Would you be my neighbor?

Fred McFeely Rogers was best known as Mister Rogers to American children for his popular television series, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Trained in music and graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Mr. Rogers was a Presbyterian minister. By chance or design, he entered television and ran this successful series for the next 33 years, focusing on children’s emotional and physical concerns. No doubt, his familiarity with the famous story of the Good Samaritan, which began with a scribe asking, “Who is my neighbor?” was in Mr. Rogers’ subconscious or conscious mind.

Initially, the scribe had asked,

“What must I do to inherit life eternal?” (Luke 10:25)

Since he was a scribe, someone who interpreted the Law of Moses for the ordinary folks, Jesus asked him,

“What is written in the Law? How do you understand?” (10:26)

The scribe received an A+ for his understanding of the Law’s core message:

A. “Love YHWH your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole strength and your whole mind.”

B. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” (10:27)

Jesus congratulated him. He should have walked away then. Instead, wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus,

“Who is my neighbor?” (10:29)

Perhaps he expected Jesus to say, “A fellow Hebrew” or “a fellow priest, rabbi, scribe, or Pharisee.” Whoever he had expected was not whom Jesus offered. Instead, as a parable (10:30–35), Jesus set up a kind Samaritan as one who cared for a beaten person rather than a priest or a Levite and made the scribe answer the question,

“Which of the three – the priest, the Levite, or the kindhearted Samaritan – was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (10:36)

Once again, the scribe received an A+ in his reply:

“The one who did the merciful deed to him.” (10:37)

Jesus congratulated and sent him off to go and show mercy to others and be a good neighbor.

Behind this surface lesson of being a good neighbor lies two below the surface or more profound meaning. When they started the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem and wanted to go through a Samaritan village, the Samaritans wouldn’t let them because Jesus’s face was set towards Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–56). At that moment, John and James wanted to bring fire from heaven and destroy the Samaritans. By making a Samaritan the good guy and the main character in this parable, the Lord was rebuking John and James – would they have destroyed the Samaritans in their anger, there wouldn’t have been a Samaritan to help the wounded person.

Furthermore, the Lord described the wounded person with five characteristics: he was in between Jerusalem and Jericho, robbers surrounded him, he was stripped of his clothes, beaten, and left to die (10:30). All these would be true of him within a few months – he would be hung outside the gate going from Jerusalem to Jericho, two robbers would be hung beside him, he would be naked, beaten, and left to die. Anyone who accepted him would be his good neighbor – someone who did mercy to him. Sadly, this parable is highjacked, and Jesus is made as the good Samaritan, while he was a perfect Hebrew.

A good neighbor has three layers – one who shows mercy to anyone (level 1), one who shows mercy to a presumed enemy (level 2), and one who accepts Jesus in his beaten, naked, and left-to-die state (level 3). By believing in Christ, we entered level 3. It’s our challenge to work backward to levels 1 and 2.