Loving Your Little Neighbor: How Luke 10 Infuses Our Mom-Life with Meaning
While sending a hurried text to my neighbor, Rose, this morning, I helped my neighbor, Eden, get dressed for the day. If you’re a mom, you probably helped your neighbor get dressed this morning too. You might have even sopped up spilled milk for one neighbor while wiping jelly off another’s face.
We don’t often think of our children as our neighbors, but Jesus does. A parable from Luke 10 begins with a lawyer asking Jesus the question, “who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). Jesus responds by telling a story. You know the one: A man embarks on an all-day journey, encounters robbers, gets mugged and beaten, and is left for dead. Two religious leaders pass by without stopping. Then a Samaritan comes along and shows the wounded man great care, tending to his injuries and paying for his stay at an inn. Many of us are familiar with the narrative up to this point, but we can tend to overlook the all-important ending where Jesus asks an unexpected question: “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor?” (10:36).
Wait—proved to be a neighbor? That wasn’t what the lawyer asked. His question was, “who is my neighbor?” He seemed to be looking for a checklist. “Desiring to justify himself,” he wanted to know which exact people he was commanded to love (10:29). But Jesus’ follow-up question forces him to think less about ticking off boxes and more about heart motives. As a result, he rightly identifies that the one who proved to be a neighbor was “the one who showed... mercy” (10:37).
With this brilliantly upended question, Jesus teaches that “love your neighbor” is not a command that can be kept merely by external behavior. This poignant truth must have stunned the lawyer—if loving his neighbor was rooted in a merciful heart, then he could no longer use a long list of good deeds to justify himself. And if that wasn’t startling enough, he also had to grapple with the fact that Jesus cast a despised outsider as the hero of the story—could it be that this socially ostracized person’s act of mercy more truly reflected the heart behind God’s command? On top of all that, he also had to consider that the Samaritan hero of the story showed mercy to a Jewish person—was Jesus saying that his neighbor might include someone who was geographically, ethnically, and religiously removed from him? All of a sudden, loving his neighbor became astronomically harder than checking boxes.
Jesus’ teaching in this parable is weighty, because it calls us to be ready to show compassion to anyone. Jesus doesn’t limit “neighbor” to someone whose street address shares digits with our own. His definition encompasses those even closer, like our children, and those farther away, like the wounded man in the parable.
And yet, Jesus’ call is also astoundingly freeing, because it means that loving our neighbor is not about exhausting ourselves in an effort to care for every needy person around us. Rather, it is about drawing near to our Lord, who transforms our hearts to act with his mercy.
How do we practically live this out as moms? Here are two possible ways:
First, because loving our neighbor is about the state of our heart, know that there are times when obedience might mean doing less, rather than more with the wrong motives. Our to-do lists can be a mile long, and we often find ourselves exhausted and burnt out. Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that doing more is always better—or more holy. But Jesus wants our hearts. If we’re tired and disheartened by what’s on our plate, maybe it’s time to prayerfully reassess our commitments and discern whether we should be doing less so we can do more with love.
Second, because our children are our neighbors, remember that loving them isn’t an interruption from “real, Christian work.” Feeding a newborn or shuttling kids around all day can put a halt on everything from career goals and fitness aspirations to morning coffee and makeup. But, fellow mama, know this for certain: your Christianity is not on pause. You might not be serving in an “official” ministry role or be working for a local charity. You might not be able to make soup or run errands for every next-door neighbor who is sick. But this doesn’t mean you are ignoring God’s call to love your neighbor. Your children are your neighbors and loving them well is deeply important to God. He delights in your care for those chubby-cheeked neighbors who smile up at you with jelly-stained faces!
And as you learn to be a person of compassion toward your little ones, expect that your love will spill over to others outside your home. Maybe you’ll have play dates with neighborhood moms and their children. God might bring opportunities to open your home to the ostracized and lonely or share gospel hope with the unsaved and broken.
But start by changing diapers with joy, by mopping up spills with compassion, and by bandaging scuffed knees with mercy. Start by loving your little neighbors.
