Redefining the Neighbourhood

Posted by vincevincevince on August 13, 2009

We’re used to watching television documentaries about dismal poverty in far-away places such as Africa or Burma; far less accustomed to the same stories happening in our own neighbourhood. Our accustomed numbness and practiced deafness is strengthened by the comforting knowledge that although the stories are sad, they are not really our affair. After all, the neighbourhoods we in which we live have their own problems that need our attention – perhaps not hunger, but probably anti-social behaviour, infrequent garbage collections, unkempt lawns and planning problems at the local council.

Despite what we read in certain tabloids, most of our communities usually do a good job of being a nice neighbourhood. Things do get dealt with, given time, and where there are people or places in real need help does arrive from one place or another. We have charities addressing all kinds of local social ills, hospitals with an increasingly patient focused ethos, schools, benefit payments and all kinds of other means by which things really do hold together.

I’m going to shatter the illusion. Both you and I are living in dreamland if we think the neighbourhood is OK. There are definitely families in your own neighbourhood who are so hungry they are likely to die in the next month. There are others who are seriously ill but unable to get the treatment that would save them. In another part of your neighbourhood there are children who would love to go to school, if only there was one they could reach. In places, things are so bad that the people have taken up arms and are engaged in terrorist action to get attention from the local council.

I can say this with absolute certainty. These people are in your neighbourhood, you just need to open your eyes and understand that the boundaries of your neighbourhood are not geographic but moral. Our duty to be a good neighbour is summed up in the simple words of Moses “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” ^{Lev 19:18}.

Jesus explained it, much later, in answer to question. Someone asked him “who is my neighour?”. In response, a story was told ^{Luke 10:29-37}, and like all good stories it has a moral behind it.

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.
Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

The question Jesus asked in order to illustrate the moral of the story was: “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?”. The man answered him “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

We can all learn a lot from this, today especially. Our modern societies are increasingly divided and subdivided; not only do we have very little awareness of those some distance away, but we often don’t know those who live just a few paces from our door. We may never look outside our class, club and profession – whole communities can live in the same town with almost no interaction.

Everyone here on Earth today is your neighbour, and my neighbour; and the entire globe is our common neighbourhood. Remember what St. Paul writes: “Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.” ^{1 Cor 10:24} — let’s try to improve parts of our global neighbourhood that don’t directly improve our own quality of life or property value.

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