THE religion of Jesus makes the love-ethic central. This is no ordinary achievement. It seems clear that Jesus started out with the simple teaching concerning love embodied in the timeless words of Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might,” and “thy neighbour as thyself.” Once the neighbor is defined, then one’s moral obligation is clear. In a memorable story Jesus defined the neighbor by telling of the Good Samaritan. With sure artistry and great power he depicted what happens when a man responds directly to human need across the barriers of class, race, and condition. Every man is potentially every other man’s neighbor. Neighborliness is nonspatial; it is qualitative. A man must love his neighbor directly, clearly, permitting no barriers between. Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman

📌 The choice is not necessarily what we do but what our direct response will be. We will experience empathy for the human need we see. There is an absence of any barrier between us at that moment. But if we do nothing our inaction begins to dictate our differences and that stymies our response. We think in terms of no response as we fear what the difference will mean. __________________________________