all too often judgmental and hypocritical. The answer to how we can disagree and still love each other rests firmly on loving with the love of Christ. If I try to love people who I fundamentally disagree with in my own strength, it cannot be done. Likewise, when love is truly from Christ it looks like nothing the world can offer.