Ed, my old neighbour from Saskatchewan, had a question for me in our last chat on the phone. The question was, “In your city of more than 90,000 people, don’t you have countless strangers around you rather than neighbours?" He had decided that with us living in a condo, we would never even see others unless we met them in the hallways or lobby by chance.
Having lived in Melville, or near it, all his life, Ed, felt that most people he sees on the streets are his neighbours. To Ed, a neighbour is someone you have seen before, someone you know of, or have heard of before. Sometimes he knows others because they are curlers, bowlers, golfers, hockey or baseball fans or volunteer firefighters. To Ed, the larger the place you live in, the less you know the people around you. My old neighbour does not believe he knows everyone in Melville, but he sure has a sense of who belongs there and who is a stranger.
I mentioned to Ed that maybe there has always been a great debate about who is our neighbour and how we should treat our neighbours. The dictionary defines a neighbour as a person living near or next door. In a wider sense, it means any fellow human being that we can see and is close enough to interact with if we choose to do so. Some say you can be a good neighbour only if you have good neighbours. Some have questioned the teachings of the Bible that tell us to love our neighbour and to love our enemy when they are the same person. Robert Frost cautioned good fences make good neighbours. There are endless stories of neighbours who were too close for comfort when they were partying or fighting. Some have questioned if it is wrong to pray that a neighbour would move away as soon as possible.
In the Bible, the law is clear when it says, “To love your neighbour as yourself.” A lawyer asked Jesus. "Who is my neighbour?" In his answer, Jesus told a parable about a man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers. They beat him and left him half dead. Both a priest and a Levite, Jewish religious leaders, came along one after the other and saw the beaten man by the side of the road. They passed him by without helping him.
There may have been concern it was a trick so in stopping to help the injured man, they might themselves be attacked by robbers. If the man died as they were helping him, they would become ritually unclean and would need a time of purification themselves. We do not know why they did not help the injured man. Thankfully, a Samaritan came along and helped the wounded man, taking him to an inn and leaving money for his care while the man recovered.
Jesus showed the Samaritan, a hated neighbour of the Jews, extended mercy to the beaten stranger in need. The lawyer admitted the Samaritan acted as a neighbour to the half-dead man. Jesus told the lawyer to go and do likewise.
