Now I realize that the Bible has already addressed the subject of ‘who is my neighbor?’ I think that everyone knows the parable of the Good Samaritan that the Lord shared in Luke 10:25-37.

However for me, it is not been an easy question. I remember in college where we talked about a social psychology study where the Biblical interpretation of neighborliness was tested and it had interesting results. A destitute man was along a path outside a church and some people walked by. Some helped and some did not. Some people did not help because they thought it was a trap. Some did not stop to help because they were on their way to help someone else. Some just did not know what to do. Some who did stop did not help the man in the way that Jesus said to.

There have been people in my life that I have tried to help like that poor man in the parable. I have stopped, listened to them, given them a meal, bought them clothing, taken them to a movie. I have tried to fill their hearts with faith, with hope, and with love. I have told them they are part of my family. But on the way back from where my destination was taking me, I saw them in the ditch again. So I would stop again, feed them again, try to give them the things they needed to help themselves out and then stayed with them and listen to them. Then I would give them my phone number, “Call anytime!” Then I would go back the same way, and guess what…there they were, in the ditch again. Any attempt at saying to myself, ‘Well, that is the way he is’ and hurrying along would be met with a response of , “Jesus would show love and compassion!!!!”I would keep helping time and again and I would think why I kept doing it. I would sometimes come to the conclusion:

It is a powerful thing to be needed by someone. 

Many wives of alcoholics, many husbands of cheaters, many people in the service industries will confirm this. And it applies to people of faith too. I remember many times seeing people of faith try to SAVE a drunkard or a drug-addict or someone who is falling to pieces through trying playing savior.

But trying to help someone who just wants to complain again and again and live in the ditch, is that love? I don’t think so, I think it is just enabling and the people I have tried to help, just drink it up like its going out of style! You can give and give and for some people, it is never enough.  You could buy them a house, stock their refrigerator full of food, even find them a job yet they will never change. All they will do is complain and they will never even try to buy their own way at the movie theater.

I don’t think that that is what the Lord was talking about when He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself”.

We are to “love” them. We are commanded to.

Just what that means with these kind of people, I am not sure. I have learned that it does not mean trying to play savior, though. This is especially true when nothing ever seems to be enough for them. I would try to convince myself that maybe I saw them as a friend.  However, I do not think that that is a normal friendship and I was, and you are going to be disappointed if you apply a normal human standard of such a thing to such a person. I do not know if such a person like that is even capable of such things.  As I have said many times before, I am not a psychologist.  I am not making arm-chair diagnosis or making a generalization about everyone with psychological problems. However, experience is a hard-teacher and I can tell you through experience that sometimes you have to love the person but be willing to pass on the other side and be willing to allow the person to live in the ditch he or she wants to be in!

John 5:5-7  5One man there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time. “Do you want to get well?” He asked. 7“Sir,” replied the sick man, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”…

————————————————————————-W.