Neighborly Attitude

In Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, a man is traveling down a road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's about a 4,000-foot decline from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's like coming down off a mountain. It's also a very dangerous road to travel. On the way down the road, he is jumped, beaten up, robbed, and his clothes are taken from him. He's left naked, bleeding, and about to die in the hot sun.

Now, Jesus doesn't go into any racial elements in this story, but we have to assume that the man who was beaten up is a Jewish man. We assume this because otherwise, Jesus introducing a priest and a Levite, people from the nation of Israel, would not have packed as much of a punch. His own fellow men didn't take care of him. But here's this Samaritan, the enemy of the Jews, who comes along and takes care of this Jewish man.

In this story, I think we see three different attitudes we can have toward people.

The first attitude is: What's yours is mine. I'll take it.

There are people like this in our world today. Their attitude is, “The world owes me something. I'm entitled to whatever I want, and I'm going to go out and grab anything I possibly can from other people. I don't care what it takes. I'll step on them. I'll do whatever I can to get it.”

Some people are like the robbers in this story. What's in it for me? What can I gain at the expense of others? Just for one example, we might see it in the workplace where business owners or employees may look for ways to cheat people out of their money, out of whatever, just to gain an advantage. They're looking to get and get and get and take from everybody else. You get the idea. What's yours is mine. I'll take it.

The second is: What's mine is mine. I’ll keep it.

We learn this attitude at an early age. The first word we learn is dad. The second word we learn is Mom. The third word we learn is mine. Why is that? Well, we're egocentric. And I don't know that that changes much as we grow up as adults, does it? We are always looking out for number one. We kind of put our priorities ahead of everybody else's. It seems easy for us to get wrapped up in our own little personal worlds and neglect the needs of others around us. It's mine, and I'm going to hold on to it.

In the story of the Good Samaritan, we have these religious leaders. We have a priest and we have a Levite, prominent members of the Jewish people. Maybe they're preoccupied. They’ve got things to do. They’ve got to go take care of temple business. They had more important duties to tend to. They didn't have time to help out this bloody, naked man along the roadside. These guys aren’t bad. They were just busy.

Maybe that's one option. Another thing is that they know how dangerous this road is. Well, they've seen it, right? Here's a guy lying on the side of the road, bloody and naked and robbed, about to die. They know how dangerous this road is. So if they stop to help this man, maybe they're thinking, “Well, I don't want to get robbed, too.” So, they just keep going.

Or maybe they thought, “Somebody else is going to come along and help. Somebody else will take care of this guy.”

I just wonder how many of us see ourselves in this story. What a mirror to hold up to us, right? How often do we see someone in need and we think, “Oh, I'm just too busy,” or “I’ve got other things to take care of,” or “Someone else will take care of that problem.” And you know, when we do that, we're communicating that I'm more important than that person is.

What we find throughout the New Testament is that we are to honor others above ourselves. How are we doing at that? This is the message I think Jesus is trying to get across here. Honor someone above yourself, even if they're your enemies.

God has blessed us with each of us with different gifts and talents. And when we selfishly hold on to our talents and hold on to our time and hold on to our treasures, when we selfishly hold onto these things, then we are more like the robbers in this story than we are the religious leaders. We're actually robbing from each other if we are not serving each other with our time, talent, and treasure. And that's scary. We're the body of Christ. We ought to be working together to serve others and to glorify God.

So, what's the correct attitude? Here's the last one we should have.

What's mine is yours, I'll share it.

And this ought to be our attitude regardless of whom we're interacting with, regardless of our connection with that person. It shouldn't matter if that person is a total stranger or one of our closest friends. Our neighbor isn't relegated to just someone who looks like we do, acts like we do, dresses like we do, lives where we live, or even has the same skin color we have. Our neighbor is anyone, especially anyone who has need. That's our neighbor.