An Ethic of Neighborly Love
Jenna Frush, MD, MTS, Boston Medical Center
The intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Boston may not be a tourist destination, but it is a significant landmark to members of the community. It is home to countless people who have been relegated to the margins for various reasons including homelessness, poverty, and drug use. It also sits one block from the “mighty”[1] Boston Medical Center (BMC), an academic Level I trauma center. And while hospitals are meant to serve as places of refuge and healing, many who inhabit “Mass and Cass” or “Tent City,” as the area is colloquially referred to, have experienced quite the opposite at BMC, and are often ignored or even mistreated. These two seemingly contradictory worlds overlap geographically in a one-block radius, and yet are at times anything but neighbors.
In one of the most well-known parables in the Bible, Jesus gives the lawyer and his followers seemingly straightforward instructions on how to inherit eternal life. In addition to loving God, Jesus commands the love of neighbor. He then gives a demonstration of how we must respond to others—presumed strangers who are worthy of an intimate, unceasing love – through the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). What can the Parable of the Good Samaritan teach Christians about loving the “other”? Can this neighborly love be attained in such a broken world? How can medical practitioners, who may inhabit an entirely different reality than those patients with whom they interact, draw upon Jesus’ command of loving one’s neighbor in their daily practice?
In my short time as an Emergency Medicine resident physician at BMC, I have been gifted the opportunity to interact with this population on a daily basis. And it is my Christian formation that I look to as I navigate the ways in which I may develop an ethic of neighborly love in order to bear witness to healing, reconciliation, and flourishing. In this essay, I will explore the ways in which various theologians have considered the Parable of the Good Samaritan and its implications as instruction for loving one’s neighbors. Then, I argue that healthcare practitioners must consider both their vocation and their very livelihood through the perspective of the man on the road in Luke 10, first and foremost humbly acknowledging that we are loved by the true Good Samaritan, and ultimately submitting that the ethic of neighborly love may be utilized in the physician-patient relationship both within the hospital and outside of its walls.
[1] https://filtermag.org/bostons-methadone-mile-and-the-wars-on-drug-users-unhoused-people/
In one of the most well-known parables in the Bible, Jesus gives the lawyer and his followers seemingly straightforward instructions on how to inherit eternal life. In addition to loving God, Jesus commands the love of neighbor. He then gives a demonstration of how we must respond to others—presumed strangers who are worthy of an intimate, unceasing love – through the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). What can the Parable of the Good Samaritan teach Christians about loving the “other”? Can this neighborly love be attained in such a broken world? How can medical practitioners, who may inhabit an entirely different reality than those patients with whom they interact, draw upon Jesus’ command of loving one’s neighbor in their daily practice?
In my short time as an Emergency Medicine resident physician at BMC, I have been gifted the opportunity to interact with this population on a daily basis. And it is my Christian formation that I look to as I navigate the ways in which I may develop an ethic of neighborly love in order to bear witness to healing, reconciliation, and flourishing. In this essay, I will explore the ways in which various theologians have considered the Parable of the Good Samaritan and its implications as instruction for loving one’s neighbors. Then, I argue that healthcare practitioners must consider both their vocation and their very livelihood through the perspective of the man on the road in Luke 10, first and foremost humbly acknowledging that we are loved by the true Good Samaritan, and ultimately submitting that the ethic of neighborly love may be utilized in the physician-patient relationship both within the hospital and outside of its walls.
[1] https://filtermag.org/bostons-methadone-mile-and-the-wars-on-drug-users-unhoused-people/