JULY132025

Love you neighbor as you love yourself is the commandment. “And who is my neighbor?” That question posed to Jesus is as relevant today as it was back then. The parable Jesus tells to answer the question is just as relevant when you consider that what Jesus would have known as Samaria is now recognized as Palestine. So if Jesus were telling the story today it would be entitled the “Good Palestinian.” (And, yes, the shock value was just as dramatic for Jesus’ contemporaries to be told a Samaritan was good.) The constant temptation human beings face is to narrow our circle of care. No doubt the priest and the Levite would have stopped to help if they had recognized the crime victim as Neighbor Bob from down the block. But since he wasn’t an acquaintance they didn’t consider him neighbor. We tend to limit our notion of neighbor to someone who looks like us or talks like us or thinks like us or shares our nationality. The parable of Jesus dares us to consider anyone we encounter in life is our neighbor, particularly someone who is hurting.