May We Be Neighbors

Trinity Family, 

In recent weeks, we have witnessed the extraordinary example Minnesotans are providing of what it means to love your neighbor, the idea at the center of our Christian faith. They are making sure folks have food and rides; they are keeping watch over their communities. 

They are being good neighbors — a task now freighted with great personal risk.  

If you’re like me, you might look on and wonder, Could I do the same?  

Oftentimes, we miss the work God is calling us to do because we try to rationalize God’s love before putting it into action. In Luke’s Gospel, there’s a lawyer who decides he’s going to test the limits of God’s most radical commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself. “Who is my neighbor?” he asks Jesus. 

Jesus responds with a story. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, there’s a man who’s been robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. Two people, one of them a priest, walk by and do nothing. They cross to the other side of the street. Finally, a Samaritan, an outsider in that land, approaches. In the middle of his own dangerous journey, he stops to care for the dying man. “Which do you think is a neighbor?” Jesus asks the lawyer. 

Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, known for his role in the German resistance during World War II, suggests that the lawyer already knows the answer before he asks the question. He’s not looking for wisdom; he’s trying to dodge responsibility. But Jesus gets to the heart of it: “You are the neighbor,” is essentially how he answers. “Now go and love others.”  

May we, like the courageous, ordinary people of Minnesota, put love into action.  

May we care for those who are persecuted. May we be merciful. May we be peacemakers.  

May we be neighbors. 

Phil 

The Rev. Phillip A. Jackson 
Rector, Trinity Church