In the conversation that sets up his telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus affirms the lawyer he is speaking with for correctly reciting the commandment that is the foundation of all commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” But then the lawyer asks Jesus to provide one more legal clarification by asking: “And who is my neighbor?” The story Jesus tells in response to the question gave a broadness to the definition of neighbor that the lawyer probably never imagined. In many of the parables that follow Jesus invites his hearers to open their hearts and make space for this broad definition of neighbor. The stories are often an invitation to empathy and mercy and a challenge to loosen our rigid definitions of social status by making space for neighbors we never before acknowledged.
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