Who is my Neighbor?
How Christians can love well in a digitized, global, and polarized world.
My neighborhood, just outside of Washington, DC, has a strong sense of local community. I know the people on our block, and I love bumping into folks—at PTA meetings, sports outings, or the grocery store. My neighborhood has quaint traditions: We celebrate holidays with cookie exchanges. Local groups play music on front lawns in the summer. On these lovely nights when people are walking the block, I don’t see the divisions and divides that worry me when I read the news.
So I was surprised a couple of months ago to find out that I didn’t actually know many of my neighbors. One of my kids was collecting items for a service project. On a Saturday morning, we slowly walked the block, placing a flyer at each door. With half a stack of flyers left, we continued to the next block—a block I walk or drive often.
But the slowness of the task caused me to pause, to stop at each door, to see each place where people live. I noticed the numbers on the walls, the color of the doors. And I was surprised at how many homes I had never “seen” before. I was surprised, just one block away, how few of the people I knew.
Before that day, I would have called these folks my neighbors. In reality, I didn’t know my neighbors.
Throughout the Gospels, we see the exhortation to “love your neighbor as yourself” and to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37–40; Mark 12:29–31). But who is my neighbor (Luke 10:29)? And what does being a neighbor look like in a time of such polarization?
When I try to make sense of what it means to love my neighbor, I think of Acts 1:8. In this passage, Jesus exhorts his followers to bear witness to the power of his resurrection in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Jerusalem was essentially the disciples’ city. Judea was the larger region that contained their local city. Samaria was a region just next to Judea—a place that was adjacent and had a different ethnic group. And the ends of the earth were, well, everywhere else.
I use these categories of Jerusalem (the city where I am), Judea and Samaria (the region I’m in and the one next to it), and “the ends of the earth” (everyone else) to help me think about whom I consider my neighbor. I try to make sure I have neighbors in each of these groups.
About Nikki Toyama-Szeto
Nikki is the Executive Director of Christians for Social Action, a network of scholar-activists stirring the imagination for a fuller expression of Christian faithfulness and a more just society. Before coming to CSA in 2017, Nikki served in leadership positions at International Justice Mission, the Urbana Conference, and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Her work has been profiled on NPR, Newsweek, Religious News Service, and Christianity Today. She serves on the board of Bread for the World, CMEP, and More in Common/US.
