“ ‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbor 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’ ” (Luke 10:36-37).

An expert in the law summed up the law with two commands—love God and love your neighbor. Scripture revealed the religious leader’s heart with a penetrating observation. “But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ ” (Luke 10:29). He wanted to excuse himself from his responsibility by hiding behind a technicality. “If I can narrow the definition of neighbor,” he was saying, “I can avoid loving people I don’t like.”

Jesus responded to that question with His well-known parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite passed the broken victim without stopping. It was the Samaritan who stopped and got involved. No one would have called a Jew and a Samaritan neighbors in the traditional sense because a longstanding hostility existed between them culturally.

With that story, Jesus rephrased the question. It isn’t “Who is my neighbor?” that is the key question. It is “To whom am I a neighbor?” The person to whom I’m a neighbor is the person to whom I show mercy. When Jesus told the religious leader “Go and do likewise” He was breaking down the cultural barriers we so easily erect and telling each of us to show mercy to the ones we encounter, whoever they may be. We aren’t to go through life looking for loopholes that eliminate our responsibility to others. We are to be ready to show mercy whenever we see a need. That is what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves.