The Unexpected Neighbor

This story isn’t about the lack of action by the priest and the Levite – rather, it’s meant to help us broaden our understanding of neighbor. Particularly if we’re the guy in the ditch.

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Luke 10:25-37

²⁵Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” ²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ³⁰Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ ³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

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Dear people of God, grace to you and peace this day from our loving God through Christ who bids us to go and do likewise.  Amen.

This Parable of the Good Samaritan is right up there with the Parable of the Prodigal Son in terms of the Big (albeit short) Stories of Jesus.  Even if you’ve never been in a church, you’ve probably heard some variation of one or both of these stories.

Now I’ve always heard the story of the Good Samaritan explained like this: the priest and the levite who passed by the man are supposedly passing by him so that they don’t become ritually unclean. The third man stops, and because he is a Samaritan, he has no worry about such cleanliness.

But I’ve been reading some wonderful words of the theologian Amy-Jill Levine. She is a Jewish New Testament scholar. Now that may sound a little odd, but I commend her work to you. It is really amazing.

Ms. Levine points out that the priest and Levite were going along the road to Jericho, not Jerusalem. So they weren’t going to perform priestly duties or anything of the kind. Becoming ritually unclean wasn’t at issue. Furthermore, she says, “Jews would have expected fellow Jews to attend not only to victims of attack, but to unburied corpses.”

But the real transformative words that she brings to this text are that Jesus intends for us to hear this story focused not on the priest and the Levite, but on the Samaritan as well as the man who was beaten by robbers. Here’s why.

To the man in the ditch, the Samaritan is basically his worst enemy. This man has been taught from early childhood to hate Samaritans. Samaritans and Israelites don’t get along. Kind of like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

So for us today, look at it from that perspective: it’s your mortal enemy that’s approaching you when you’re in need. Is he going to kill you or help you?

Those of you who are musical theater lovers might remember the song from the musical South Pacific called “You’ve Got To Be Taught.” It is sung by Lieutenant Ccable when he realizes that as much as he loves the Tonkinese girl Liat, he could not possibly marry her and bring her back to his Midwestern hometown. To be blunt: she would not be safe, not at all.  He can’t bring himself to subject this woman he loves so much to such hatred.

With no small amount of bitterness, he sings:  you’ve got to be taught to hate and fear/ you’ve got to be taught from year to year/ it’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear/ you’ve got to be carefully taught.  You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late/ before you are six or seven or eight/ to hate all the people your relatives hate/ You’ve got to be carefully taught.

I should note that Oscar Hammerstein II wrote those lyrics for a musical that premiered in 1949. It won the Pulitzer Prize, but its creators also endured quite a lot of backlash because of that song, and for the shows willingness to confront issues of race.

So considering our gospel lesson, Amy Jill Levine points out that Jesus uses this story to teach people about the -isms of their time. Certainly the way they treated Samaritans was a form of racism.

Doesn’t this perspective place this gospel story squarely into the category of teaching against?  And not just teaching against racism, but against sexism? Homophobia? Against all the other -isms that hold us back from truly realizing the reign of God?

The idea of being confronted with one’s “mortal enemy “ who has come to help brings to mind that distrust of Samaritans was taught, it was part of the culture of the community. Isn’t Jesus confronting the institutionalized racism of his day in the telling of this parable?

It’s not about those who passed by. It’s about the one who stopped to help, the breaking down of barriers to connecting with people, especially those labeled as “the other.”

Put yourself in the place of the injured man for a moment.  You are injured and hurting, and you hear people pass by you as if you didn’t exist.  Then someone comes alongside you and begins to help you.  You look up – and it’s the very last person you could ever imagine, or even stand, to be helping you.

And this person does far more than just say “I’ll call the police.”  This person brings a first aid kit from their car and begins to treat your wounds.  Once the paramedics arrive, this person goes with you to the emergency room and makes sure that the intake desk knows that they are to bill all costs to them, not you.

And a few days later, when you are on another floor recovering, this person stops by the hospital to visit you and make sure you are going to be ok.

This person – that you thought you hated.

This is a theme that makes for extraordinary cinema.  I’m thinking of the movie Philadelphia, where Denzel Washington’s journey from homophobe to ally is traced as he represents his gay client who was fired for having AIDS.

And the movie “As Good As It Gets” where Jack Nicholson, in peak obnoxious form, plays a character who is truly despicable – but who is somehow moved to care for his gay neighbor who is beaten up, and provide top-level medical care for the child of a waitress at the diner he frequents.  These actions begin a journey of his transformation.

I agree with Amy-Jill Levine.  I do think this is what Jesus is teaching here: that when we continue to perpetuate the biases, the bigotry and hatred we’ve been taught, we stand in the way of God.  But when we release all of those things, when we step out of our comfort zones and into the places where we must rely on God, then things will happen.  The Spirit’s winds will blow.

In our story, Jesus asks the lawyer “who was neighbor to the man?”  And the lawyer responds “the one who showed him mercy.”

The one he’d been taught to hate.

