Looking Out for Number Two
Luke 10:25-37
 By Dave Redick

Try as I might, I can’t reach out and touch the victim of that earthquake on the other side of the world. And hugging the TV doesn’t do a thing. Neither does a sentiment of pity, real though it might be. Yes, I can donate to the Red Cross or some other international agency (and that’s a good thing) but it really doesn’t address this issue of the meaning of "neighbor" as one who is close by. If you live in town as I do and go out into the street and scream to the top of your lungs, dozens, if not several hundred people will hear you. These are your neighbors.

It was the early 1970’s when Robert Ringer self-published his book, Looking Out for Number One, after it was rejected repeatedly by commercial publishers who thought it was too obtrusive. Ringer’s book, which became a national bestseller, has been described as "an essay on the virtue of selfishness."(1) Since that time, the phrase captured in his book title has become a cliché for the unashamed pursuit of self-interest. Who hasn’t heard someone say, "I’m just looking out for number one"? It is probably much more than coincidental that the decade of Ringer’s book, the 70’s, came to be known as the "Me Decade." Whether the book simply brought the selfishness of the time out of the closet or was actively instrumental in causing it, I don’t know. What I do know is that unbridled pursuit of self-interest first has become the guiding philosophy of many people today. I spotted a bumper sticker several months ago that said it well. In white writing against a plain blue background, it said, "It’s all about me."

I also know that such a philosophy, no matter how blatantly mainstream it might become, goes against the grain of "the faith once for all delivered to the saints."

Perhaps the easiest way to express the contrasting Christian view is in the acronym of the children’s song, "J-O-Y." Jesus first, Yourself last, and Others in-between.

Jesus put it this way in Luke 10:27:

Paul expounded a bit later in Philippians 2:3-4:

Ideally then, according to the Bible, God is first, neighbor is second, and self is last. Thus my sermon title this morning: Looking Out for Number Two. I want to talk about neighbors.

A couple of Sundays ago, in the evening service, we had an open discussion that centered on Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan. In that passage, Jesus held out before his Jewish audience the example of a hated Samaritan man as one who showed both who a neighbor is and what it means to be a neighbor. It was a good discussion, and one I hesitate to bring up again so soon, except that I left that study a bit less than satisfied with the answers it produced for me in my own life. Further, the more I reviewed my own life the more I found places where I had been much more like the priest and Levite in the story than the Good Samaritan.

For my sake then and perhaps for yours too, let’s go back and briefly read that story again, then I’ll say a few things that I didn’t say before.

Here are a few things I want to address that we didn’t talk about before.

1. The Neighbor Jesus wants me to Love is Someone Close By.

I don’t mean necessarily relationally close like a relative or a best friend, though such a one could be a neighbor. I mean someone who is geographically close – someone in my vicinity with whom I can have personal contact.

The Samaritan’s neighbor in Jesus’ story was the injured man he came upon in his travels, one he could (if he chose) reach out and touch or totally ignore. The neighbor that Jesus was trying to get the lawyer to recognize was the Samaritan, who lived "right next door" to the Jews, and with whom it was possible and probable to have occasional contact.

The meaning of the word "neighbor" in Greek, Hebrew, and English, is the same. It means, "one who is close by."

I don’t know where that strikes you, but I find that for me it’s easy, in the day of instant communications, to feel a bit overwhelmed at how small the world has become and, conversely, how big our "neighborhood" has become. Some express it by saying that the world has become a village. I can come home in the evening, switch on the television and within 30 minutes, have the plight and suffering of millions right there in my living room – people from every place on the globe. Modern communication is a wonderful thing, but it has a downside. Sometimes it’s overwhelming! Try as I might, I can’t reach out and touch the victim of that earthquake on the other side of the world. And hugging the TV doesn’t do a thing. Neither does a sentiment of pity, real though it might be. Yes, I can donate to the Red Cross or some other international agency (and that’s a good thing) but it really doesn’t address this issue of the meaning of "neighbor" as one who is close by. If you live in town as I do and go out into the street and scream to the top of your lungs, dozens, if not several hundred people will hear you. These are your neighbors. These are the ones close by. If you attend a public meeting and stand up to make a presentation, the ones who hear you are your neighbors. (Well, they’re your neighbors if you don’t stand up and speak, too.) That new family that just moved in to the house next door is your neighbor. So is that bachelor living across the street and the teenagers living at the end of the block who like loud music. So is the guy who checked you out at the grocery store and the man who sold you your car down at the dealership. The agent who insured you is your neighbor, as is the longhaired guy who pumped your gas.

