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Think about powerful moments in history that shaped generations. For some, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words on December 8, 1941, declaring the attack on Pearl Harbor "a date which will live in infamy," still bring strong emotions. For others, it's the raw feeling of President George W. Bush's speech after the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001: "our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts." 

Depending on your age, these words can bring up a mix of feelings – maybe pain, or even anger and hate. For some, they might immediately make you think of someone from a certain country or background. 

That pain, that deep anger, is exactly what the lawyer in Luke 10 might have felt when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. The lawyer was trying to trick Jesus, hoping to get Him to say that only certain people were his "neighbors." 

But Jesus completely flipped his expectations. He "could have chosen any number of characters for this third example, but he chose a Samaritan. Jesus chose an ethnic and religious identity for this man that was clearly calculated to explode his audience’s concept of neighbor."1 

It's easy for us to simply think of Samaritans as just "non-Jewish people." But for the Jews of Jesus' time, they were far worse. Centuries before, Samaritans had broken Jewish law, disobeyed God, and intermarried with other cultures, essentially abandoning their faith and creating a new, distorted version of Judaism. To add insult to injury, they didn't believe Jerusalem was the right place to worship and had even defiled the Jewish temple, making it unusable for sacrifices during holy times. Because of their idolatry and lawbreaking, Jews in Jesus' day truly hated Samaritans. So, when Jesus made a Samaritan the hero of his story, it was incredibly controversial. 

We often see the story of the Good Samaritan as a story about someone being extra kind. But Jesus was making a much bigger point: everyone is our neighbor. Every single person, made in God's image, deserves our kindness, care, and understanding. The Samaritan's example is so powerful that it leaves us with no excuse to leave anyone out of our love. 

Think about this: In 1941, Jesus would have seen the Japanese as our neighbors. This means that even people from the Middle East, including those who have attacked the U.S., are made in God's image, and Jesus would call them all our neighbors. If Jesus would extend love to them, He would surely call those we see every day our neighbors too: people with different political views, different opinions, different sexual orientations, different skin colors and the list goes on. 

The world often seems stuck in a cycle of hate. But as Christians, we are called to love our neighbor, and Jesus made it very clear that "neighbor" includes everyone, even those we’d rather not think of that way. 

PRAYER: 

Lord God, please help me see every person as one of Your children, made in Your image. Jesus, help me remember that You gave Yourself on the cross for the sins of every person. Help me to love my neighbors based on how You define "neighbor." Amen. 

 

 

1Mohler, R. A., Jr. (2022). Tell Me the Stories of Jesus: The Explosive Power of Jesus’ Parables. Nelson Books.