Loving Our Global Neighbors and Our Neighbors Next Door

A year ago, we made an unplanned local move. It was stressful, but we knew that in the long run, there would be a lot of benefits to our new rental house. We had to make such a quick decision that we didn’t even have time to think about our new neighbors; however since we’d lived in a cul-de-sac for two-and-a-half years without anyone speaking to us already, I didn’t have high expectations for our new neighborhood.

Imagine my surprise when, on moving day, three of our new neighbors came out to meet us before we’d even unpacked our first carload. More than that, during the month leading up to our busiest season, our neighbors brought us cookies, gave us contact information for the least expensive companies for trash and internet, and helped us figure out where our boys would have to get the bus for school.

Our neighbors helped us adjust to our surroundings quickly. They helped make a house feel like a home. They loved in effortless ways, but it meant a lot to us because of our previous experiences just a half-mile away.

Evangelicals have clashed over the modern definition of what it means to love your neighbor. Many otherwise loving people have spent significant energy attempting to will others to agree to their narrow biblical viewpoint of loving your neighbor. The circular arguing has splintered relationships, opened old wounds, and even caused some to question whether they are welcome within the church walls.

These responses are recent, but they aren’t new. They mirror the pushback Jesus encountered during his three years of ministry. In one public discussion in Luke 10, a law expert asks Jesus to define a neighbor narrowly (see Luke 10:29). Jesus spent three years intentionally loving everyone around him, and when his actions weren’t clear enough, he went further and directly addressed loving neighbors. When the law expert wasn’t satisfied with a simple confirmation of the law, Jesus clarified things by telling The Parable of The Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37.

At the end of the story, in Luke 10:36-37, Jesus asked the law expert, “’ 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.’”

In recent months, as the entire world has stood still from COVID-19, many of us have had a lot of idle time on our hands. Those without extra time have been on the frontlines risking illness for the greater good. Doctors, nurses, CNAs, coroners, EMTs, police, firefighters, truck drivers, grocery store workers, postal workers, military, pharmacists, and other essential workers have all knowingly risked exposing themselves to the virus. They did their jobs to ensure their neighbors were fed, medically supervised, and had their necessary medications.

In the United States, people lovingly sacrificed for their neighbors by actually adhering to the social distancing and sheltering in place guidelines their authorities outlined. Citizens chose to try to stay healthy and keep others healthy. As doctors and nurses started posting videos online showing the mental stress they were enduring, communities responded the only way they could. They drove to hospital parking lots to pray because their presence, combined with prayer, told hospital workers that everyone was in this fight together. They loved their neighbors with intentionality.

In South Korea, the Central Disaster Safety Measures Department sent reminders to citizens about proper hygiene and also reminded them to call and check on elderly loved ones.

The Canadian Government stepped in immediately and implemented mental health support for youth, a moratorium on student loan payments, delivery of practical items and personal outreach for the elderly, as well as financial support for out-of-work individuals and businesses.

For me, the most profound example of loving your neighbors came in a blog post from Jennifer Green. She wrote:

There is an underlying belief in Iran that if you want to be safe from the coronavirus, you must also protect those near you. How can you be safe if your neighbors get infected?

There has been some ugly behavior here. Within the first week, masks had largely disappeared in Tehran and were being sold for much higher prices by opportunistic hawkers. Lemons, ginger, and garlic were very hard to find at the regular farmers markets — other vendors bought up the supply and have been selling them at two to three times the regular price, knowing they would be in high demand. Prices for ethyl alcohol are still extremely expensive.

The coronavirus in Iran has been marked by an enormous infection rate, a high death rate, the inadequacy of the Iranian medical system to deal with this pandemic, the effect of sanctions on medical supplies, governmental mismanagement, and a lot of other complications.

But there have also been a lot of beautiful things—far less reported on—happening below the surface. I wrote this piece to share a few:

• The anonymous ATM machine disinfecters: People have been photographed voluntarily disinfecting ATMs and providing homemade tools to limit spread of the virus.
• Landlords waiving two months of shop rent for their tenants.
• Regular people donating to support flood victims in Iran, despite the pressing nature of the coronavirus affecting everyone.
• People leaving unused plastic gloves on public garbage bins for rummagers and garbage and recycling collectors.

This brought me to tears. Iran is a developing country, and not everyone is employable. Tribal divisions often keep people divided, but with a pandemic attacking people equally, those things no longer mattered. The Iranians tape gloves to the dumpster knowing that they can’t stop people from risking their health picking through the trash. So they offer them protection while they go about their business.

As I read each of these articles, no one needed to tell me these were loving choices. Because the actions were sacrificial for the good of someone else, these stories automatically seemed like modern-day examples of The Good Samaritan. But there was also a distinction that stood out to me for the first time.

Many asked the U.S. to send aid to North Korea during the pandemic. The focus was on saving lives. The point was that sending food and medicine to save lives didn’t mean that the U.S. was endorsing Kim Jong Un as a dictator.

If loving our neighbors includes showing others mercy, doesn’t it seem incredibly merciful to choose to help a dictator provide for his country and stay in leadership? Loving your neighbor shouldn’t require us to force people to act a certain way or remain constrained to a specific set of actions. Our job is to love people, period, whether that’s welcoming them to a new home, taping gloves to a dumpster, or sitting at home and watching Netflix rather than heading out on vacation. My prayer is that we move forward; we won’t forget all we’ve learned these past months. We have the opportunity to continue to reflect Christ as we love our neighbors.

Beth Walker is a football coach’s wife and mom of two energetic boys. She strives to encourage those around her to pursue their best lives in Jesus whether she is near the game field, in church, or at the local coffee shop. As a writer, Beth has been striving to find her voice through seeing Jesus in the ordinary and extraordinary of daily life. She blogs at Lessons from the Sidelines.

Photograph © Li Lin, used with permission