Antofagasta, Chile / Religion – There are innocent questions, formulated to gather information. These are born of sincere curiosity. Such are the questions of small children, “why is the sky blue?”. There are, also, rhetorical questions, which are really inverted declarations. For example, “what are friends for?”. They need no answer, really. Why answer if everyone understands?

 

Then there is the sarcastic question, another species entirely. Insidious and ill-willed, its irony stabs like a knife in the back. This one intends to silence or threaten, but using passive aggressive strategies. “We’re just asking, that’s all”. We only want a simple answer. “Have you forgotten about dialogue and communication?”.

 

Such is the case of the doctor of the Law, when he asks Jesus, “and, just who is my neighbor?”. The doctor wants to distance himself from this so called neighbor, calculate collateral costs, and not get too involved. In this narrow and divided world, a clear definition of neighbor is needed. How many yards away may this person live and still count as a neighbor?

 

His logic works like this: “Where do I draw the line?”. “Who are my friends and my enemies?”. “Who belongs to my group, and who can I eliminate as a member of the gang from the other corner?”. “When is it no longer my problem?”. “Where is the boundary of my sect, my class, my team?”. “Where does my movement, my club, my community end?”. “Our uniform, our flag, our local community and our country must have clear limits”. “And for all the rest, it’s goodbye, Charlie”. Love is for a select group. Otherwise, it surely gets out of hand.

 

Jesus will not be silenced. The doctor’s question is petty and shameful. So, the Teacher responds with a story, “a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho”...

 

And there is the poor doctor of the Law, contemplating his intimate enemy, a Samaritan. This so-called enemy is touched by the other guy’s suffering, bandages the wounds of one of the true sons of Israel, abandoned by his own.

 

It is the doctor himself who has now lost everything. A holy bandit has stolen all his assumptions and suppositions. Wounded, he must consider the unimaginable, think the unthinkable, ponder the impossible.

 

Now, close your eyes and try not to imagine it. An American showing compassion for an Islamic fundamentalist. A Tutsi receiving a Hutu in his home. Viet Cong consoling Uncle Sam. A black guy from Soweto saves the life of an Afrikaner. A Dalit offers protection to a fugitive Brahman. An Irish Protestant pardons a Catholic. A Communist defends the rights of an aristocratic landowner. A Palestinian defends an Israeli. A guy from your school lends a dollar to a guy from my school for the bus ride home. With enemies like these, who needs friends?

 

Which of these behaved like a neighbor? The question is now not sarcastic, but rather, Socratic. The irony is not stabbing, but affectionate. “How could you have asked that?”. The poor abandoned doctor answers looking down, badly beaten in the debate, but rescued by the Master’s love which is broad enough for all, even for him. In the Kingdom, there is no one who is not your neighbor.

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Nathan Stone, S.J. Jesuit priest, Master in literature and theologian.