{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-book-page-js","path":"/king-strength-to-love/2/","result":{"data":{"mdx":{"id":"b065918f-c571-570a-847a-46d8d1f2ba0d","body":"var _excluded = [\"components\"];\n\nfunction _extends() { _extends = Object.assign || function (target) { for (var i = 1; i < arguments.length; i++) { var source = arguments[i]; for (var key in source) { if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(source, key)) { target[key] = source[key]; } } } return target; }; return _extends.apply(this, arguments); }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutProperties(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded); var key, i; if (Object.getOwnPropertySymbols) { var sourceSymbolKeys = Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(source); for (i = 0; i < sourceSymbolKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceSymbolKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; if (!Object.prototype.propertyIsEnumerable.call(source, key)) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } } return target; }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = {}; var sourceKeys = Object.keys(source); var key, i; for (i = 0; i < sourceKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } return target; }\n\n/* @jsxRuntime classic */\n\n/* @jsx mdx */\nvar _frontmatter = {\n  \"author\": \"Martin Luther King, Jr.\",\n  \"bookTitle\": \"Strength To Love (sermons)\",\n  \"isBook\": false,\n  \"numSections\": 15,\n  \"tags\": [\"a\"],\n  \"templateKey\": \"book-page\",\n  \"title\": \"On Being a Good Neighbor\"\n};\nvar layoutProps = {\n  _frontmatter: _frontmatter\n};\nvar MDXLayout = \"wrapper\";\nreturn function MDXContent(_ref) {\n  var components = _ref.components,\n      props = _objectWithoutProperties(_ref, _excluded);\n\n  return mdx(MDXLayout, _extends({}, layoutProps, props, {\n    components: components,\n    mdxType: \"MDXLayout\"\n  }), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 0,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, mdx(\"i\", null, \"And who is my neighbor?\")), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 1,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"LUKE 10:29\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 2,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, mdx(\"span\", {\n    className: \"dropcaps2line\"\n  }, \"I\"), \" should like to talk with you about a good man, whose exemplary life will always be a flashing light to plague the dozing conscience of mankind. His goodness was not found in a passive commitment to a particular creed, but in his active participation in a life-saving deed; not in a moral pilgrimage that reached its destination point, but in the love ethic by which he journeyed life\\u2019s highway. He was good because he was a good neighbor.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 3,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"The ethical concern of this man is expressed in a magnificent little story, which begins with a theological discussion on the meaning of eternal life and concludes in a concrete expression of compassion on a dangerous road. Jesus is asked a question by a man who had been trained in the details of Jewish law: \\u201CMaster, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?\\u201D The retort is prompt: \\u201CWhat is written in the law? how readest thou?\\u201D After a moment the lawyer recites articulately: \\u201CThou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.\\u201D Then comes the decisive word from Jesus: \\u201CThou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.\\u201D\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 4,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"The lawyer was chagrined. \\u201CWhy,\\u201D the people might ask, \\u201Cwould an expert in law raise a question that even the novice can answer?\\u201D Desiring to justify himself and to show that Jesus\\u2019 reply was far from conclusive, the lawyer asks, \\u201CAnd who is my neighbor?\\u201D The lawyer was now taking up the cudgels of debate that might have turned the conversation into an abstract theological discussion. But Jesus, determined not to be caught in the \\u201Cparalysis of analysis,\\u201D pulls the question from mid-air and places it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 5,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"He told the story of \\u201Ca certain man\\u201D who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him, and, departing, left him half dead. By chance a certain priest appeared, but he passed by on the other side, and later a Levite also passed by. Finally, a certain Samaritan, a half-breed from a people with whom the Jews had no dealings, appeared. When he saw the wounded man, he was moved with compassion, administered first aid, placed him on his beast, \\u201Cand brought him to an inn, and took care of him.\\u201D\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 6,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"Who is my neighbor? \\u201CI do not know his name,\\u201D says Jesus in essence. \\u201CHe is anyone toward whom you are neighborly. He is anyone who lies in need at life\\u2019s roadside. He is neither Jew nor Gentile; he is neither Russian nor American; he is neither Negro nor white. He is \\u2018a certain man\\u2019\\u2014any needy man\\u2014on one of the numerous Jericho roads of life.\\u201D So Jesus defines a neighbor, not in a theological definition, but in a life situation.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 7,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"What constituted the goodness of the good Samaritan? Why will he always be an inspiring paragon of neighborly virtue? It seems to me that this man\\u2019s goodness may be described in one word\\u2014altruism. The good Samaritan was altruistic to the core. What is altruism? The dictionary defines altruism as \\u201Cregard for, and devotion to, the interest of others.\\u201D The Samaritan was good because he made concern for others the first law of his life.