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"Who Is My Neighbor?"

Sermon by Dr. Greg Knox Jones
on Luke 10:25-37
given July 22, 2007

A physician named Ralph Crenshaw was vacationing in Venice and each night he was awakened at 3:00 a.m., by an eerie sound. It was a scraping sound, not exactly like nails on a chalkboard, but close enough. The first couple of nights he heard this metal on metal screech, he buried his head in his pillow and eventually was able to doze off. But on the third night, when the scraping began again at three o’clock in the morning, he decided to investigate. He wondered what on earth could be making that dreadful sound that kept disturbing his sleep. He parted the curtains a couple of inches and peeked out his window; and there he spotted an elderly woman, digging through the garbage cans. And, whenever she discovered some meat or fat scraps, she scooped them into small tin cans and scraped her spoon against the side of the can.

After she had filled a dozen of these cans, she set them in a circle around her feet. This was the sign they were awaiting. Once she placed the cans down, dozens of homeless cats hiding in the shadows knew that their daily meal was ready.

Once he returned to the states, Dr. Crenshaw reflected on this nightly ritual and compared it to the work of sixty of his medical colleagues in Oregon who have begun the hopeless task of reaching into the dark shadows of Portland’s poorest neighborhoods. He posed this question: What good does it do to feed these mangy cats - or to heal these poor people - when their misery will be as desperate tomorrow as it is today? He confesses that logically, it may do very little good. However, Crenshaw insists that it is the sort of thing doctors are called to do. They are to have compassion for those who need help, regardless of who they are, regardless of where they live and regardless of their ability to pay for the services they need. (1)

This morning’s passage from the Gospel of Luke is probably the best known parable of Jesus. Even people who know practically nothing about Christianity, know this much: people who call themselves “Christian,” are supposed to be good Samaritans. In fact, the word “Samaritan” has acquired very positive meanings. One dictionary defines a Samaritan as: “one who is compassionate and helpful to a person in distress.” The physicians in Portland helping the poor are a prime example.

Perhaps you can recall an episode when you extended kindness to another and the person called you a good Samaritan. If so, you may have blushed on the outside, but you beamed on the inside, because you know it was a sincere compliment.

However, when Jesus originally told this story, and when Luke shared it with the early church a few decades later, the word “Samaritan,” was anything but a tribute. It was a slur.

In the first century, a bitter tension between Samaritans and Jews was already centuries old. Jews viewed Samaritans as former Jews who had sold out their racial and religious identity.
The Samaritans were descendants of a mixed population who had opposed rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and who had constructed their own place of worship elsewhere. Looked down upon as social outcasts and religious heretics, Samaritans were the exact opposite of people such as the lawyer who encountered Jesus, and the priest and Levite in the parable. (2)

If we fail to recognize that the mere mention of the word “Samaritan” evoked in people’s minds a disreputable character, we miss the shocking nature of the story as Jesus first told it. To make the story work for you as it did for the initial audience, you need to think of a type of person whom you hold in very low esteem. A type of person that, just to think about, arouses strong negative feelings within you. Now, I know that on Sunday mornings we’re only supposed to have beautiful thoughts of other people, but right now I’m reaching for a little honesty, so think of this as Wednesday and who the people are that routinely set off unkind thoughts in your mind. Someone about whom you would say to yourself, “The world would be a better place if we could get rid of people like that.” That’s who the Samaritans were for the initial hearers of this story.

Our passage begins with a lawyer posing a question to Jesus. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus responds in good rabbinic fashion by asking the lawyer a question. He asks, “What is written in the law?” The lawyer is not like an attorney in today’s world, someone versed in civil or criminal law. Rather, he is an expert in the law of Moses. Thus he responds by quoting Scripture.

He says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence; and your neighbor as yourself.” By the first century, these two verses, one from the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy and the other from the 19th chapter of Leviticus, had been fused as a summation of the law. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself, that is the crux of the law. And after the lawyer makes this response, Jesus congratulates him, saying, “You have hit the nail on the head; do this, and you will live.” He did not mean he would be guaranteed a long life, he meant he would be guaranteed a full life.

That could have been the end of the exchange, however the lawyer poses one more question: “And who is my neighbor?” Why did the lawyer ask that question? Do you suppose it was because he is looking for a loophole? Maybe. Or, was he trying to trip up Jesus? Perhaps.
Could it be that the man had mulled over this question many times, and he thought he had a clever response that would impress Jesus and all those within earshot? We really do not know, because Jesus disarmed the man with his answer. He did not provide a legal definition or a quote from Scripture. Instead, Jesus told a story.

“A man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.” The story has some plausibility because this stretch of road was known to be dangerous. Those hearing the story had probably heard of other people - perhaps even knew someone - who had suffered such a fate on this notorious route. “Now by chance,” Jesus says, “a priest was going down that road; and when he saw (the man in the ditch) he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw (the man), he passed by on the other side.”

