We humans seem to have a neighbor problem.
It’s an ancient problem. As old as our stories of belonging and exclusion, of insiders and outsiders, of who counts as us and who can safely be regarded as them. The ancient Israelites wrestled with it. The prophets confronted it. Jesus of Nazareth was asked about it outright.
And I suspect we wrestle with it nearly every day. The question is deceptively simple: Who is my neighbor? But beneath it lurks another, less flattering question: Who can I get away with not loving?
I recognize that impulse in myself. Part of me wants boundaries around my obligations. I want to know where my responsibility ends. I want to be good without being inconvenienced by the suffering of people I don’t know, understand, or particularly like.
I want a loophole.
And apparently, I’m in good company.
The Question That Wouldn’t Go Away
In Luke’s Gospel, a religious expert asks Jesus about inheriting eternal life. Jesus turns the question back on him. “What do the scriptures say?”
The man answers beautifully: Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus affirms… “Do this, and you will live.”
But then comes the question that has haunted religious communities ever since. “And who is my neighbor?”
Luke tells us why the expert asks. He wants to justify himself. He isn’t asking how to become more loving. He’s asking where love’s obligations end.
Jesus responds with a story; you likely know it well.
A man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Two respected religious figures pass by. Then comes a Samaritan—someone regarded with suspicion and hostility by many of Jesus’ listeners. The Samaritan stops.
The Samaritan draws near. Tends wounds. Spends his money. Interrupts his journey. Makes himself responsible for a stranger’s well-being. And then Jesus changes the question.
Not, Who qualifies as my neighbor?
But, Who became a neighbor to the wounded person?
Jesus shifts the conversation from defining belonging to practicing the costly art of neighbor-love.
Jesus of Lake Hills
I live in Lake Hills, a neighborhood in Bellevue, Washington, on Seattle’s Eastside.
Two blocks south of my home is a 7-Eleven. It’s an ordinary place. Slurpee’s, snacks, milk, people coming and going. But in recent months, that parking lot and surrounding area have become places of fear.
Immigration enforcement officers have detained multiple people there, predominantly Latino men on their way to work. Their absence ripples through families. Girlfriends, wives, grandmothers, and children wonder where their loved ones have gone, whether they’ll return, how rent will be paid, and whether it’s safe to even step outside.
These are not abstract immigration debates. These are my neighbors.
I wonder what would happen if Jesus were walking the streets of Lake Hills today. If a religious leader approached Jesus outside our 7-Eleven and asked, “Teacher, who is my neighbor?” I suspect Jesus might tell a story about a young Guatemalan immigrant detained on his way to put a new roof on another neighbor’s home.
Perhaps the story would include a pastor hurrying to a worship committee meeting, a homeowner concerned about property values, or someone who believed deeply in law and order.
All with reasons for keeping their distance.
And perhaps the person who stopped, called the family, brought groceries, replaced the truck window smashed by ICE agents, helped with rent, or accompanied a frightened child would be someone the religious leaders had been taught to distrust.
Would Jesus end by asking the same unsettling question?
Which of these became a neighbor?
The Commons Begins Here
I’ve been thinking about how deeply the neighbor problem connects to the commons.
We imagine the commons as shared land, gardens, sidewalks, libraries, and parks. These matter.
But the commons is also the shared life we create—or fail to co-create—through our relationships in our places.
It’s recognizing that our lives are entangled. That your flourishing and mine cannot finally be separated. That the well-being of children I’ve never met, families whose languages I don’t speak, and people whose politics I don’t share is bound up with my own.
The commons comes alive when we move from What is mine? to What is ours to care for together?
And more fundamentally: Who are we becoming responsible to and with?
This is profoundly spiritual work. The neighborhood is not simply a mission field where Christians bring God to others. It is already alive with God’s presence, invitation, and activity. Christ’s invitation to us is to become attentive. To notice those we overlook. To listen to stories that complicate our assumptions. To allow another’s vulnerability to interrupt our lives.
And sometimes, to discover that the neighbor we thought needed our help is the very person through whom God is teaching us to live… to love.
Go and Do Likewise
I don’t have a tidy answer to the neighbor problem. I still struggle to draw circles of belonging small enough to keep life manageable. But following Jesus means allowing those circles to be disrupted.
The revival of the commons may begin with learning someone’s name. Sharing a meal. Noticing who is afraid. Standing alongside a family in crisis. Refusing to let another’s suffering become invisible.
Perhaps the most important spiritual practice is simply learning to draw near.
Not because we are heroes. Not because our neighbors are projects. But because we belong to one another.
And because God’s shalom—the flourishing of all and everything—cannot be realized while some neighbors live in fear and the rest of us look away.
Two blocks from my house, the question is no longer theoretical.
Who is my neighbor?
Jesus has already answered.
The harder question is whether I will become one.
“Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37)
Peace, dwight
