neighbourology: the study of being neighbours.

Years ago I heard Dr. Hesselgrave use the term neighbour-ology to describe missions at its best. What if all followers of Jesus became students of neighbourology? I belive it is something we do all the time–we are just poor students of neighbourology. The “expert’s” question in Luke 10 is something we are doing all the time: Unconciously and sometimes conciously we are processing, “Who is my neighbour?” In the book Blink, Malcom Glidwell asserts that we are conditioned to 1000’s of responses to the visual stimuli provided by people in our contexts. In the Parable of the Man in Need, Luke 10:25-37, Jesus confronts our fallen inclination toward narrow definitions of neighbour and our narrow concepts of responsibility toward people “outside” of our regular circles of relationships. Jesus offers conversion to the expert in the law: do not define people as neighours, worthy or unworthy of your love; rather define yourself as a compassionate neighbour compelled by the love of God.

I am the neighbour.
I am the neighbour to those in need.

Luke indicates that the expert in the law was seeking justification. First time listeners would have expected the first two men, a priest and a Levite, to help; they were humans capable of mercy, surely they would stop and help. I believe our fixation on explaining the behaviour of these characters in Jesus’ story is part of our attempt at justification. But Jesus does not stay there. The story requires that we feel the pain, the abandonment, the desperation of the man robbed and beaten, half-dead on the side of the road. We must understand this story from the ditch. A man in the ditch is helpless.

I am the neighbour to those in need whether I am rich or poor.

The Samaritan shows mercy to the man in need:
by letting his heart be moved with pity.
by moving toward the man not away.
by attending to the man’s wounds with what he had.
by making the man his companion.
by providing for the man’s care.
by using his own social capital, his own reputation, to cover the man’s possible expenses in the future.
The Samaritan shows me what mercy looks like.

The Samaritan was not a one-day hero. Being a neighbour of love requires wider margins in our lives than most of us construct: time, money, grace. And therein is the great challenge to the Church. Engaging community as neighbours requires that we repent of our addiction to quick-fixes, shallow relationships, and brief heroic measures. Instead I believe God would have us engage in a long-obedience to Him and a long-relationship with our neighbourhoods. We must become students of neighbourology.

I am the neighbour in the city.

I must shorten the distance between my heart and my hands. I need conversion. I must redefine the natural inclinations to turn away or oggle at pain. My fears must be transformed. Despair, because of numbers, must be replaced with trust in God. Mother Teresa suggested that the great poverty of the West was our desperate spiritual alienation and lonliness.

What if the church became the leaders in neighbourology?

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”