Jesus had reminded him that an important part of God's Law is that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. The lawyer asks because he is wondering if legally the term "neighbor" only refers to the Hebrews or goes beyond that.
Jesus proceeds to tell that famous parable about the Good Samaritan. A man - and it's never said if he is a Hebrew or not - goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho, falls into the hands of robbers, is stripped, beaten, left half-dead. Both a Priest and a Levite see him, but go on past. Both of them had solid reasons to pass him by: both professionally must have nothing to do with corpses and blood except for their work with sacrificial animals.
The one who eventually cares for the man, cleaning him up and taking him to an inn where he pays for him to be taken care of, then comes back to check up on him, is a Samaritan. Now Samaritans were not complete foreigners to the Hebrew people. They were enough like the Hebrews to be absolutely infuriating. They worshiped the same God, but with slightly different, though overlapping Scriptures. Instead of regarding Jerusalem as their sacred center, as the Hebrews did, they worshiped on Mount Gerazim. So - maybe minor differences - but enough for both groups to point fingers at the other and say "You're not one of us." Rather like the various Christian denominations today which are enough alike and enough different to get each other riled up.
Usually when this story is told, people say that the moral of the story is that the man, the human, the stranger, represents every one. Every one is our neighbor! God wants us to care for whoever God sends into our path who needs assistance. And, of course that's true. Of course that's Jesus' message. But there's another equally important message in this story.
The lawyer began this conversation by asking "Who is my neighbor?"
After telling the story, Jesus asks him "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?"
For Jesus, in this case, the neighbor is the person who, in his actions, had created neighborliness.
The lawyer replies "The one who showed him mercy." But this must have been difficult for him to say. He's had to get past his own repugnance and feelings of moral superiority before he could clearly see that this Samaritan, this highly suspect person, is capable of real goodness. And, if a Samaritan is capable of real goodness, then a Samaritan is capable of being loved and enlightened by and empowered by God.
Only one who is immersed in the life of God is capable of goodness!
Jesus wants this lawyer to travel past his comfort zone, to transcend being defined by being a Hebrew and to recognize that even those whom he despises are capable of being inspired by God to be compassionate. So, for Jesus, it's important for all of us to realize that whoever shows true kindness to another is being a true neighbor. Someone worthy of our respect. Someone equal to us in dignity, whether our "group" is friendly with his/her "group," or not. Jesus even says "Love your neighbor as you love yourself" and that includes everyone who is neighborly!
Hebrews and Samaritans were competitive with each other about who was closer to God. Much like Christian groups are competitive with each other today about who holds the higher moral ground. In fact, when I was growing up, Catholics and various Protestant groups wouldn't enter each others' Churches. If you were baptized a Protestant and converted to Catholicism, you had to be re-baptized. We don't do that any more, thank God. Catholics accept mainline Protestant baptisms as valid. Christians can be married in each others' Churches. Christians from different denominations can pray with each other and acknowledge that we don't have to play the game of "Which of us does God love best?"
Yet Church groups still like to talk about who's "in" and who's "out" of their group, including who's been married "in" the Church and who got married "out of" the Church. Which is why Pope Francis has eased and simplified the annulment process, made it free of charge, and also asked bishops and pastors to welcome those who have remarried without getting an annulment, and include them in their church congregations so that they don't feel like outsiders. It's time to welcome the gifts, the compassion, the spirituality of those who have remarried "outside the fold." To see them as equal members of God's family, equally loved by God.
We still are competitive with non-Christians. Many Christians don't even want to acknowledge that a Jew or a Hindu or a Muslim could do anything good or compassionate. Because, of course, to acknowledge neighborliness in another is to acknowledge that that person is somehow "in touch" with God, beloved of God - whether he or she uses the same Name for God. I remember the goodness, the neighborliness of the Muslim aide who cared for my aged Mom, told my Mom that she loved her. I saw God shining in that Muslim woman's eyes.
Again - how many of us can acknowledge that a gay, lesbian, or transgender person can be neighborly, be compassionate? Some want to take the moral high ground and say that straights are the only ones who have God living in their souls. That way they don't have to acknowledge that a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender person is equal to them in dignity and equally loved by God. I saw the "neighborliness" of a Lesbian couple raising a young daughter together, each holding her hand, bending to listen to her. I saw tenderness. I saw goodness. I saw God-ness. I have seen people with a different orientation pray, talk of believing in God, loving God, and loving their neighbor who is in need. Who am I to judge that person's soul?
I remember the black passers-by who helped me, a white stranger, out of my destroyed car when I was hit by a truck, and who waited for me until the Hispanic police officer came, a kind man who defended me against the truck driver who tried to insist - erroneously - that the accident was my fault. I have no knowledge of these Good Samaritans' religious beliefs, or if they even had any. But they were neighbors to me. Good, compassionate people. God, whether they knew God or not, was at work in their souls.
If we listen to Jesus, if we look with the eyes of God, the only group which we belong to is the group that God names "children of God" - and that's everyone. Jesus prayed for us to be one. We may not have the same beliefs. We may not have the same sexual orientations. We may not be the same color or speak the same language. Some of us are men; some of us are women. But as the lawyer said, our neighbor is the person capable of showing mercy, and every merciful neighbor is worthy of our being a merciful neighbor to him or her. Worthy of our respect. Worthy of being treated as equal to us. He or she is not outside our group because there IS no outside our group!
The only person whom we can look at with an assessing eye, then, is ourselves. The only one whose goodness or badness we can assess is ourselves. The only person we can call to conversion is ourselves. We leave everyone else to God's judgement. We remember Jesus' new commandment:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."
Whoever "lives in love" is one who "lives in God." The most complete Mystery in life is that so often the one whom we see being loving, showing mercy, is not someone whom we expect to be a loving, merciful person, is someone outside the narrow group that we've chosen for ourselves, is even someone whom we might find morally or intellectually or emotionally repugnant. Jesus continually calls us out of our comfort zone to look with fresh eyes on those whom we have discredited, even rejected. To find God unexpectedly in another is to expand our understanding of Who our mysterious God is!