Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, March 9, 2025
by Dr. Miles Hopgood, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: A neighbor is not something one is or isn’t. It is a type of relationship that is worked in us by mercy.
There is an old adage to describe the difference between knowledge and wisdom. “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is understanding it doesn’t belong in a fruit salad.” Aside from being amusing, it makes the important point that having all of the factual information does not mean that we will know what to do with it.
The scribe here knows all the facts. He has given the right answer, distilling the law of Moses down to provide a refined clarity about the love which is at the heart of the law. But when he follows-up with the question, “But who is my neighbor?” he shows that all his knowledge hasn’t amounted to knowing what it actually means to live. And so Jesus tells him a parable about a man who is beset by robbers, overlooked by a priest and a Levite only to be saved by the compassion of—get this!—a Samaritan. Expectations: subverted.
At first, it doesn’t seem like Jesus has answered the question. We began with a question that used “neighbor” as a noun, a category of being to which some belong and some do not. We ended with an answer that used “neighbor” as a verb, a category of relating to which all can belong. Now, the scribe understands that a neighbor is not a category of person to whom we owe special consideration but the type of relationship which mercy forges between us.
The scribe may regret seeking this clarity. The call to be merciful and to receive mercy is a challenge. It would have been a far easier life to narrow down our list of neighbors only to those who are easiest for us to love as ourselves. But hard as the call to mercy might be, it also reveals the purpose of God’s work in Jesus Christ. For the mercy which makes us neighbors of one another does not originate with us. Rather, the mercy we have for one another is worked in us by the greater mercy of God, shown to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Just as God’s love toward us engenders our love toward one another (1 John 4:19), so too it is God’s mercy which enables us to go and do likewise.
