Thread by @tweetraychang

I am convinced that Evangelical Christians need to answer two questions in our pursuit of unity:

1) Who is the neighbor God calls us to love?
2) What does it mean to love neighbor as self?

I sense we haven’t defined neighbor as God has & we haven’t loved neighbor as God calls.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the expert in the law (or the theologian) asks this question because he desires to figure out the formula for inheriting eternal life.

The lawyer, seeking to justify himself, wants to know how neighbor is defined.

Prejudice had become normalized among the Jews. They had trouble with Gentiles, and looked down on Samaritans (impure half-breeds).

Therefore, the lawyer wanted to know the extent to which the law required him to love. Surely, Jesus wouldn't demand his love reach that far.

Yet, in Luke 10:25-37, Jesus uses the Samaritan as the exemplary model for neighbor. This was shocking because the Jews despised the Samaritans, and they deliberately avoided traveling through Samaria because of their disdain for them.

Jesus wanted to make a point.

Jesus could've used just about anyone to make his point.

If it were simply about difficulty loving people in their midst, he could've used someone like that.
If it were simply about theological differences, he could've used someone with a form of heresy.

But he doesn't do that.

In using a Samaritan, Jesus uses the most despised person to make his point. He uses an impure half breed. Someone that was not just detested by the lawyer, but the majority of Jewish society.

With this, he reveals that racism existed before race was even a construct.

This prejudice (racism) towards Samaritans was so pervasive that it was normalized throughout Jewish society. It was so common that it took Jesus' sharp parable to reveal its problematic nature.

This is why the lawyer couldn't say the good neighbor was the Samaritan. (v. 37)

For Jesus to include the Samaritan and for Luke to record the lawyer's difficulty admitting that the good neighbor was the Samaritan (he says, "THE ONE who showed mercy") reveals that racism had become such a normal part of society that it was worldview shattering.

The lawyer in the parable of the Good Samaritan shows that you can be a theologian and still be a racist, a seminary professor and still hold negative racial prejudices, and a leader in the church and still be a bigot.

Any Christianity that seeks to limit how neighbor is defined is not the Christianity of the Bible. If it is, then our neighbors will primarily be rich if we are rich, poor if we are poor, and middle class if we are middle class as we live in a stratified society.

The sinful human heart seeks to limit the definition of neighbor. The gospel shatters such limits and seeks to love beyond the manufactured worldly lines. Imagine if Jesus said, "Well, I'll just love those who end up in my midst." He would never have taken on human form.