Thou Shalt Not Hide from Neighbors

The time for your mission has arrived. Trash bag in hand, you set poised to maneuver through a backyard strewn with little toy landmines, make it to the trash can in the alleyway, and return unscathed.

One last step before you go: a quick glance outside to see who is back there. Maybe you live in the suburbs and only see squirrels, but imagine houses so close that you can look out your window and into the eyes of your neighbors. According to tradition, American Colonel William Prescott commanded his troops at Bunker Hill, “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” At least ten households now stand within this range.

And so, you glance out as a soldier before entering enemy territory. In the naivete of youth, you might have just walked outside without the binoculared reconnaissance. Oh, the optimism of those days. But how many thirty-minute conversations with dear old Mrs. Staley — ones unveiling the newest medical reports about Muffles, her one-eyed cat — can one man endure? And better the slowly unfolding saga of Mrs. Staley’s feline than the awkward small talk with Mr. Olson, whom, in your bother, you doubt has ever had an interesting thought in his life. Not to mention the neighbors on the corner whom you suspect are participating in illegal activities.

You survey the landscape and anxiously calculate the cost, as a broke student scrutinizes the fancy restaurant’s menu on a date. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” Bilbo would say. So very true.

Hiding from the Lost

I have this selfish, squinted eye too often.

This quick scan is not limited to back alleyways in urban areas or always fixed upon neighbors. It is often the “inwardly calculating” eye of the stingy heart that wants to know how much everything is going to cost, and defaults on an unwillingness to pay (Proverbs 23:6–8). This heart doesn’t want to see needy or lost neighbors, doesn’t ever want to be inconvenienced or frankly bothered by others. It will be charitable on its own terms, but not put upon by one-eyed Muffles.

Nor by straying sheep. The ancient Israelites were not immune to a heart focused solely on its own interests, so God commanded them, “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother” (Deuteronomy 22:1 KJV). I quote the King James Version not simply because of its delicious elegance, but because of its literal translation of the Hebrew. It captures the original depiction of one gazing out of the window before taking out the trash: hiding. “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them.”

The “ignore them” of other translations strips the command of imagery, and with it, meaning. It is one thing to say, “Don’t ignore the straying sheep”; it is another to picture a man hiding from them, as Adam and Eve from God, or Saul from the crown (Genesis 3:8; 1 Samuel 10:21–22). One doesn’t ignore Jehovah’s Witnesses when they come knocking at the door; one hides, turns off the lights, and makes no movement or loud exhale until they’re gone.

The Israelite man was commanded not to hide — from good works, from holiness, or from loving his neighbor as himself. But duty becomes so complicated when costly. Imagine it. He sees the wandering animal and reasons that he didn’t lose his sheep. Nor did he schedule time for an animal return today, especially not to the front door of sweet old Mrs. Staley with the cat. Truth be told, he has more pressing things to do today. And tomorrow. And every day after. Besides, he isn’t Jerusalem’s Animal Control.

So, he hides himself from the spotlight of his own conscience. He ducks behind his selfishness and lets the animals wander off of his property and onto someone else’s. Or into the jaws of a predator — he doesn’t care. He has more important things to do, and so he sets off just as Jonah fled to escape his duty (Jonah 1:3). He doesn’t get far along the way when he hears an unmistakable braying from somewhere beneath. He looks down indignantly. Not again: “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again” (Deuteronomy 22:4 KJV).

He stares down at the helpless creature; it does look rather pitiful. He’s no veterinarian, but he guesses an injured leg. He almost joins the flies as they flock toward the donkey, but what then? Help the creature home? This would take all afternoon. He has more pressing things to do, both today and tomorrow — and the next day. But how is this loving your neighbor as yourself? he wonders with a flicker of shame, but it quickly passes. Besides, he reasons, he isn’t wearing arch-support sandals good for such a task. Given the circumstances, his neighbor will understand if he leaves one of his livestock to be eaten by predators. His neighbor could probably spare one anyway.

Who Is My Neighbor?

It is one thing — a sinful thing — to hide oneself from helping a neighbor’s animals. Having no regard for a neighbor’s property is disobedience to God. It is to be unwilling to pay an inconvenient price for kindness, to refuse the cost of righteousness.

I chased an animal around our neighborhood one morning in obedience to this text. A lady lost her furry friend, and this text came to mind. My neighbors, who again could all watch the event transpire at proximity, saw me in my Sunday clothes peeking behind bushes, around trash cans, and under decks for a stray animal I would never allow to live in my house.

“Shall I hide myself from those eternal beings I am left on earth to engage?”

But am I really guiltless because I was willing to chase a cat? What about my unwillingness to engage my neighbors? What about this heart that looks both ways to avoid a short conversation with a lost soul?

No, I do not leave my robbed and dying neighbor by the side of the road and cross to the other side like the men in Jesus’s parable (Luke 10:29–32). But don’t I peek out of my window and see if any robbed and dying soul is out back, making sure no one is on the street before I risk it? If God would teach me to have pity on my neighbor’s ox, should I not have pity upon my neighbor’s soul? Should Mrs. Staley perish in her sins because you and I have no heart to help her from the pit? Is Muffle’s medical history more unendurable than a lake of fire? Shall I hide myself from those eternal beings I am left on earth to engage?

Trash-Taking to God’s Glory

Saints, Jesus died to make us a different kind of people. He died to make us jealous for opportunities to do good. He died to make us those who wait to take out the trash until we see souls outside so that God can bless them through us. Our Savior Jesus Christ is he “who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14).

We are his possession. We live on his schedule, for his purposes. The hold on our hearts was so dark and deep that it took his death to liberate us from the penalty and power of our selfishness, and to purify us that we might be hot with anticipation and energetic for good works. Good works as we walk along the way; good works as we see straying sheep; good works as we take out the trash.

Give no more room to a selfish heart that makes for an exacting eye, a heart that hides from all the unscheduled good we might do in this world. Be ready in season and out. Walk in the works you’ve not planned but that the Father has prepared for you beforehand. Even take out the trash with an eye to the glory of God and the good of souls.