Who is our neighbor?
This was a very pertinent question, by whatsoever motive prompted. None better could possibly have been asked, for it drew forth Christ's own interpretation of his own Law. And, like the Jews of his time, we are in no little danger of limiting the Divine thought. "Who is our neighbor?"—in our thought, in our feeling and practice? Who are those we feel bound to love and help? Our kindred, those of our fellow-citizens from whom we want the interchange of civilities, our countrymen,—do we draw the line there? If so, we "have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ" in this matter; we are falling out of rank as his disciples. There is nothing especially Christian about the affection we feel or the kindness we show to these. Going thus far, we go no further than pagans have gone before us. We must transcend this if we are to be worthy of the name we bear. In order to be that, we must find our neighbor everywhere and in every one, but more especially in the man who has need of us. The Christian conception of "our neighbor"—
I. OVERSTEPS THE LIMIT OF RACE. It is painful to think that men have been taught to look upon those who inhabit other lands with positive enmity, so much so that even Cicero could say that the natural relation of neighboring nations was that of enmity; that whole peoples (like the Greeks and the Chinese) should treat the outer world as "barbarians" to be despised and avoided. It is foolish and illogical enough, but it has been all too common. Nothing but the prevalence of Christian principle and the permeating force of the Christian spirit will avail to lead us to love those beyond our borders, without the pale of our own civilization.
II. REMOVES THE LIMIT OF SPACE. The simple and common notion of a neighbor is that of one locally near to us. But that idea, under Christ, has been very greatly enlarged. But is true that, since he spoke, we have seemed to be further off, in space, from one another. For those to whom he spoke had no notion of the width of the world, no idea that there were fellow-men living twelve thousand miles away from them.
2. But it is also true that, since he spoke, we have been brought near to one another.
III. TRANSCENDS THE LIMIT OF CHARACTER. If that lawyer had answered his own question, it is certain that he would have given a reply which would have excluded the ungodly and the immoral. But in Christ's view the neighbor we should commiserate and rescue is not only the poor traveler who has fallen among thieves, but the erring soul who has lost his way in the search of truth, and that pitiable one who has fallen into the mire of guilt and shame; those who have been smitten by the worst of all strokes, and have descended into the darkest of all shadows. Our neighbor, in the view of our Lord, is not the man who is up and who can assist us on our way, but he that is down and whom we can help to rise; he is the man who is most in need of our sympathy and our succor; he is the man who has a bruised and bleeding heart that patient, sacrificial love alone can heal. If we will go to him and help and bless him, and make ourselves "neighbor unto" him, we shall thus "fulfill the law of Christ;" and we shall thus be not only "keeping his commandment," but living his life.—C.