But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” -Luke 10:29

“Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept.” -Rabbi Dr. Joachim Prinz, August 28, 1963, at the March on Washington

This coming Sunday, we hear a famous story from Jesus: the parable of the good neighbor. (I know it’s often called the “Good Samaritan,” but since Jesus doesn’t dub it that himself, I feel like it’s okay to take a little leeway here.) In the story, Jesus describes a man who is the victim of a roadside mugging and the responses of three passers-by: two ignore the man, and the third, the least likely ally, helps him. The answer to the question “who is my neighbor?” is contained in the compassion and mercy from a stranger to the one in need of it.

I have a theory that being a good neighbor (or “neighboring,” if I may be permitted to turn that noun into a verb) is neither an ability that comes naturally to most nor a skill that many have worked to improve. In the 21st century suburbs of the Midwest, we take for granted that we might know the names of one or two people living nearby, perhaps even a full dozen of our nearest fellow citizens if we and they are particularly outgoing. We might exchange pleasant waves. If we’re daring, we might trade garden produce when our harvest is abundant.

But if the person in the home next to yours blew a tire and needed help on the side of the road, would they even know your number to call? If the resident in the apartment upstairs from yours broke their leg and couldn’t carry groceries up the stairs, would you pay enough attention to notice and help– every day until the fracture healed? If someone living down the street got water in their basement, would you roll up your sleeves and get to work cleaning it up? Be honest.

And that’s just neighboring the nearest people! Jesus is very clear that being a neighbor actually has nothing to do with living near someone; after all, the Samaritan was a foreigner traveling through Israel for reasons the story does not supply. Was he a fabulously wealthy man traveling on vacation? Was he headed somewhere for work? Had Roman soldiers destroyed his village, leaving him displaced and looking for a new home? Unexpected and unexplained as his presence is, this Samaritan does know how to neighbor. He cares for the man, spending lavishly from his own resources to provide for a stranger, even one whose injuries might still prove fatal. Mercy and compassion do not weigh the practicality of their output. They simply act, with love and neighborliness, for the sake of the one in need.

Who are our neighbors? The ones who are in need. It is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept.

Rabbi Prinz, who had survived the Holocaust and emigrated to the United States, continued his remarks: 

When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned many things. The most important thing that I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.

A great people which had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They remained silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality and in the face of mass murder.

America must not become a nation of onlookers…

Our children, yours and mine in every school across the land, each morning pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands. They, the children, speak fervently and innocently of this land as the land of "liberty and justice for all."

The time, I believe, has come to work together - for it is not enough to hope together, and it is not enough to pray together, to work together that this children's oath, pronounced every morning from Maine to California, from North to South, may become a glorious, unshakeable reality in a morally renewed and united America.

May we all be good neighbors.