“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, A beautiful day for a neighbor… ” Killing Them With Kindness, part 2

“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?”

So in my last post I brought up some issues, by way of our old friend Marty, surrounding Christians, Neighborly Love and Violence. Today we’re going to try to start unpacking some of these questions. The first question up for bat is “Who is our neighbor?”

Well first, as good spiritual descendants of Luther, we’re going to hit the scriptural commands on it. Namely our most pertinent verses, those referring to neighbor. The word πλησίον, commonly translated neighbor, is found 17 times in the NT.

(There’s another Gk. word translated neighbor, γείτων, which accounts for some of the more narrative references to neighbors)

6 times we find this word in some variation on the classic “Love your neighbor” command in the Gospels and thrice more in the Epistles (Matthew 5:43, 19:19,22:39, Mark 12:31, 12:33, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8.) Twice we find it in further exposition on the “Love your neighbor” command (in Luke 10:29, 10:36). Once in Acts 7:27, referring to one Hebrew man in Exodus injuring another in front of Moses. Once in Ephesians 4:25, technically an OT quotation from Zech 8:16. And once in James 4:12 arguing against judging neighbors.

Whew, a lot of scripture to work with.

First, some translation notes. Technically πλησίον most literally means something like “the one who is near”. The emphasis is not our modern image of a residential neighborhood but rather the more direct sense of the people who are around you. The word is far more open than the rendering “neighbor” shows us.

This helps sets some bounds for our discussion of neighborly love and ethics, or more precisely it removes some bounds. Neighborly ethic is going to refer to how you treat anyone you come into contact with, not any particular demographic.

As a further illuminating exercise we’re going to look at how the Lukan author/Christ was already anticipating some of our questions (Luke 10:25-37). This story shows us a couple of key elements. 1) “Neighbor” transcends nationality and station. The Levite and the Priest are quintessential figures of pious Jewish religion, the first a lay figure the second a clergy-person. For those in the Free Church, think a Deacon and a Pastor. They completely pass over our injured friend here. 2) The parable makes absolutely no mention of residential status. This is 4 individuals (+ some robbers and an innkeeper) who just happened to meet on a road. Thus neighbor-ness transcends nationality. The Samaritan is in fact an unclean foreigner who would have actually been shunned and avoided under normal circumstances. This leads us to 3) Neighborness seems to also transcend things like personal preference and prejudice. It doesn’t just apply to the nice people. This Samaritan would have been shunned his entire life by Jews, I can’t imagine he was carrying fond feelings for them collectively. And finally 5) Neighbor-ness overrides our personal needs and priorities. The Samaritan is traveling. He has somewhere to be. But he doesn’t just stop and drag the guy out of the ditch. He pulls him out, goes and gets him the absolute best medicine of the day (yes oil and bandages was cutting edge medicine) and then takes two whole days to take care of him and set him up with a nice place to recover (on his own tab no less).

The Lukan author is beating us over the head with this. Who is your neighbor? The people around you. But what if they’re-No, the people around you. Period. Atheist, Fundamentalist, Homosexual, Liberal, Black, White, Illegal Immigrant, Prosperity Gospel Preacher. All of them are your neighbor.

Well I look forward to your comments. Check back Friday when we’ll try to jump into what exactly it means to love your neighbor, in a first century Palestinian context and today.

Killing them with kindness…and swords: Christian Violence, Neighborly Love and Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a theological genius in his day. Before we say anything else we can’t lose this essential fact. He looked at a system of theology and practice that was academically, spiritually and economically corrupt (but “They got better…”) and burdening and imagined a different way of understanding God and the world, one which he believed would liberate people to live happy, holy lives.

This is all very admirable. And if you’re any flavor of Christian you wouldn’t be who you are today if he hadn’t. But Luther also makes some statements which raise very dramatic questions, even for us today. Specifically, he outlines clear distinctions between ethics pursued for your Christian self and ethics as applied on behalf of your non-Christian neighbor. As Luther states it:

“From all this we gain the true meaning of Christ’s words in Matt 5:39, “Do not resist evil,” etc. It is this: A Christian should be so disposed that he will suffer every evil and injustice without avenging himself, neither will he seek legal redress in the courts but have utterly no need of temporal authority and law for his own sake. On behalf of others, however he may and should seek vengeance, justice, protection, and help, and do as much as he can to achieve it. Likewise, the governing authority should, on its own initiative or through the instigation of others, help and protect him too, without any complaint, application or instigation on his own part. If it fails to do this, he should permit himself to be despoiled and slandered; he should not resist evil, as Christ’s words say.” (From Concerning Governmental Authority)

This raises a large and rather disturbing question. While Christ clearly teaches non-resistance and self-sacrifice (if you don’t see it go hit up some Gospels), but the question remains, what can or should a Christian do on behalf of others, Christian and non-Christian? Is the core of the teachings against violence and resistance about selfish action or is it in the actions themselves? Further, what can and should a Christian expect or accept from the “Governmental Authority”? Especially in a Democratic-Representative society? This week (or possibly more, we’ll see how long this rolls out) I’m going to try to wrestle through a bit of all of these things (hopefully with your help!). I look forward to hearing all of your comments as the posts come up. Check back Wednesday and Friday for more!