And Your Neighbor As Yourself
By now you should understand the primary mistake Cain made in answering God’s query about Abel. Cain’s question was immaterial, an attempted misdirection, so any answers people might imagine and promote are missing the point. Cain didn’t fall on his face before God, but pretended God couldn’t know what happened. God is not on our level and we are not on His. Our accountability to Him is without boundaries. He holds us accountable to Him for anything within our reach. Lots of people aren’t direct kin.
The definition of “neighbor” is anyone who isn’t aloof or an enemy.
Nothing required it, and nobody would expect a Samaritan to help an injured Israelite. The Samaritan was lucky the Romans protected him while traveling through Judea. Instead, he found he could not bypass someone injured and surely near death. What compelled him was conscience, our intellectual interface with the will, the place where our convictions are read. The Samaritan operated in the justice of God, while the most blessed of Israel couldn’t be bothered.
Who was the good neighbor? Jesus defined it as anyone who holds to biblical morality, never mind the nitty-gritty details of the written laws. Granted, His whole point was that those disputing His teaching had no clue what the Bible was really about, but that applies to most Westerners because the West takes its cues from the same place the Pharisees did. They were legalists reading a Hebrew mystical document through Aristotelian assumptions, a worldview alien and hostile to Scripture.
Some of the particular laws in Moses assume everyone realized a fellow Israelite was at least a cousin, warranting some measure of protection one might not give a total stranger. However, even strangers merited some care and concern. Yes, we have some problems with deception, but you place those things in the hands of God. You do what you know you should do. If someone is no threat and makes the right signals for being friendly, that’s your neighbor. The initiative for caring and reaching out is on you as the servant of God.
The most hateful rejection of this is seen in the workplace. If the first thoughts in your mind are “you are required to” and “I don’t have to” then you are not working from biblical morals. It makes no difference who is likely to take advantage of you, the burden of caring about your workmates is non-negotiable with God. Sure, there are times when turning the other cheek is provocative and communicates the wrong message. You are expected to seek God’s face and know the difference. Never give a thought to reciprocation itself as of any significance. That’s simply wrong. You do what’s right and just in God’s eyes even if the whole world is unjust.
Let’s remind ourselves once again the whole point of law codes appearing in Scripture: Law is a contextual expression of divine justice. Not man’s laws, but God’s revealed Law Covenants. Once you see past those provisions and understand how this merely reflects the love of the Father for His children stuck in this awful world, you also realize living in His love has distinct advantages. It’s not enough to suggest His justice is a moral fabric woven into the universe and that His justice is cosmic justice. He supports His own character by asserting divine power that change things only He can change. His love amplifies the natural process.
So justice is not a question of you getting your share against the grubby hands of others. Justice is a question of God asserting His ownership from your grubby hands. He never demands from you based on what someone else needs. He demands from you only what He has given you in the first place. One of the biggest disasters in charity planning is starting with a survey of human needs. This is evil because it’s entirely human-centered, making God a mere accessory. There will always be human need. Your mission is God-centered, to supply what you have from Him, with a careful eye to what God says is the right amount. You are prepared to be extravagant because He owns it all; it’s at His disposal. But you are also ready to hear Him warn you about throwing pearls to the pigs. You aren’t called to help everyone. Attempts to paint you with false guilt based on human reckoning of what you ought to do can be shrugged off with His blessings.
Your feelings are wholly untrustworthy on such things.
