How much are we really prepared to 'go and do' for love of neighbour's sake? it asks.
How much value does love place on a human being? The legalist wants to calculate that sum in very precise terms, so that he might know the limit of his moral duty. 'If I do this much, I have loved.' The effect of that kind of moral computation is to turn love into a very tepid thing; a vague, generalized benevolence which cannot possibly express the infinite preciousness of a human individual at all. We put our subscription in the famine relief fund, we buy our flag from the street collector, and we say, "There! I've done it. I've loved my neighbour. I've obeyed the command.'
'Rubbish,' says Jesus. 'You haven't even begun yet.' Have you noticed how very careful God is to express his command in the singular? 'You shall love your neighbour.' Love cannot be satisfied with charitable generalities. Says Charlie Brown indignantly in the Peanuts cartoon: 'Of course I love the human race, I just can't stand Lucy.' But Lucy is the measure of love.
Jesus is here concerned to show us that love requires an intensity of preoccupation with an individual. That is love's test. For the human race, we can do very little; that's why it's so easy to say we love them. But there is no limit at all to the lengths to which we might go in showing generosity to specific needy individuals who happen to cross our path, if we value them highly enough.
I'm not denying that the world today is in such great need that bureaucratic charity is necessary. Hungry people have to become statistics on pieces of paper that are passed around desks and offices and through computer memory banks. But be sure of this. That kind of de-personalized care cannot possibly fulfil our obligation to love as God sees it. Real neighbour-love can only flow in the context of a one-to-one, I–thou relationship. For only in such a relationship can the extravagance of love find practical expression.
