(Preached on Sunday, July 11, 2010)
What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers? -Luke 10:36
In Steinbeck's classic novel, East of Eden, Liza Hamilton serves as the matriarch of faith for her family. She is a pugnacious advocate of biblical morality and reads the scriptures daily as the guide for her life. Yet there are cracks in her pious veneer. Steinbeck describes her use of the Bible sublimely: Her total intellectual association was the Bible ... In that one book she had her history and her poetry, her knowledge of peoples and things, her ethics, her morals, and her salvation. She never studied the Bible or inspected it; she just read it ... And finally she came to a point where she knew it so well that she went right on reading it without listening.
That final line is haunting. When we hear today's Bible story, it is too easy to read it quickly and then move on because of its wide familiarity within our culture. “Oh, the Good Samaritan – I know what that one’s all about.” Yet biblical stories that are familiar to us are often the very ones whose messages have been muted rather than unleashed. So, let us be careful and come to the story of the Good Samaritan with fresh eyes and ears, seeking to truly see and truly hear.
Our first reaction to this story is undoubtedly to think about being a Good Samaritan in terms of the hot dishes our neighbors brought us when we had that death in the family. Or we think about the notion of Random Acts of Kindness. Stories like the small town banker who witnessed the owner of the flower shop across Main Street, one Friday afternoon, plugging coins into every parking meter. Wondering what she was doing, he asked and discovered that she just couldn’t stand seeing people get a parking ticket on Friday afternoon. It was just such a bad way to start a weekend. She was trying to be a good neighbor and show a little kindness. “Well aren’t you the Good Samaritan” he said as he chuckled to himself and headed back inside.
Yes, she was going out of her way to show mercy and caring, and what she was doing was wonderful and kind. But honestly this is not exactly what Jesus was getting at in this story. Part of the problem is that the story does not hit us in the gut the same way it did the lawyer who questioned Jesus, and the rest of those Jews listening to him, and even the early readers of Luke’s gospel. We get to the part where the Samaritan appears in the story and we get all warm and fuzzy feeling, thinking what a great role model he is and begin to promise ourselves we will try harder this week to be more like him.
That is not what the people who first heard this story from Jesus’ lips thought. For Jews, Samaritans were hated, despicable, the lowest of the low. Were Jesus telling the story in Jerusalem today, it would be a Palestinian who would come down the road and stop to help the poor man. Who would it be that would shock us today? If Jesus were telling the story in Phoenix, maybe it would be a Mexican undocumented immigrant? If he were telling the story on the streets of New York, perhaps it would be a Muslim? The point Jesus makes is that the person you least expect to be there, to reach out a hand, to demonstrate mercy and kindness and compassion, that is who comes down the road and acts as neighbor to you in this story. You plug that person into the role of the Samaritan. That is what Jesus invites you to consider.
There is much more to this story than a cutting critique of religious leaders whose actions don't match their preaching. There's more to it than merely a model of neighborliness. In this story, Jesus explodes expectations for God’s people and tears down notions of status in ways that invite his hearers to become part of God’s mission in the world today – a mission of radical grace, and acceptance, and mercy, and compassion.
The lawyer in the story represents us in our relationship with God. He was close. He understood that God was about love. He understood we are called to love God and to love our neighbor, that we cannot do one without doing the other. But, as the story states, he wants to “justify himself” – he wants to get this exactly right, in a head sort of way. He wants clear lines and definitions so that he can know what he has to do, and therefore, what he doesn’t have to do. “Who is my neighbor?” implies that some people are not, doesn’t it? Defining something means telling what its limits are. Where does it end? So tell me, teacher, who is my neighbor, the one I should love, so I know who isn’t my neighbor, the one I don’t have to bother with? We can understand that, can’t we? After all, there have to be limits, don’t there? We certainly can’t be expected to love everyone!
Jesus could have said, “EVERYONE is your neighbor!” But he didn’t. Instead, he told a story in which – surprise – we find out that the LEAST expected person is the one who fulfills the will of God. And the despised Samaritan shows a depth of compassion that touches even the lawyer. Of course, when Jesus asks who was a neighbor to the man who had been robbed and beater, the lawyer couldn’t even bring himself to say the word “Samaritan.” Be he did recognize the point of Jesus’ story and he said “The one who showed mercy.”
Jesus fully affirms his answer. But notice the action implicit in Jesus’ reply, “Do this, and you will live.” Life with God involves more than knowing correct answers. It is about actual practice. It is interesting that Jesus does not include the word “eternal” in his answer; it is a simple “you will live.” In other words, for Jesus what is important is living as a present reality and not merely a hoped-for prize at the end of life.
That is the real crux of this story. That is the really difficult directive from Jesus. He makes the statement twice, indicating the importance of the statement. With the command “Go and do the same” Jesus indicates that he fully expects the lawyer, and you and me, to go back to life and be transformed – not just in thinking, but totally – in the way we live our lives, in our priorities, in our feelings, in our values, in the way we practice our faith. Not just saying the right words at the right time in the right order, but loving and living with openness to God and to other human beings – to their joys and their suffering, their needs as well as their gifts.
See, Jesus understands that God doesn’t calculate mercies. God’s loving is like the sun and the rain which fall on good and bad alike. Grace is unearned and unmeasured. Grace is outflowing generosity. So the question is not “who is my neighbor?” but rather “to whom can I be a good neighbor?” Who or what the other person is does not in any way define the boundaries of loving. There are no boundaries. Their race, gender, marital status, skin color, education, political preference, religious preference, sexual orientation, age, nationality, are all irrelevant. All that matters is that there is another human being in need. To whom can I be a good neighbor as I travel the road of life? Will I be a person of grace, like the Samaritan, like God?
There is a book entitled The 100 Most Influential Persons in History, by Michael Hart. This is NOT a book about the greatest or the best people who ever lived, but the people who have had the most influence on shaping the history of the world. The book is written from a purely historical point of view, NOT from a religious one, so it is not a statement of faith, just one man’s observations. Whom do you think the author names as the most influential person who ever lived? He picked Mohammed. Does that surprise you? Were you expecting Jesus? Jesus is not even number 2! (Isaac Newton is.) The author puts Jesus Christ as #3 and explains why: rather than being a great political as well as religious leader (like Mohammed), Jesus is viewed primarily as an ethical teacher. (Remember, this is one person’s view, but I think we would all agree that Jesus was not a political figure.) Jesus’ most distinctive teaching, according to the author, is the one about loving your enemies, doing good to those who hate you, and turning the other cheek. The author goes on to say: Now, these ideas – which were not a part of the Judaism of Jesus’ day, nor of most other religions – are surely among the most remarkable and original ethical ideas ever presented. If they were widely followed, I would have had no hesitation in placing Jesus first in this book. But the truth is that they are not widely followed. In fact, they are not even generally accepted. Most Christians consider the injunction to ‘love your enemy’ as – at most – an ideal which might be realized in some perfect world, but one which is not a reasonable guide to conduct in the actual world we live in. We do not normally practice it, do not expect others to practice it, and do not teach our children to practice it. Jesus’ most distinctive teaching, therefore, remains an intriguing but basically untried suggestion.
These are hard words to hear. I find them hard just to read out loud to you. But the point is simple. Jesus understood that the lawyer knew what he needed to do. And you and I know what we need to do. It’s not a matter of knowledge. It’s a matter of doing. What Jesus gave us was not so much a set of beliefs as a way of life, and a significant part of that way of living is shown in our compassion for those who are suffering. Jesus is serious. Go and do it. It is the only way to live.