Proper 10C
I was always a pretty
good student. I read a lot, a studied
hard, I tested well, and I raised my hand a lot in class. When I got older,
outside of the classroom, a group of friends and I would often go across the street
to the local pub and continue our debates about philosophy, religion and
current events. I had found my people.
At our best our conversations stretched us and encouraged us to think outside
the box. But, at our worst, we could
become like the lawyer in today’s gospel, asking questions aimed not at
building one another up, but rather asked in an effort to trip one another
up.
So the lawyer asks
Jesus “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus flips the question
back on the lawyer who rightly responds – love God and love your neighbor. So the lawyer tries again and asks Jesus,
“and who is my neighbor?” Now this seems an odd question to ask because, of
course, we all know who are neighbors are.
They are the people who look like us, think like us, make choices we
would make and generally are fun to be around. They are my classmates at the
pub. They are the people from our yoga or spin classes, they are the people who
vote like we vote, are outraged by the same things that outrage us.
But Jesus throws a
wrench in it all by telling a story that has come to be called the Parable of
the Good Samaritan. The problem with
that title, however, is that it focuses our attention on the wrong character.
To be sure, the Samaritan does became the unlikely hero in the story – caring
for the man at the side of the road – a man who has been beaten by robbers – a
man who has been actively avoided by a priest and a Levite – both of whom we
would expect, due to their love of God, would stop and offer help. So the Samaritan, a typical “bad guy” in most
stories told by the Jewish people in the first century becomes the hero. But if we focus too much on the Samaritan in
the story we end up with an odd moral – perhaps something like, “See, not ALL
Samaritans are bad people.” And, if we
want to bring the story up to today’s socio-political climate we might hear
ourselves saying, “See, not all homophobes are bad people” or “See, not all
racists are bad people.” Jesus point in
using a Samaritan as the hero is to highlight to the lawyer that if EVEN a Samaritan
knows the right thing to do, then surely you a lawyer, or a priest or a Levite
ought to know the right thing to do.
But focusing on the
Samaritan doesn’t answer the lawyers question: “who is my neighbor?” And while
Jesus’ parables may sometimes be a bit odd, they always do answer the question
asked. Who is my neighbor? Jesus says,
“a man [who] was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands
of robbers, [who] was stripped, beaten and left half dead on the side of the
road.” That is your neighbor. This man
whom we know nothing about – not his religion, not his city of origin, not his
political views, not his race, not his sexuality, not his economic status. This
man who needs help is our neighbor. And we will demonstrate our love of God and
our neighbor by the manner in which we treat this unknown person in need of
help. To highlight this point, Jesus
presents two highly religions people – a priest and a Levite – who fail to act
in compassion and compare them to the complete, relentless, boundless care
offered by the Samaritan. Our neighbor is anyone who is in need of God’s love
and mercy. And at any point in time that
person may be you or it may be me. It may be a stranger you pass on the street.
It may be an incarcerated child at our southern border. It may be a trans
teenager who has been kicked out of their home.
It may be a Trump-supporter or a Kamala Harris supporter – you decide
which is more challenging for you. The
point Jesus makes is this: we do not get to choose our neighbors. For all are
our neighbors.
But what we do get to
choose is our response. That response is
easy when it is someone we know and like.
But it becomes more challenging when it is an outsider, a stranger, or
someone we dislike or with whom we disagree. And Jesus reminds the lawyer – and us – in the
telling of this story – that devotion to God means acting in ways that
represent God’s love and mercy no matter what.
I was recently called
to attention by a post on Facebook. It read, “Have you ever wondered what you
would have done during the Holocaust? It’s whatever you are doing or not doing
now.” The Concentration Camps of the Nazis are not the same as the Detention Centers at our border, but the words certainly caught my attention. God calls us to act in mercy and love at all times, in all places. . . .
whatever the cost.
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