When I told you that I left our discussion of this parable a couple of weeks ago less than satisfied with the answers it produced in my life, it was because, as I began to review my relationship to some of these people close by, I discovered that it is more typical for me to "pass by on the other side" like the priest and Levite than it is for me to take a real interest in them. While I hate to admit it, I seldom even pray for these people. Oh, I speak to them. We exchange pleasantries. I even speak to the ones who act like they don’t want to speak to me. But when I say, "Hi, how are you," I know it’s a question that doesn’t require a real answer. I also know that the answer given is probably not the real one. That answer is seldom shared with people who just pass by. I’m thinking that for me, to "love my neighbor as myself," that will somehow have to change.

It’s way too easy to pass this issue off by putting $20 into an envelope and giving it to a charity to be used for "the good of mankind somewhere on the globe" and fully ignore my real neighbors. ("There. That’s my evidence that I’m concerned for my fellow man. Now I’m finished with the issue.") But am I concerned for my neighbor – the guy who is close by?

2. The Neighbor Jesus wants me to Love may be Someone I Don’t Even Like.

This comes out crystal clear in Jesus’ story and it’s one of the things I’ve been holding up to my own life. While the behavior of the priest and the Levite were nothing to commend, with the mention of the Samaritan, the lawyer would figure that the real villain had now arrived.

We are far removed from the strong hatred that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans, so unless we learn a little more than this passage reveals, an important part of the lesson is lost. The word "Samaritan" was a curse word among the Jews of that day. When His detractors maligned Jesus, they could think of no worse epithet to pin on Him than to call him a "Samaritan." In John 8:48, their words dripping with contempt, the Jews said to Jesus, "Did we not rightly say that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?" John 4:9 says that the Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. They refused to do business with them. They refused to help them. The Bible commentator, R.C.H. Lenski, says that Samaritans were "cursed publicly in the synagogue with the prayer that they might have no part in the resurrection of life; were never accepted as proselytes; to eat their food was equal to eating swine’s flesh; [and] it was better to suffer than to accept their help…."(2) That was the sentiment of the Jews against the Samaritans.

Yet Jesus was telling this lawyer that such a person was the neighbor he was supposed to love.

Kathi and I have had some really great neighbors in the 33 years we’ve been married. We’ve also had some real stinkers.

The question I’ve been asking myself is this: How do I love a neighbor who is a stinker – one that I don’t even like? I can’t just whip up sentiment out of thin air when there is nothing to base it on. What if my neighbor lives a lifestyle that is the opposite of mine? What if he is into all the things that I consider wrong or does things that offend God and disgust me?

Then again, what does he think of me? If several of my neighbors got together and my name came up, what would they be saying?

Upon closer investigation of the command to "love your neighbor as yourself," we note the word that Jesus used for "love." He didn’t use the verb phileo. That’s the word the Greeks used for sentimental love – the love that’s based on feelings. He did use the word agapao, the word for love that is expressed in an action that does right by a neighbor regardless of feelings. This is not the language of sentiment. It’s the language of commitment to do right for the good of a neighbor. I’m glad about that because it means that I don’t have to like my neighbor in order to love him.

Psalm 15:1-3 says,

Romans 13:10 says, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor…."

If love does no wrong to a neighbor, then the only thing left is to do right by him.

The kind of love Jesus was referring to does not depend upon sentiment. Rather, it is a commitment to do right to a neighbor because of a commitment to God.

Is there ever any sentiment involved? There can be - sometimes. Jesus taught elsewhere, in a different context, "where your treasure is, so shall your heart be also."(3) Sometimes, when we invest time and energy (our treasure) into a relationship with a neighbor, even when we don’t like him or her, we may begin to sense a change in our feelings. Our "heart" naturally follows the path of our investment, so to speak. We may find that we actually start to like the person – though again, that isn’t the main thing.

What kind of "right" things am I to do regarding my neighbor, then?

Well, what kind of "right" would you want your neighbor to do to you? That’s the guideline Jesus gave in Luke 10. He said, "love… your neighbor as yourself." If you were lying beside the road, beaten up and half-dead, what would you want your neighbor to do for you? If you were unemployed and things were tight financially, what would you want your neighbor to do? There are many answers to this question, depending on the nature of the neighbor and his or her situation.