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 8,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, mdx(\"b\", null, \"I\")), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 9,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"The Samaritan had the capacity for a \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"universal altruism.\"), \" He had a piercing insight into that which is beyond the eternal accidents of race, religion, and nationality. One of the great tragedies of man\\u2019s long trek along the highway of history has been the limiting of neighborly concern to tribe, race, class, or nation. The God of early Old Testament days was a tribal god and the ethic was tribal. \\u201CThou shalt not kill\\u201D meant \\u201CThou shalt not kill a fellow Israelite, but for God\\u2019s sake, kill a Philistine.\\u201D Greek democracy embraced a certain aristocracy, but not the hordes of Greek slaves whose labors built the city-states. The universalism at the center of the Declaration of Independence has been shamefully negated by America\\u2019s appalling tendency to substitute \\u201Csome\\u201D for \\u201Call.\\u201D Numerous people in the North and South still believe that the affirmation, \\u201CAll men are created equal,\\u201D means \\u201CAll white men are created equal.\\u201D Our unswerving devotion to monopolistic capitalism makes us more concerned about the economic security of the captains of industry than for the laboring men whose sweat and skills keep industry functioning.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 10,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"What are the devastating consequences of this narrow, group-centered attitude? It means that one does not really mind what happens to the people outside his group. If an American is concerned only about his nation, he will not be concerned about the peoples of Asia, Africa, or South America. Is this not why nations engage in the madness of war without the slightest sense of penitence? Is this not why the murder of a citizen of your own nation is a crime, but the murder of the citizens of another nation in war is an act of heroic virtue? If manufacturers are concerned only in their personal interests, they will pass by on the other side while thousands of working people are stripped of their jobs and left displaced on some Jericho road as a result of automation, and they will judge every move toward a better distribution of wealth and a better life for the working man to be socialistic. If a white man is concerned only about his race, he will casually pass by the Negro who has been robbed of his personhood, stripped of his sense of dignity, and left dying on some wayside road.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 11,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"A few years ago, when an automobile carrying several members of a Negro college basketball team had an accident on a Southern highway, three of the young men were severely injured. An ambulance was immediately called, but on arriving at the place of the accident, the driver, who was white, said without apology that it was not his policy to service Negroes, and he drove away. The driver of a passing automobile graciously drove the boys to the nearest hospital, but the attending physician belligerently said, \\u201CWe don\\u2019t take niggers in this hospital.\\u201D When the boys finally arrived at a \\u201Ccolored\\u201D hospital in a town some fifty miles from the scene of the accident, one was dead and the other two died thirty and fifty minutes later, respectively. Probably all three could have been saved if they had been given immediate treatment. This is only one of thousands of inhuman incidents that occur daily in the South, an unbelievable expression of the barbaric consequences of any tribal-centered, national-centered, or racial-centered ethic.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 12,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"The real tragedy of such narrow provincialism is that we see people as entities or merely as things. Too seldom do we see people in their true \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"humanness.\"), \" A spiritual myopia limits our vision to external accidents. We see men as Jews or Gentiles, Catholics or Protestants, Chinese or American, Negroes or whites. We fail to think of them as fellow human beings made from the same basic stuff as we, molded in the same divine image. The priest and the Levite saw only a bleeding body, not a human being like themselves. But the good Samaritan will always remind us to remove the cataracts of provincialism from our spiritual eyes and see men as men. If the Samaritan had considered the wounded man as a Jew first, he would not have stopped, for the Jews and the Samaritans had no dealings. He saw him as a human being first, who was a Jew only by accident. The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 13,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, mdx(\"b\", null, \"II\")), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 14,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"The Samaritan possessed the capacity for a \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"dangerous altruism.\"), \" He risked his life to save a brother. When we ask why the priest and the Levite did not stop to help the wounded man, numerous suggestions come to mind. Perhaps they could not delay their arrival at an important ecclesiastical meeting. Perhaps religious regulations demanded that they touch no human body for several hours prior to the performing of their temple functions. Or perhaps they were on their way to an organizational meeting of a Jericho Road Improvement Association. Certainly this would have been a real need, for it is not enough to aid a wounded man on the Jericho Road; it is also important to change the conditions which make robbery possible. Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary. Maybe the priest and the Levite believed that it is better to cure injustice at the causal source than to get bogged down with a single individual effect.