THAT guy.

I like to imagine what the ensuing years may have held for this man and this Samaritan traveler.  That they may have become good friends, regardless of how that might have gone over with their communities.

And I’m reminded of a gentleman in the church I served before I came to Shepherd of the Hills.

I was serving a six-month “bridge” pastorate, between the interim and the called pastor.  The church was in a suburb of Los Angeles, and many of the members had been employed in aerospace when the Space Race was on.  They were experiencing the same challenges as so many churches, of dwindling attendance and a sense of loss of what they were all those years ago.

I was warned by the office administrator about this one gentleman – that he was opinionated and difficult.  My job as bridge pastor was to hold things in place, not to blow it all up.  So I tried to get to know folks – but at the same time, I structured my sermons so that the gospel story asked questions of us.

A few Sundays after I started, this gentleman – Steve – came up to me after worship and said, “Well – I don’t think I agree with you, but you make me think.  So – thanks.”  And he walked off.

But the Spirit had begun her always-amazing work.

At one point, I mentioned my son Tim, serving in the Army.  Steve figured I couldn’t be too bad if my son was in the Army.

Some discussions during coffee hour after church went well.

And as I think about it now, what I did was listen, and ground everything that could be labeled “social justice” in Jesus’ words.  That helped immensely.

Steve was the polar opposite of me in terms of politics and many other things.  But he loved Jesus, and he loved his church.  And he was willing to listen to new ideas even if it made him uncomfortable, because he found it hard to argue with Jesus.

On the day the congregation came to a decision on the pastor they would call, Steve came over afterwards and gave me a hug.  “I’ll miss you,” he said.  And it was then I noticed the tears in his eyes.

To this day, I am incredibly thankful that God steered me in a direction that allowed Steve and I to become friends. Had either of us stuck to our guns, it never would have happened.

And this is what Jesus is telling everyone in this story.

All these barriers you’ve made, he says – break them down.  Kick them over.  Every person is just trying to get through the day.

It’s like the bumper sticker says: everyone is carrying a burden.  Be kind.

There is a wonderful movie called Chocolat from some years ago that explores this whole idea of who is acceptable, and who is not.  Most of the film takes place during Lent in a small French town, and it follows the townspeople as they are liberated from what holds them back and find their way into living fully and completely.  I won’t give you any spoilers, but I will say if you’ve not seen it, you can watch it on Amazon Prime Video.  And you SHOULD.  It’s a wonderful movie.

As the action moves to Easter, much transformation in the folks in the town has taken place.  And the priest says this in his Easter sermon:

“I want to talk about Christ’s humanity, I mean how he lived his life on earth: his kindness, his tolerance. We must measure our goodness, not by what we don’t do, what we deny ourselves, what we resist, or who we exclude. Instead, we should measure ourselves by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”

That is what Jesus is saying in this story.  If you must measure, then measure by what you embrace, what you create, and who you include.

For that is the way of Jesus.  Amen.

Citizens AND Saints

Jesus didn’t say “when you pray, go the the absolute center of the field on the 50-yard-line…..” but rather that our faith might be known by our love for our neighbor. Luther also has something to say about governing from ONLY a secular or sacred base, and neither is complimentary! As always, we move in the world from a both/and perspective – we can be both a citizen of a country and a saint of God with allegiance only to God, not to any country. Challenging? Absolutely.

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10After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. ²He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. ³Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. ⁴Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. ⁵Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ ⁶And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. ⁷Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. ⁸Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; ⁹cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ ¹⁰But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ¹¹‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ ¹⁶“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

¹⁷The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” ¹⁸He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. ¹⁹See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

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Dear friends, beloved of God: grace to you and peace this day from God through Christ, who really does send us out in such a way.  Amen.

Let’s face it: the words “evangelism” and “evangelical” have the ability to scare folks away.  Both inside AND outside the church.

The idea that we go out into the world and tell people about God is something that clashes with the idea of a country in which the separation of church and state is supposed to be important.  In which personal freedoms are held dear.

But here’s the thing: as I mentioned last week, Jesus does not send these seventy-odd folks out to coerce.  To upsell.  Or even to sell at all!

This is where the mission and message of Jesus REALLY clashes with our world: it is a message of God’s reign come near.  Incredibly simple – and also incredibly challenging.  It’s not about numbers, production, or any of the other values that our society claims are important.

Both these words, “evangelism” and “evangelical”, have their roots in the Greek evangelii which means “good news.”  Both have also been co-opted across the years as a means to a particular end, generally an agenda that takes great liberties as to the nature of the reign of God.

“Evangelism” brings to mind people coming to your door and monopolizing your time with tracts and booklets and warnings about how you really should consider THEIR way of following God – at least, if you want to go to heaven.

It brings to mind massive rallies and revivals that may have served God well in the past, but that have also served as fronts for political campaigns.

And the word “evangelical” has today become so associated with an aggressive, extreme-right flavor of politics – characterized by a flagrant marriage of church and state – that many of us are finding ourselves over and over again having to explain how we “aren’t like those Christians.”

