Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." (Luke 10:25-36)

I grew up in a terraced house in Coventry. We had neighbours either side. On the one side there was a couple with two kids a little younger than us. On the other there was another couple with, if I recall correctly, two kids about our age. On the one side there was a fence between the two gardens about five feet high. My Mum could talk to the neighbours over the garden fence and we could see into their garden if we climbed on the coal bunker and would sometimes climb down the other side and play with their kids in their garden. On the other side our neighbour built up his fence about eight feet high so he could have sheds and things. We couldn’t see into his garden and he couldn’t see into ours.

“Which of these three, do you think was neighbour to the man who fell in with the robbers”? Jesus asks the lawyer who had asked him the question, “Who is my neighbour?” Now I need to be clear about who this guy is. This lawyer isn’t someone who’ll do a spot of conveyancing for you. This is an expert in the Jewish Law, in the Torah, in the first five books of the Old Testament that contain the commandments of God communicated to the Jewish people through Moses according to Jewish belief at the time. These were also scriptures held sacred by the Samaritans.This is a smart guy who thinks he’s got the measure of Jesus and thinks he can outsmart him so he throws him an apparently simple question. Jesus’s answer is one that must have blown his mind.

Who is my neighbour? Well it’s someone I live beside, right? He’s the guy next door to me. He’s the guy like me, right? Sure. But how high is his fence? How high is mine? Jesus answers the lawyer with a story. A man gets mugged going down to Jericho. Who is he? Don’t know. Why’s he going to Jericho? Don’t know. Did he take stupid risks by travelling by night or something? Don’t know. One thing we can reasonably assume is that he is a Jew given the route.

He’s lying at the side of the road, beaten and maybe dying and along comes a priest of the temple. “Ah,” perhaps the lawyer thinks. “This is the neighbour to the injured man. He’s a fellow Jew and a man of God. He’ll help out.” But no. He sees him and walks by on the other side. Maybe he’s worried that if the man dies he’ll be left handling a dead body he will be ritually unclean and unable to carry out his priestly duties. Maybe he just closes his eyes to him, builds a big enough fence that he cannot see him.

Then along comes a Levite. “Ah,” perhaps the lawyer thinks. “This is the neighbour to the wounded man. He has fed people at tables in the Temple. He is a servant of God. He’ll help out.” But maybe he knows that there’s a kind of rule of three in stories like this and the Levite is number two. Right enough the Levite walks by on the other side. Maybe he’s scared to get involved. Maybe he thinks the guy was stupid to get caught on the road like that. Either way he closes his eyes to him. He builds a big enough fence that he can’t see him.

Maybe Jesus pauses. Maybe he knows that the lawyer is waiting, anticipating, wondering who the third person will be. Then Jesus hits him with a gut punch. It’s a Samaritan. There is bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans. I think I’ve talked of this before but I learned recently that about a hundred years before Jesus the King of Judah, led an attack on Samaria and destroyed their temple on Mount Gerizim. This Samaritan may have walked past its ruins many times. He had every right to hate this man lying on the ground. He had every right to throw up a fence as high as the Great Wall of China between them and walk on by.

But he doesn’t. He looks over his fence and sees someone in need and helps. That’s what makes him a neighbour. And isn’t that what we want from a neighbour. Someone we can trust to be there for us when we need them. Imagine a mother whose kid has an accident and has to take her to hospital. Who’s going to look after her other kids? Can she ask her neighbour? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to say, “Sure, that’s what neighbours are for.”

Good neighbours do that kind of thing, don’t they? That’s what neighbours do for each other, right? That’s the point Jesus is making when he asks the lawyer which of the men was neighbour to the injured man. For the Samaritan the fence between them - for all the differences they may have had - was not high enough to stop him from seeing him, seeing his need, recognising him as a neighbour simply because he’s another human being.

There are forces in this world that will tell you to build your fences high. There are forces that will tell you, when frightened men, women and children  commit their lives to small boats on dangerous seas to flee war, famine and poverty, to close your eyes to them. To see them as different, as the other. To build your fences high so that you do not see your neighbour. Maybe ship them off to Rwanda or somewhere.

There are forces in this world that will tell you that those huddled in doorways, wrapped in  sleeping blankets and waving their pathetic polystyrene cups are there because they just want your cash for drink or drugs, that you should close your eyes to them and see them as different, as the other. To build your fences high so that you do not see your neighbour. Maybe clear them off the streets into the shadows. 

There are forces in this world that will tell you that charity begins at home and that it’s a dog eat dog world. So build your fences high so that you do not see your neighbour.

Some say that Jesus doesn’t answer the question the lawyer asks. He doesn’t say who the lawyer’s neighbour is, but how his neighbour should behave toward him. That misses the point that neighbourliness is a two-way thing and that encounters across the garden fence are a two way thing. We are meant not simply to love our neighbour, but to love one another as neighbours. We are meant to care for each other, to look after each other, to be there for one another, not simply as Christians, or Jews or Samaritans or whatever, but as human beings.

“Who is my neighbour?” the lawyer asks. Anyone who needs you to be there for them and anyone you need to be there for you. It doesn’t matter who they are, where they came from, why they are in need or why they can help you in yours our ability to look after each other - whether it’s by buying the Big Issue, or by writing to your MP about asylum seekers, or by dropping a can of beans in a food bank - is what marks us out as truly human, as truly the children of God, made in the image of God. Let us never build our fences so high that we cannot see our neighbours

Lord may the fences we build always be low enough to see our neighbours, whoever they are, and to be able to climb over them to care for them. In loving our neighbours may we show your love to the world

Preached at St Mungo parish church