The priest represented the highest religious leadership among the Jews; the Levite was the designated lay-associate of the priest.(3) And when we hear this tale, we think: “What is the matter with these guys? How could they be so callous? How could they fail to perform a duty that would be expected of them?” Well, there’s the catch. By walking by on the opposite side of the road and not stopping to help, they were performing a religious duty that was expected of them.

As Jesus tells the story, the man might have appeared dead to them. If either of them made contact with a corpse, they would be ritually unclean and they would be disqualified from performing their temple responsibilities. So, when they spotted the victim, theirs was a choice between duty and duty. (4) They were in a bind. They had to make a choice, and as the point of the story makes clear, they made a poor one.

Jesus says that a Samaritan was also traveling the same road, and when he saw the man who had been badly beaten, something stirred within his heart and it motivated him to respond with compassion. It must have been a powerful feeling, because everyone knew that Jews were constantly putting Samaritans down and treating them as if they were trash. It would not have been surprising to anyone for the Samaritan to just keep on moving. Maybe even spit on the man as he passed by.

Yet he’s the one who stops, bandages the man and puts him on his own animal so that he can get him to an inn where he can recuperate. And the next morning, when the Samaritan must continue his travels, he gives the innkeeper money to care for the man. He even says that he’ll be coming back by this way, and when he does, he will check to see if the innkeeper incurred any further expenses in caring for the man. If so, the Samaritan will pay those expenses as well.

Jesus concludes with a question to which the answer is obvious. “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The lawyer cannot bring himself to say, “The Samaritan,” so he says, “The one who showed him mercy.” “Go and do likewise,” Jesus responded. “Go and do likewise.”

The story calls us to move beyond our comfort zones and into the risky world of need. To venture out of our safe neighborhoods occasionally, and go to Sojourners’ Place on Governor Printz Boulevard or to Emmanuel Dining Room near the train station. The story beckons us not simply to feel compassion about the needs we encounter, but to do something about them. To go on a mission trip to New Orleans or Guatemala, or to make a generous financial gift. More than a century ago, Dr. David Livingston said: “Sympathy is no substitute for action.” It is not enough to care about the pressing needs in our world, we need to engage them and to do whatever we can to alleviate them.

About the time Andrew Young’s daughter was graduating from college, she heard a Christian missionary speak about the plight of the people of Uganda. And the talk inspired her to go to that African country and do what she could to help. But, before she went, Young said he tried to talk her out of it.

“You could get hurt,” he said.

She responded, “Dad, I could get hurt anywhere.”

He pleaded with her, “But you could get killed over there!”

She responded, “Dad, I could get killed right here in Atlanta.”

He tried every angle he could think of to dissuade her, but she was determined.
And later, on reflection, Young said, “I guess what I had been wanting all along was for her to be a respectable Christian, but she decided to become a dedicated disciple.”

That is precisely what Christ expects of us; not simply to be a respectable Christian, but a dedicated one; not simply to be a proper Christian, but a committed one; not simply to be a sensible Christian, but a passionate one.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a practical application of the core commandment of our faith: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Yet, this parable has an edge to it. Jesus called the man who helped the one in need a “neighbor,” but he was not a neighbor in the usual sense of the term. He was not a friend, he did not have the same background and he held different beliefs. Jesus is telling his followers that we must stretch our boundaries beyond conventional wisdom. Our neighbors are not simply people who are more or less like we are, but anyone in need.

One day Mother Teresa got word that there was a family of Hindus living nearby who had no food. She did not ignore them because they were not Christians. Gathering up what she could, she took a bucket of beans and rice and visited the family. Then, after she left their house, the Hindu mother divided the food in half and took half of it to a hungry family of Muslims that lived nearby. (5)

Christ urges us to extend ourselves to others, no matter who they are. He teaches that anyone who is in need is our neighbor. Sue Monk Kidd remembers back to an experience she had when she was twelve years-old. On the last day of summer vacation, when her best friends were enjoying their final day of freedom at the swimming pool, she didn’t get to join them. Her mother insisted that she go visit a nursing home with her church youth group. She went to the nursing home with resentment smoldering in her eyes. She writes: “Smarting from the inequity, I stood before this ancient looking woman, holding a bouquet of crepe paper flowers...I thrust the bouquet at her...and she spoke the words I haven’t forgotten for thirty years. ‘You didn’t want to come, did you child?’

“Her words stunned me. ‘Oh yes, I wanted to come,’ I protested. A smile lifted one side of her mouth. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘You can’t force the heart.’(6)

You cannot force the heart, but your heart can be transformed. If you genuinely desire to love the way Christ loved, if you strive to be like the Good Samaritan who was truly a neighbor to the one in need, God will transform your heart. Meet the needs you encounter with the best you can muster, and just see what happens.

NOTES

1. Susan Andrews, “The Mirror of Mercy,” in Lectionary Homiletics, July, 2001, p.21.
2. Fred Craddock, Interpretation: Luke, (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), p.150.
3. Bruce Metzger and Roland Murphy, editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p.98 of the New Testament.
4. Craddock, p. 151.
5. Rich Mayfield, Reconstructing Christianity, (Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse, 2005), p.22.
6. Susan Andrews, “The Mirror of Mercy,” p. 22.

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