There has even been much discussion in our own ELCA about dropping the “E” word from our name, because of the negative association it carries for many, many people.

And so this gospel story today does a good job of reminding us what evangelism REALLY looks like:  There are aspects of receiving and giving.  Keeping things simple.  Leaving any judgment to God.

And not rejoicing because of the cool things we did – but rejoicing because of God’s kingdom.

Unfortunately, much of what we see as “Christianity” in the public sphere today looks nothing like this, and so what we think of as “evangelism” feels like it may be doomed from the start.

Perhaps what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us is that it’s time to rethink some things.

Both our Imagine Team and our Faith-Land Stewardship Cohort have been involved in

this kind of re-thinking work.  Moving away from the assumptions and stereotypes of the past.  On both teams, we are learning about the importance of four particular culture shifts:

*From ownership to stewardship

*From doing for to accompaniment

*From property to land or earth

*From scarcity to abundance

We see these shifts happening in this gospel story.  Instead of taking stuff with them, the folks sent out are told not to take ANYTHING.  They become stewards of their time, their mission. 

When they are welcomed into a home, they are not to lecture but rather accompany their hosts – be in relationship with them.

That seventy are sent is symbolic of all the nations of earth, as laid out in early Scripture.  Boundaries don’t hold the same meaning; this message is for everyone.

And in his proclamation that “the harvest is plenty” Jesus states clearly that God has prepared the abundant harvest, and Jesus is calling for laborers at harvest time.

Jesus does not define what the harvest is; that is for the seventy to discover as the go – as they move without baggage, literally and figuratively, on a journey that takes them beyond the restrictions they may have lived with up til now.

It’s not a grand plan of manipulation and twisting things to suit God’s agenda.  It is simply living into God’s reign of justice and joy.

There has been much talk in the last few weeks about whether the separation between church and state in this country is crumbling.

The troubling thing is that it appears to be only one particular flavor of one church for which that barrier is falling – though the press releases seem to paint it as the ONLY flavor.

It brings to mind Luther’s observations on an either/or approach to church-state separation:  “When the temporal government or law alone prevails, there sheer hypocrisy is inevitable….On the other hand, when the spiritual government alone prevails over land and people, there wickedness is given free rein and the door is open for all manner of rascality.”

[That’s my new favorite word: RASCALITY.]

Luther felt that God worked distinctly between all, yet equally in all arenas of life, whether spiritual or civic.  This view might seem odd in a culture and climate like ours where, by and large, either God stands against worldly institutions in a battle between the “sacred” and the “profane” – or God’s work in the church and in secular institutions are regularly confused, and even conflated.

But I submit that in our complicated world, we do well to consider Luther as we navigate these turbulent waters. According to Luther, God is seen as having tasks at God’s right hand and tasks at God’s left hand, working in many and various ways for the good of humanity. Traditionally, the right hand side is the spiritual and the left is the temporal (no superiority is either stated or implied!).

Luther’s theology invites us to imagine more fully how our life in the church enables and sustains our life in the world as believers who live simultaneously in both of God’s realms, spiritual and temporal or civic.  We not only perceive God’s work in the political institutions of life, but we join God in such work by, for instance, voting conscientiously, holding officials accountable regularly, protesting the abuses of government readily, and so on, all for the good of neighbor and the world. In short, we ask not whether God is at work in the political institutions of our world, but rather – and always – how.  And how God invites us into that work.

Jesus’ words to the seventy when they return are a reminder that it’s not about them in terms of what they did, but of who they are – beloved of God.  It’s about God’s actions through us, not our own actions.  By this we know that God keeps God’s promises to us, regardless of whether we feel prepared or even worthy.  By this we also know that God calls us into prayerful discernment about God’s work in the world, and not simply inserting our preferences in place of that divine work.

There is a wonderful song from the Caribbean that puts images into this concept of God’s right hand, working things in the spiritual realm that have impact in the civic realm; not through force or coercion, but through love.

It’s called “The Right Hand of God”.  It’s in our Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, in the section called “National Songs” and it seems so appropriate to sing it this Sunday, as we are reminded how God calls us to be both citizen AND saint:

1 The right hand of God is writing in our land,
writing with power and with love,
our conflicts and our fears,
our triumphs and our tears
are recorded by the right hand of God.

2 The right hand of God is pointing in our land,
pointing the way we must go,
so clouded is the way,
so easily we stray,
but we’re guided by the right hand of God.

3 The right hand of God is striking in our land,
striking out at envy, hate, and greed.
Our selfishness and lust,
our pride and deeds unjust,
are destroyed by the right hand of God.

4 The right hand of God is healing in our land,
healing broken bodies, minds, and souls,
so wondrous is its touch
with love that means so much,
when we’re healed by the right hand of God.

5 The right hand of God is planting in our land,
planting seeds of freedom, hope, and love.
In these Caribbean lands,
let people all join hands,
and be one by the right hand of God.

Rejoice, dear people, for your names are written in heaven.  Amen.