My point here is that the neighbor Jesus expects me to love may be someone I don’t even like. That’s OK. I can do that. It’s fully possible to love someone that I don’t like.

3. The Neighbor Jesus wants me to Love may be Someone who Doesn’t Like Me.

"Come on now, Jesus. It’s one thing to try to love someone I don’t like. But if the guy hates me, You say I’m still supposed to love him? He doesn’t even want me to love him! Why not just give him what he wants?"

Careful consideration of the Jew/Samaritan rift of Jesus’ day shows that there was no love lost on either side of the fence. The Jews looked at the Samaritans as religious apostates and the Samaritans looked at the Jews as religious bigots.

I think what we’ve covered in the first two points is doable. I can work on re-focusing my concern on those who are closest to me, my neighbors. I can even put forth the effort to do right by the neighbors I don’t really like. That’s a bit harder, but I think it’s doable. But this third situation takes the cake! I don’t like him. He doesn’t like me. Wouldn’t it be better just to leave things alone rather than get them all stirred up? Not according to Jesus.

After painting this remarkable picture of this hated Samaritan caring for this hated Jew (assuming that the wounded man was Jewish), Jesus said, "Go and do the same." Love your neighbor even when you don’t particularly like him and he doesn’t particularly like you. Be a good neighbor to that person.

I searched the scripture for instruction for this dilemma of loving where there is no love lost and here is the closest thing that I could find. It’s in Matt 5:43-48. Please turn there with me. The passage may seem familiar, but follow me anyway. There is some good instruction here.

By the way, those words in verse 43 don’t reflect what the Bible taught the Old Testament people. They had heard that teaching, but it wasn’t in the Scriptures. There was no teaching in the Law of Moses that ordered Israel to hate her enemies. On the contrary, we find just the opposite in passages like Proverbs 24:17-18:

The first part of Matthew 5:43 is in the Scripture, but not the second. Leviticus 19:18 said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," but it said nothing of hating an enemy. Those words had been added to this concept by Jewish tradition. They reflect what the rabbis taught in Jesus’ day. "Yes, you’re supposed to love your neighbors, but there is a limit to that," they reasoned. "Surely no one could expect you to love your enemies. If the neighbor is an enemy, then you’re off the hook. You’re excused from responsibility." That was the going view of Jesus’ day. And perhaps it is the view some of us hold. "Yes, we’ll make a stab at loving someone who loves us, but someone who doesn’t? That’s a different story!"

Jesus’ teaching corrected the notion that enemies were an exception to His command to love. Just as God "causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous," so we are to do good to even our enemies.

"Wait just a minute," someone says. "That’s a pretty high standard!"

Yes it is. And Jesus agrees. In verse 48 He says we are to be "perfect" as our Heavenly Father is perfect. That word can also mean "mature," which is, to me, a little more understandable, but it’s still a high mark to attain. And it does indeed take a mature person to love his or her enemies!

So how is it done? How do I love someone who hates me?

First, let me remind you of what we have already seen. This is not primarily a sentimental thing (based on feelings) but a commitment thing.

"Well, I’m glad about that!" you say.

Second, Jesus in this Matthew 5 passage translated the commitment of the love into an action. He said "pray for those who persecute you."

What can I do in a case where my neighbor doesn’t like me? I can pray for him. I can beseech God and ask that He will bless my neighbor and lead him to the truth. I can pray for his family, his wife and children. Each day I can begin my day with a prayer list that includes my closest neighbors. I can ask God to change the bitter sentiment that separates us.

After forbidding taking our own vengeance, Paul taught in Romans 12:20-21: "But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Notice the action words: "Feed him." "Give him a drink." "Overcome evil with good."

Is this easy? No it isn’t. It goes against what we may feel. But not everything Jesus taught was simple. He said this was a "mature" thing. Yet it should be our goal.

Looking out for number two is the second great commandment.

Are you looking out for number two? If you find, as I did, some neglect of this area of your life, what can you do to correct it? Here are a few suggestions. I have already started these myself because I need to correct what I consider a deficit in this area. Alter them to fit your own situation if you need to.

If 100 of us left this place this morning and did these five things faithfully for three months, can’t you imagine that there would be some change in the state of things?

May God return us, if we need it, to looking out for number two.

Footnotes:

1. http://www.dailyobjectivist.com/Heroes/RobertRinger.asp
2. R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of Luke’s Gospel, Augsburg Publishing House, p. 606
3. Matthew 6:21

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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