Who is my neighbour?

Luke 10:25-37

A lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

‘Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ. The parable of the Good Samaritan is very well known to all of us. We can even quote long passages of it by heart. Each of us knows very well what Jesus is aiming at. Love your neighbour, says the Scripture, and Jesus confirms that love is at the heart of the Law. But right after that Jesus makes us ask ourselves, who is my neighbour?

You all know this story in your own language. You have read it in the Bible of your own tongue, and you remember, what is the word for neighbour in the translation used in your church. Now I would like you to turn to the person sitting beside you and tell him or her that. How does your Bible say, “Love your neighbour”? What is the word in your tongue for this “neighbour”, and what is its literal meaning? What does that word mean, when taken as such?

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Some examples. In Swedish? Nästa; the one next to you. Is that the same in Danish and Icelandic, too? Finnish? Lähimmäinen, the one closest to you. Estonian? Ligimene, much alike in Finnish. Welsh? Irish? Portuguese? Faroese?

In the Greek New Testament, the word is pleesion, literally meaning the one nearest to you. Into Latin it translates as proximus, the closest, or the next one. From this Latin word we get the Italian prossimo, Spanish projimo, and French prochain. English neighbour also means the person living next door. It is of the same root as German Nachbar. Finnish has almost the same word for people who live next door, naapuri.

In all of these languages, the one to be loved according to our Bibles, is always the one who is closest to us. But is that really what Jesus wants us to learn? Don’t we naturally do that already, love the one that is closest to us? The ones that are of our kin, our family, our friends?

If the man who had fallen victim to the robbers had been a family member of those walking by, would they not have stopped and helped him? If the priest would have noticed that this man is his brother or cousin, or if he had been the father or son of the Levite, wouldn’t these reverend clerics have showed him compassion? We surely know we need to help our next ones, those closest to us, because their matters are also our business.

But instead, Jesus turns our attention to those who are not the closest but the most remote to us. Not the next but the most distant to us. Those whose life does not bother us, those whose matters are not ours; those who are strangers and to whom we would not pay any attention at all. Those are the ones that we are to love, if we want to live according to the values of God’s Kingdom. They are our neighbours.

To be a Church in turbulent times is our topic for this meeting. In many of our countries, people are tempted to turn to their own interests, to closing doors and looking only for their own benefit. To be a Church in today’s European society we need to see, that Christ wants us to love not just our own family or those belonging to our friends. In the Kingdom of God, all humankind consists of neighbours. We are all neighbours to one another. Christ showed this in his love towards all humanity. He, the eternal Word of God, became human to save all humanity.