Who are your neighbors? Who are your friends? How do you act with neighbors and how do you act with friends? Those were Jesus’ questions one day when he told a story about a man who had been beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the winding road from the Jerusalem temple to the suburbs of Jericho. He described the actions of three travelers. Two had wonderful excuses to keep walking on by. One decided to tend to the obvious needs of a helpless victim. After he laid out the plot, Jesus didn’t ask which of the three travelers did the right thing, but which one acted like a neighbor. What we miss is that he was asking which acted as if they were a friend, and that helps us understand his true meaning and concern.
The most important issue in grade school is who would be our friends. Lunchtime was a terror if you didn’t have friends to sit with. Recess was even worse if you weren’t included in a game (or a touch of gossip!) More than classroom lessons by teachers, most of our concerns wither about friends. We wanted to collect them like pets, or figure out how others would choose us as part of their group. In many ways it was the first stirring of figuring out how life as an adult would become and how well we would fit in, or not, with the lives around us. Too often we forgot that friendship has more to do with how I act than in waiting for someone else to come to me.
Even as adults we worry more about friends than neighbors which ties into Jesus’ parable. Two learned, respected, religious professionals were most likely related by blood (even if distantly) to the wounded man. He was from their neighborhood and yet they didn’t act as friends should act for all sorts of reasons they felt were important. The outsider from across the border wasn’t a neighbor but acted as a friend. That was, after all, the point of Jesus’ real question. To focus on the word neighbor misses Jesus’ concern for acting as a friend. We think location establishes neighborhoods, but Jesus’ concern is for all God’s children to act like the friends he has created them to be.
Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood was a TV show for kids (which should have been required watching for adults!) He was a quiet, gentle, Christian whose standard question was “won’t you be my neighbor?” And then he got into his casual, comfy, sweater and slippers and spent an hour as if he were talking with friends. In my mind, Mr. Rogers retold this parable of Jesus day after day for many years so that children would learn that growing up is not about how many friends you can claim to own, but how often you act as a friend. For people who feel the love of God our daily task is to be like a friend, rather than worry about who will be our friends. That is how God loved us, each and all in the same way. Our call is not about hoping someone will befriend us, but being free to act as a friend whenever and however we can.