Carolyn Carney
On Being A Neighbor (part 1)
The funny thing about the Good Samaritan parable in Luke 10 is that Jesus doesn’t answer the lawyer’s question, who is my neighbor? Jesus paints a picture of this poor man who is beaten, robbed and left for dead and then of the folks who pass him by and eventually, the one who comes to help him. Jesus then asks, which one has been a neighbor?
When I was a child I heard the shocking story of Kitty Genovese. She was a young woman who lived in a quiet section of Queens, NY. One night she was stabbed just outside her apartment. Despite waking thirty-eight people with her screams, not one either came to her aid or called the police for help. The perpetrator ran when she screamed but then circled back, following the trail of blood to her apartment. After breaking into her apartment he then robbed, raped and murdered her. The whole incident took place over the course of half an hour and yet no neighbor came to help. The story rattled the nation as people’s fears about urban living were confirmed. Kitty’s neighbors were too afraid to get involved, too afraid of getting hurt themselves, too afraid of what they might find. Sounds like a modern day parable, but this time the Good Samaritan doesn’t show up.
Yet Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves— love our neighbor as we would like to be loved ourselves. We love our neighbor because they, like us, have been made in God’s image and are therefore inherently valuable. The Good Samaritan got involved, took a big risk and loved the stranger in the way he would want to be loved.
Exodus begins with the sad state of affairs of the people of Israel: a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. You can almost hear the bell tolling in the distance. The situation is bleak for Israel. The writer goes on to say that the Hebrews grew in number to the extent that the Egyptians became threatened and then they did what most powerful nations who are threatened do: they oppressed the aliens among them. The Hebrews were taken into slavery. Once upon a time they’d been visitors who had saved Egypt from a time of famine and now they were exploited.
But then God came to Moses in a burning bush (Exodus 3). God’s words in this brief conversation are an outline of how a neighbor should live.
“Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to deliver them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (Exodus 3: 7,8a).
A Neighbor Sees, Hears, Knows and Comes
Recently, I led a simulated exercise to get at the themes of Acts 6, where the Hellenist Jewish widows were overlooked in the daily food distribution. (I discussed this story a few columns back.)
The simulation happened in a large dining room where approximately 200 students sat around tables that were served by wait staff. I explained to the wait staff before dinner the purpose of the simulation, what I hoped to bring out, but the effect of the teaching would really depend on them. I asked if they would purposefully neglect one or two of the tables for which they were responsible, i.e. bring their food late, don’t ask them if they need anything, remove condiments and perhaps random pieces of silverware from the table, etc. They rose to the challenge.
Our discussion afterward was quite interesting. The people who’d been neglected easily expressed their frustration. Our server was no where to be found. He didn’t bring us our drinks. We didn’t get desert plates. Then someone else countered: I don’t know what you guys are talking about! Our server was great! We had everything we needed. Yeah! Casey rocks! Which of course was followed by the necessary whoops and hollers.
After I confessed to manipulating their meal I pointed out that we don’t always see the marginalized in society. They are often hidden from our eyes. And if we have everything we need and are living comfortably, we must intentionally look for the marginalized, often going out of our way.
God saw, he truly saw, the situation of the Hebrews being squashed under the thumb of Pharoah. How do we see our neighbors’ situation?
In two weeks, in Part 2 of On Being a Neighbor we will look at the example of one neighbor who hears, knows and comes.
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