I recently read a story about a real man whose love for his neighbors was extravagant and costly. His name was Dashrath Manjhi, and he lived in Bihar, India. Manjhi was of the lowest caste in his country. He was a simple laborer in the fields near his town. He married, and one day, his wife suffered an accident. Because his village was blocked from access to the nearest doctor by a mountain, she died. Some said that she fell from a narrow path on that mountain.
In 1960, Manjhi had an idea. He must have felt that something should be done about that mountain. Because of it, the people of his village had a journey of 55 km (about 43 miles) to the nearest doctor. Manjhi had three goats, which were his only asset. He sold them and bought a hammer, a chisel, and a crowbar. He began to dig through the mountain.
His neighbors thought he had lost his mind. No one helped him with his tunneling. By day, he worked in the fields, and by night, he dug. For years, he dug and dug. Some neighbors did begin to help and bought him tools. Twenty-two years later, he had built a tunnel through the mountain, 30 feet wide, 25 feet tall, and 300 feet long. At last, his village neighbors could take a 15 km shortcut through the mountain and get to a doctor. They called Manjhi, “Mountain Man.”
The right way to treat your neighbor is a deep concern throughout the Bible. It seems that many people had a hard time regarding their neighbors’ needs. The Old Testament warns against mistreatment of the poor and needy who live nearby and urges the people of God to think of their neighbors with compassion and to approach them with open and generous hands.
God Himself watches the way a neighbor is treated or exploited. And Jesus later presses the educated man in the Luke scripture to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” He asks us the same question now. Is our neighbor the person with fragile health who could be harmed by contact with us? Is our neighbor the person in our circle who has lost a job? Is our neighbor the family who has lost income and now strains to put food on the table? Is our neighbor the hungry child who used to eat breakfast and lunch at school but who’s now at home all the time? Is our neighbor the person whose mental health ebbs in this pandemic? Is our neighbor the low-paid worker who takes risks delivering food to us from the grocery store or from our favorite restaurant? Is our neighbor the person who used to clean for us or do child care for us and now has no income? Is our neighbor the family scrambling to homeschool the kids and work two jobs?
Once you have decided who your neighbor is, the question leans on you even more: How will you love your neighbor? What will you do for your neighbor? That haunting question comes straight from Jesus and echoes in my mind every day now. Let it sit with you and transform the way you think and act in these days. Only you, with God’s help, can answer that question, “Who is my neighbor?”