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 15,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"These are probable reasons for their failure to stop, yet there is another possibility, often overlooked, that they were afraid. The Jericho Road was a dangerous road. When Mrs. King and I visited the Holy Land, we rented a car and drove from Jerusalem to Jericho. As we traveled slowly down that meandering, mountainous road, I said to my wife, \\u201CI can now understand why Jesus chose this road as the setting for his parable.\\u201D Jerusalem is some two thousand feet above and Jericho one thousand feet below sea level. The descent is made in less than twenty miles. Many sudden curves provide likely places for ambushing and expose the traveler to unforeseen attacks. Long ago, the road was known as the Bloody Pass. So it is possible that the priest and the Levite were afraid that if they stopped, they too would be beaten. Perhaps the robbers were still nearby. Or maybe the wounded man on the ground was a faker, who wished to draw passing travelers to his side for quick and easy seizure. I imagine that the first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: \\u201CIf I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?\\u201D But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: \\u201CIf I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?\\u201D The good Samaritan engaged in a dangerous altruism.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 16,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"We so often ask, \\u201CWhat will happen to my job, my prestige, or my status if I take a stand on this issue? Will my home be bombed, will my life be threatened, or will I be jailed?\\u201D The good man always reverses the question. Albert Schweitzer did not ask, \\u201CWhat will happen to my prestige and security as a university professor and to my status as a Bach organist, if I work with the people of Africa?\\u201D but rather he asked, \\u201CWhat will happen to these millions of people who have been wounded by the forces of injustice, if I do not go to them?\\u201D Abraham Lincoln did not ask, \\u201CWhat will happen to me if I issue the Emancipation Proclamation and bring an end to chattel slavery?\\u201D but he asked, \\u201CWhat will happen to the Union and to millions of Negro people, if I fail to do it?\\u201D The Negro professional does not ask, \\u201CWhat will happen to my secure position, my middle-class status, or my personal safety, if I participate in the movement to end the system of segregation?\\u201D but \\u201CWhat will happen to the cause of justice and the masses of Negro people who have never experienced the warmth of economic security, if I do not participate actively and courageously in the movement?\\u201D\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 17,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others. In dangerous valleys and hazardous pathways, he will lift some bruised and beaten brother to a higher and more noble life.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 18,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, mdx(\"b\", null, \"III\")), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 19,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"The Samaritan also possessed \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"excessive altruism.\"), \" With his own hands he bound the wounds of the man and then set him on his own beast. It would have been easier to pay an ambulance to take the unfortunate man to the hospital, rather than risk having his neatly trimmed suit stained with blood.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 20,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"True altruism is more than the capacity to pity; it is the capacity to sympathize. Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one\\u2019s soul. Pity may arise from interest in an abstraction called humanity, but sympathy grows out of a concern for a particular needy human being who lies at life\\u2019s roadside. Sympathy is fellow feeling for the person in need\\u2014his pain, agony, and burdens. Our missionary efforts fail when they are based on pity, rather than true compassion. Instead of seeking to do something \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"with\"), \" the African and Asian peoples, we have too often sought only to do something \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"for\"), \" them. An expression of pity devoid of genuine sympathy, leads to a new form of paternalism which no self-respecting person can accept. Dollars possess the potential for helping wounded children of God on life\\u2019s Jericho Road, but unless those dollars are distributed by compassionate fingers they will enrich neither the giver nor the receiver. Millions of missionary dollars have gone to Africa from the hands of church people who would die a million deaths before they would permit a single African the privilege of worshiping in their congregation. Millions of Peace Corps dollars are being invested in Africa because of the votes of some men who fight unrelentingly to prevent African ambassadors from holding membership in their diplomatic clubs or establishing residency in their particular neighborhoods. The Peace Corps will fail if it seeks to do something \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"for\"), \" the underprivileged peoples of the world; it will succeed if it seeks creatively to do something \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"with\"), \" them. It will fail as a negative gesture to defeat Communism; it will succeed only as a positive effort to wipe poverty, ignorance, and disease from the earth. Money devoid of love is like salt devoid of savor, good for nothing except to be trodden under the foot of men. True neighborliness requires personal concern. The Samaritan used his hands to bind up the wounds of the robbed man\\u2019s body, and he also released an overflowing love to bind up the wounds of his broken spirit.