In Luke 10, we can read a story about lawyer questioning Jesus about how to inherit eternal life.

I have always interpreted “eternal life” as something that we can experience today, right now, rather than something that we wait to experience in an afterlife. For me, eternal life means: “Life in its fullest.” It is living with a deep sense of joy, gratitude, meaning and fulfillment.

Jesus says that the way to experience this kind of life is to love God and to love our neighbors. “If we do this,” says Jesus, “we will live.” If we love our neighbors, we will have life abundantly, fully and eternally.

Most of us have had this truth affirmed. For how many times did we go somewhere with the intentions of blessing our neighbor, only afterwards to discover that we were the ones who received a blessing?

The lawyer then asks: “and who is my neighbor?”

The purpose of his question was to test Jesus’ understanding of societal boundaries. Like most societies, first-century Judaism was ordered by certain boundaries that had specific rules regarding how Jews should treat Gentiles or Samaritans, or how priests should relate to Israelites, or how men should relate to women, and so on. Walls were erected and divisions were created for the purpose of ensuring that certain groups would always maintain their positions of power and privilege.

Jesus responds to the lawyer’s question by telling the beloved story of the Good Samaritan. And, of course, as he tells this story of selfless and sacrificial love, Jesus tears down every social wall we erect that separates us from others.

One of the reasons that the new church expression of church we planted in New Orleans did not have a building is because we wanted to be known as “the church without walls.”

After Jesus tells a story of love without walls, Jesus says to the lawyer that he should “Go and do likewise.”

In other words, go and break down every barrier that divides and separates people from one another. Go and find people who have been beaten up so badly by the world: by mental or physical illness, by addiction, by poverty, by racism, by sexism, by all kinds of prejudices and bigotry. Go and find people who have been so dehumanized by the world that they feel half dead, half alive, even half human. Go and find them, and then stop, stoop down, reach out your hands, and touch them. Climb a wall or knock one down if you must. Take a risk and touch them in the places they most need touching. Cleanse and bandage their brokenness. Selflessly give of yourself. Sacrificially pour yourself out. I don’t care how much it costs. Use all that you possess to pick them up. And don’t stop there. Never stop there. Not only offer aid today. Promise to there for them tomorrow and the next day. Offer them hope for a better future. If you must leave them, make a promise that you will be back. Make it known to them that they are more than a service project to you. Make it known that you their friend, their sibling.

It has been my experience that when it comes to loving others in this selfless and sacrificial manner, the church can be very good. However, when it comes to people living in extreme poverty, it sometimes seems like we are only good at helping them when we do not know them that well. We are good about writing a check to some other organization or other agency that knows them. Could it be that we rather would not know them and know the forces of injustice that broke them or beat them down in the first place?

This is why I am convinced that the most important word in this beloved parable is the word “Go.”

Jesus never said anything close to: “Do likewise for those people who come to you.” “Do likewise for those who come to you to worship like you and believe like you.” “Do likewise for those who live like you and dress like you.” “Do likewise for people with whom you are comfortable within the boundaries you have set, the walls you have built.”

No, he said quite the opposite. And remember, he is still answering a question about eternal life. If we want to experience eternal life, life that is perpetually abundant, full, joyful and meaningful, then we must “GO and do likewise.”

We must go outside of our walls and outside our comfort zones to find people who feel half alive, half human, even half dead. And then, give of ourselves, bend ourselves down to the ground if we must, do whatever it takes, give whatever we must meet the needs of others and then learn to know them, to really know them, and to know the unjust causes for their plight. And then promise to be with them, now and in the future.

Moshe is a prophet in Elie Wiesel’s book entitled The Oath.

Moshe was speaking with Azriel, the narrator of the story one evening after a meeting at the synagogue.

“You go to school?”  asked Moshe. “To what purpose?”

“To learn,” said Azriel.

“To learn what?”

“Torah,” the boy said uneasily (That’s the first five books of the Old Testament).

“Torah is life,” said Moshe, “and life must be lived; it cannot be learned from books, between four walls.”

“I thought,” said Azriel, “that Torah is more than life, since God himself submits to its commandments.”

“God too must be lived, my boy,” said Moshe. “You must go and live God, not study God in books, between four walls.”

“Living God” sounds like eternal life to me. And we cannot do it solely inside four walls. We must go.