Neighborly Love

Who the Heck Is My Neighbor?

*Sorry but I often get my Pharisees and my Levites mixed up. I corrected my Pharisee-ic mistake.

On a day of brilliant sunshine, I stood in the church parking lot. A young man I’ll call Leo had glommed onto me again. He knew I understand the world of substance use, the circular pain of being unhoused, the winds of fortune that seem to always miss some souls. Leo was kind of a short, skinny dude and I’d tried to be encouraging and helpful if I could. Because, you know, “love thy neighbor.”

But I squirmed under the glare of the noonday sun. Leo asked me for money. Again.

I’ve confessed before that I tend to be a rescuer. A bleeding heart. Some would say a sucker. I remind myself on the daily that I’m no Mother Teresa. Yet the question of hospitality and caring for the least of these is always on my heart.

Does Jesus allow me to say no if I’m being taken advantage of?

If Leo was lying in a ditch, bruised and beaten, am I the Levite* who walked on by? Or do I recognize and draw a boundary when the guy waits until you help him up to prey upon you?

This question burns through our society today. How much help do we Christians offer to those in need? Do we first evaluate the ask for scam potential? Do we draw the line at deserving? Can we justify our actions by saying the down and out have “chosen” this life?

I wrestle with these questions. And I don’t always like my answer.

If Leo had said he was hungry or thirsty, I’d have jumped to help. People who kindly offer a bagful of McDonald’s to those who fly signs on street corners say these hungry folk toss the food into the bushes. What they really want, according to some, is money to buy alcohol or drugs. And of course they can’t encourage that.

Such a judgment seems to fly in the face of “Love thy neighbor.” To say the unhoused “like it that way,” or that they always make terrible choices constructs a wall higher than the border monstrosity. As long as we can justify ignoring “those people,” we can safely look Jesus in the eye.

Or can we?

On a macro level, my heart is crushed by the “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida. I’m sad and mad and furious at those who detain people based on their immigration status. These detainees haven’t had due process and most aren’t guilty of anything more than entering the country illegally. Yet they sit in sweltering tent cages with poor sanitation, rotting food and government workers who jeer and laugh about feeding the prisoners to alligators. In a situation like that, I have no trouble taking a stand to help them.

I’m loving my Haitian neighbors who are terrified (and incidentally, have never ever had cats or dogs for dinner). The “wetbacks” as they called Mexican immigrants in my Arizona childhood were always the kindest, gentlest and hardworking folks. Even though she couldn’t speak English, a woman my mother hired to watch my sister and me was soft-spoken and about as dangerous as a cute puppy.

On that front Jesus gives me a solid thumbs-up.

It’s the ones closer to me, the ones I’ve given and given and given to, that want more. Until in my humanness I resent lending any kind of help. When the people you’ve tried to help start assuming they can get whatever they want from you, I start backing away.

Leo is a guy who wants to do right, yet the meth always gets him. He told me once that he promised his mom (as she lay in her casket) that he’d stop using. And he does, for a time. But the old demon always draws him back. And although I don’t judge him for making his choices, I’m also on a very limited income since my husband died last December. Money is scary tight, which helps me to tell him that I just can’t shell out like I once did.

The boundary I’ve had to make with Leo and others in my life feels awful. Since I said no, Leo doesn’t come around anymore. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead from those “choices” he surely didn’t want to make. I hope he knows that I tried to love him as neighbor as best I could, even if I had to say no at some point.

And that’s the dilemma we face, isn’t it? We can be furious that our government is mistreating people who aren’t criminals. I’m calling congressman weekly to insist these folks be released. I’ll stand up for maligned Haitians or any other group the present admin seeks to vilify and deport.

The real tightrope walk is figuring out how we can love our literal neighbors—the people we meet and try to help—without losing ourselves. Or maybe Jesus is begging us to do just that: to lose ourselves as we journey toward the deep end of the heart, where we are one with all creation.

God must show each of us what we must do to love our neighbor. For even as we understand that neighbor means everybody, on a micro level helping can get dicey. I remind myself every day that I don’t need to be the one who rescues every single person on earth. That my rescuer personality is often in it to burnish my own ego.

Without Leo, my life feels uncomfortably quiet. I resist the urge to picture God shaking a finger at my failure, the human boundary I set when I said no. More likely, Jesus is pulling me close and whispering that I did my best. And I guess that’s all any of us can do.

I must share a great tune I found via KK du Mez: It’s called “Jesus and John Wayne” by Googly Eyes. Says it all.