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 21,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"Another expression of the excessive altruism on the part of the Samaritan was his willingness to go far beyond the call of duty. After tending to the man\\u2019s wounds, he put him on his beast, carried him to an inn, and left money for his care, making clear that if further financial needs arose he would gladly meet them. \\u201CWhatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.\\u201D Stopping short of this, he would have more than fulfilled any possible rule concerning one\\u2019s duty to a wounded stranger. He went beyond the second mile. His love was complete.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 22,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick has made an impressive distinction between enforceable and unenforceable obligations. The former are regulated by the codes of society and the vigorous implementation of law-enforcement agencies. Breaking these obligations, spelled out on thousands of pages in law books, has filled numerous prisons. But unenforceable obligations are beyond the reach of the laws of society. They concern inner attitudes, genuine person-to-person relations, and expressions of compassion which law books cannot regulate and jails cannot rectify. Such obligations are met by one\\u2019s commitment to an inner law, written on the heart. Man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love. No code of conduct ever persuaded a father to love his children or a husband to show affection to his wife. The law court may force him to provide bread for the family, but it cannot make him provide the bread of love. A good father is obedient to the unenforceable. The good Samaritan represents the conscience of mankind because he also was obedient to that which could not be enforced. No law in the world could have produced such unalloyed compassion, such genuine love, such thorough altruism.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 23,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"In our nation today a mighty struggle is taking place. It is a struggle to conquer the reign of an evil monster called segregation and its inseparable twin called discrimination\\u2014a monster that has wandered through this land for well-nigh one hundred years, stripping millions of Negro people of their sense of dignity and robbing them of their birthright of freedom.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 24,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"Let us never succumb to the temptation of believing that legislation and judicial decrees play only minor roles in solving this problem. Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless. The law cannot make an employer love an employee, but it can prevent him from refusing to hire me because of the color of my skin. The habits, if not the hearts, of people have been and are being altered every day by legislative acts, judicial decisions, and executive orders. Let us not be misled by those who argue that segregation cannot be ended by the force of law.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 25,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"But acknowledging this, we must admit that the ultimate solution to the race problem lies in the willingness of men to obey the unenforceable. Court orders and federal enforcement agencies are of inestimable value in achieving desegregation, but desegregation is only a partial, though necessary, step toward the final goal which we seek to realize, genuine intergroup and interpersonal living. Desegregation will break down the legal barriers and bring men together physically, but something must touch the hearts and souls of men so that they will come together spiritually because it is natural and right. A vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws will bring an end to segregated public facilities which are barriers to a truly desegregated society, but it cannot bring an end to fears, prejudice, pride, and irrationality, which are the barriers to a truly integrated society. These dark and demonic responses will be removed only as men are possessed by the invisible, inner law which etches on their hearts the conviction that all men are brothers and that love is mankind\\u2019s most potent weapon for personal and social transformation. True integration will be achieved by true neighbors who are willingly obedient to unenforceable obligations.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 26,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"More than ever before, my friends, men of all races and nations are today challenged to be neighborly. The call for a worldwide good-neighbor policy is more than an ephemeral shibboleth; it is the call to a way of life which will transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment. No longer can we afford the luxury of passing by on the other side. Such folly was once called moral failure; today it will lead to universal suicide. We cannot long survive spiritually separated in a world that is geographically together. In the final analysis, I must not ignore the wounded man on life\\u2019s Jericho Road, because he is a part of me and I am a part of him. His agony diminishes me, and his salvation enlarges me.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 27,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"In our quest to make neighborly love a reality, we have, in addition to the inspiring example of the good Samaritan, the magnanimous life of our Christ to guide us. His altruism was universal, for he thought of all men, even publicans and sinners, as brothers. His altruism was dangerous, for he willingly traveled hazardous roads in a cause he knew was right. His altruism was excessive, for he chose to die on Calvary, history\\u2019s most magnificent expression of obedience to the unenforceable.\"));\n}\n;\nMDXContent.isMDXComponent = true;","fields":{"slug":"/king-strength-to-love/2/"},"frontmatter":{"isBook":false,"title":"On Being a Good Neighbor","bookTitle":"Strength To Love (sermons)","numSections":15,"tags":["a"],"author":"Martin Luther King, Jr."}}},"pageContext":{"id":"b065918f-c571-570a-847a-46d8d1f2ba0d"}},"staticQueryHashes":["4080856488"]}