After they brought their first baby home from the hospital, a young wife suggested that her husband try his hand at changing diapers. He replied: “I’m busy right now, but I’ll do the next one.” The next time the baby was wet, the wife called for her husband, but the new dad replied: “Oh, I didn’t mean the next diaper, I meant the next baby!” When it comes to helping with babies men are just not labor intensive.

We often interpret the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) as a lesson about helping. However, if we read the parable a little more closely we begin to see that the story is also about how we view people and that our viewpoint often prevents us from being a neighbor.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan a lawyer presses Jesus for an answer to the question: “Who is my neighbor?” This question “Who is my neighbor?” was not just academic, it was dynamite. Gentiles had entered Palestine. Should Greeks, Romans and Syrians be treated as neighbors? The conservative Pharisees said: “no way!” Luke says that the lawyer “wanted to justify himself” in other words, he wanted approval to be neighborly only to people just like him.

To understand the scandalous implications of this parable for people such as the lawyer imagine a group of people that you basically dislike or distrust. Be honest, most of us can identify some breed or creed that creates an immediate acid reflux of disdain.

Now, once you have this group in mind, imagine that Jesus tells a story that portrays a person from this group doing precisely the kinds of Godly things you thought were reserved for people like you. Go a step further and imagine that in Jesus’ story it is the people you look up to and respect who fail to do what is expected of a good neighbor.

Finally, by the end of the story, you learn that you are supposed to go and be like the group you detest. Scandalous!

I understand that St. Peter met “I get no respect” Rodney Dangerfield at the Pearly Gates, and said: “tell me what you did in life that makes you worthy of coming in.” Rodney said: “That’s easy. I made people laugh.” St. Peter responded: “God gave you your looks; I want to know what you did!” We call the Samaritan “good” because he saw a need and immediately responded to that need. The Samaritan didn’t ask if the wounded man was an American, Oriental, Haitian, Cuban or Iranian. He didn’t check his religion to see if he was Protestant, Catholic, Moslem or Atheist. He didn’t check his voter registration card to see if he was Republican, Democrat or Libertarian. Because he cared, he didn’t care about such incidentals.

The answer to the question: “who is my neighbor?” is, “you are the neighbor!” Neighborliness is not a friendly quality in other people. Neighborliness is simply any person’s claim on your friendliness. To be humanely useful and to deal with the crises of the hour is what it means to be a neighbor.

In the parable, You and I are not the robber. Neither are we the priest and the Levite. And no, we are not the Samaritan. You and I are the man lying in the ditch with our bodies wounded from sin. Let us never forget that once we laid in a ditch and somebody cared so much that He didn’t care about the cross. Let us remember that we have a God with scars, and these scars are from caring enough to help a stranger beside the road. Let us never forget that in receiving God’s self-giving love that we also have received a challenge to stop profiling others as acceptable and unacceptable and pass that love on to anyone who has a need. Therefore, let us heed the words of Jesus: “Go do likewise.”