My Neighbor?

Who Is My Neighbour?
"Love your neighbour as yourself" the Gospel says (Matthew 22:38).
But who is my neighbor? We often respond to that question by saying:
"My neighbours are all the people I am living with on this earth, especially the sick, the hungry, the dying, and all who are in need."
But this is not what Jesus says.
When Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:29-37) to answer the question "Who is my neighbour?" he ends the by asking:
"Which, ... do you think, proved himself a neighbor to the man who fell into the bandits' hands?"
The neighbour, Jesus makes clear, is not the poor man laying on the side of the street, stripped, beaten, and half dead, but the Samaritan who crossed the road, "bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, . . . lifted him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him."
My neighbour is the one who crosses the road for me!

Crossing the Road for One Another
We become neighbours when we are willing to cross the road for one another.
There is so much separation and segregation:
between black people and white people, between gay people and straight people, between young people and old people, between sick people and healthy people, between prisoners and free people, between Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics.
There is a lot of road crossing to do.
We are all very busy in our own circles.
We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of.
But if we could cross the street once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might become neighbours.

Bridging the Gap Between People
To become neighbours is to bridge the gap between people.
As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look in each other's eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise.
We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact.
We think of them as enemies.
We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do.
We forget that they are our brothers and sisters and treat them as objects that can be destroyed at will.
Only when we have the courage to cross the street and look in one another's eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family.

-- Henri Nouwen