Hitchhiker’s Guide (26)
The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:39 NASB
Your neighbor – “Who is my neighbor?” The scribe’s question brought about the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. We all know the story. But perhaps we haven’t considered all the implications. Ira Stone helps us see one additional consequence: “We can interpret the category of foolish gentile in a way that is not an ethnic but rather a moral category. A gentile is one who does not recognize his or her place within the chain of human responsibility. An Israelite is one who does.”[1] Perhaps the scribe’s question should be rewritten: Who is a child of God?
Recognition of human responsibility for others. That’s the heart of Luzzatto’s’ program. If you want to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, then you must act with love toward your neighbor, that is, you must show the same respect, kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, benevolence, and gratefulness for the one close to you that you have for yourself. Luzzatto makes it abundantly clear that “loving” the distant human being, the one you have never been face-to-face with, is neither sufficient nor an accurate measure of your commitment to God. Oh, sure, you can send another check to the mission society in Asia or adopt a child in an online welfare program, but that won’t matter much if the person who lives in your house isn’t treated with the same godly favor that you would want. You can’t be an Israelite—a covenant member—if your love isn’t local. And if it is local, you are fulfilling the law no matter what your ethnic origin.
Now you’ll say, “Oh, but I do all this. I have a great relationship with my spouse, my children, my in-laws.” Really? Take a minute to clearly assess your goodwill on their behalf. You might find it isn’t quite as rosy as you’d like. Perhaps there’s just a bit of blame, a lack of complete forgiveness, a small piece of envy, a fragment of animosity. You know, those things that you so desperately want to have accepted in your own life. The little things you’re afraid to share because you know deep down inside that something in the relationship will shift and you might be unwanted. Any of those things part of the “great” relationships you have with those so close to you?
“A gentile is one who does not recognize his or her place within the chain of human responsibility. An Israelite is one who does.” And what is “the chain of human responsibility”? To think and act as if I were the other person in need of my love. To know who you are, and love you for being just that.
The Samaritan was the true Israelite. Who are you?
Step 26: Choose to be adopted.
Topical Index: Samaritan, gentile, Israelite, neighbor, Matthew 22:39
[1] Ira F. Stone, in Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, p. 172.
Luzzato (I respectfully submit) prescribes the right program, but he engages it by the wrong source, even “as an Israelite.”
Recognizing our place within the chain of human responsibility begins with first recognizing and ascribing our personal responsibility to that relationship established by the the mind and purpose of the One who has bound Himself to act within that chain, and on the ground of His own infinite, self-revealed, self-sacrificing love that He himself (and in himself) has already shown toward all the world.
This is not some overwhelming feeling of idealistic humanistic benevolence toward another in need, whether that person is or is not within our local sphere (although indeed we are all indebted to such need). Rather it is the manifestation of that supreme and ultimate and altogether giving Spirit of love that only comes by way of knowing and living in fidelity to our Father’s own love, which “has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us”…. “For while we were still helpless, yet at the proper time Christ died for the ungodly.”
Although I am a gentile, I am not a foolish gentile; rather, I am a gentile bound to that covenant of love that was promised, enacted, conveyed, and sealed with the lifeblood of my Redeemer and Lord, the Lord God who is my creator. It is He who is both the source and ground of any love I am empowered to return from my place in the chain of human responsibility.