A meaty story and a famous one. The lawyer found his own answer uncomfortably simple when it was taken up in such a matter-of-fact way. It was suddenly up to him to act on his own advice. He tried to hedge by raising a new question: “Love my neighbor? Certainly. But who is my neighbor?” Who is within the cordon of fraternal fellowship with me? All men of my people and religion? Or only the good and desirable people? Where do you draw the line? Follows the story of the Good Samaritan. “Your neighbor? The alien and the heretic.” The logic of the reply demanded that some good Jew would be shown caring for a wounded Samaritan. Jesus gives it a smashing effectiveness by reversing the role and showing the hated Samaritan as the heroic lover of his kind. To get the situation we must remember the historic enmity between the Jews and the half-breed aliens who had stolen their land and their religion while they were exiled. If we substitute Spaniard and Moor, Kurd and Armenian, Serb and Bulgar, we may get the tension. _Who are our American Samaritans?_ Third Day: Raising the Standards We must live up to what we know is right, and we must expand the area of ethical obligation to take in even men of alien race and hostile religion. But beyond that, we need a conscious advance in the ethical standards themselves. Jesus worked out this principle with perfect clearness in a part of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:17-48. He states the need, and then shows in six cases how such an advance would work out. We shall take these up in their order. Matthew has introduced scattered sayings of Jesus which serve as corollaries, but which do not bear directly on the real course of the argument; for instance, Matthew 5:23-26; 29-30. In our quotations in this and the following days we shall confine ourselves to the main line of thought in order to concentrate attention on that. Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.... For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.—Matt. 5:17, 20. Apparently conservative Jews soon felt the spiritual freedom and force in the teachings of Jesus. He seemed to them to be attacking the sacred Law, the foundation of morality and religion. Jesus mentions the charge but denies it. His purpose was not destructive but constructive. He demanded not less righteousness but more. The lines of right living needed to be prolonged. The traditional standards were no longer adequate. A man might obey them and yet not be a good man. The scribes and Pharisees were the model church members of Judaism and experts in piety, yet they were not qualified to enter the Kingdom of God. _Are we also good people who are not good enough?_ Fourth Day: The Sins of Hate