In a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, writer Hanna Pylvainen asks the provocative question, “What do I owe my neighbor?” She wrestles with this problem after an acquaintance on her block asks him to bail him out of jail, and her deliberations are only complicated when Hurricane Sandy rips through New York, possibly endangering the inmate population of Rikers Island – her neighbor included.
Defining our ethical obligations to our neighbors has always been tricky.
Jesus once told a crowd that they would fulfill the spirit of Mosaic law if they loved God and loved their neighbors as themselves. But one man, who St. Luke tells us “wanted to justify himself,” asked a follow-up question: “Who is my neighbor?” He wanted to shrink the definition of “neighbor” to make it more manageable. If his neighbors were only his friends and family, or maybe only people who looked and thought like him, loving his neighbors wouldn’t be too hard.
Instead, Jesus told a story about a righteous Samaritan, radically broadening the word “neighbor” until loving our neighbor becomes an impossible task – unless God helps us to love those who may look, feel, and sound very different from us.
At Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season, we celebrate our ties to friends and family. These ties are natural, life-giving, and important. But if we are followers of Jesus, this special time of year should also cause us to look outside of our own circles for opportunities to extend God’s love to those who are our neighbors under the radical definition Jesus gave. Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program, which seeks to bless incarcerated parents and their families, is just one opportunity to do that. Learn how you can love your neighbor at www.angeltree.org.