Sermon 7-14-13 Who Is Our Neighbor?

     This story is far more than just a general moral command to go and help someone you see in need. In order to appreciate it, we have to remember that in Jesus’ day, the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other like poison. This hatred had gone on for centuries, since Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE. The Assyrians carried off the leaders of Israel, leaving only the poor to cultivate the land. Like Israelis and Palestinians today, both the Jews and the Samaritans claimed to be the true inheritors of the promises of Abraham and Moses and, therefore, both sides saw themselves as the rightful possessors of the land. The Samaritans had only the first five books of the bible (the Torah). They shared a common heritage with the Jews, but differed from one another radically in regard to the relative sanctity of Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim. The Jews considered the Samaritans to be heretics and breakers of the ceremonial law. They looked down on the Samaritans pretty much like we look down on the Muslims and the poor in America today. Yet Jesus chose the Samaritan to be, not the villain as his listeners would expect, but the hero of his story.

     The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a notoriously dangerous road. Jerusalem is 2,300 feet about sea level; the Dead Sea, near which Jericho stood is 1,300 feet below sea level. So, in somewhat less than 20 miles, the road rises

3,600 feet. It is a road of narrow rocky passages, and of sudden turnings which made it the happy hunting-ground of robbers. In the 5^th century, Jerome tells us that it was still called “The Red, or Bloody Way.” As late as the early 1930’s, a travel writer tells us that he was warned to get home before dark, if he intended to use the road, because a certain Abu Jildah was adept at holding up cars and robbing travelers and tourists, and then escaping to the hills before the police could arrive. When Jesus told this story, he was talking about the kind of thing that had happened through the centuries on the Jericho to Jerusalem road. The kind of thing that happens in the inner cities of our country today.

     One could argue that the traveler was a reckless and foolhardy character. People seldom attempted the Jerusalem to Jericho road alone if they were carrying goods or valuables.  Seeking safety in numbers, they traveled in caravans, like the wagon trains the settlers used to travel west. This man had no one but himself to blame. Walking alone in that kind of a neighborhood, of course, those people attacked him. He should have known better! Ah! Is Jesus suggesting that having only himself to blame is NOT a valid reason for us to refuse to help? That we must be prepared to help others even when they have brought their trouble on themselves?
      Wounded and unconscious, the traveler lay beside the road and a priest hurried by. Today we would say, A preacher late for an appointment drove past the traveler and thought, "You never know if it's safe to stop these days.

Someone's probably called 911 already.” The priest couldn’t be sure but he feared that the man was dead; to touch him would mean losing his turn of duty in the Temple; and he refused to risk that. The Temple and its liturgy meant more to him than human suffering. The priest set the claims of ceremonial worship above those of charity.  Yet the commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. You can’t love God without loving those God loves, all of his creation. The two parts of the “greatest commandment” are inseparable.

     The priests behavior certainly reminds me of God telling the priests of Israel, through the prophet Amos, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:21-24)
     A Levite seems to have gone nearer to the man before he passed by. But bandits were in the habit of using decoys. They would have one act the part of a wounded man, and when some unsuspecting traveler stopped over him, the others would rush upon him and overpower him. The Levite was a man whose motto was, “Safety first.” He would take no risks to help anyone else. Today, we might say,” A leader in the church drove by, but didn't stop. After all, it might be a setup for a car jacking.” You can’t love without taking risks

     Then, a Samaritan, one of those people, saw the wounded traveler and stopped to help. He came near. He was moved with compassion. Think of all the things Jesus tells us the Samaritan did: He went to the wounded traveler. He poured oil (a soothing agent) and wine (antiseptic) on the wounds and then bandaged his wounds. He put him on his animal and brought him to an inn. He took care of him at the inn. When he had to leave, he gave the innkeeper money to keep caring for him, promising to pay more if needed when he returned. These were things this man could not do for himself in his condition. The Samaritan did ALL that was needed. Not just enough to make himself feel virtuous. Clearly the Samaritan didn’t worry about making the wounded traveler dependent upon him. I think of helping others as a lot like using pain pills. When I had my knee replacement surgery, my doctor told me, don’t worry about taking pain medicine when you are really in pain. As you heal, we’ll reduce the dosage and when you are no longer in pain, you’ll have no problem stopping the pain pills.  Of course, you really have to have a relationship with anyone you’re helping in order to tell the difference between fostering dependency and truly helping. Are we willing to have relationships with the poor, the outsiders, those people?
     Then Jesus asked the lawyer, Which of these three do you think proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? While the answer to that question may appear to be obvious, "The Samaritan," that is not the answer the expert in the law gave, and that Jesus commended. The literal answer the expert gave was, "The one who showed mercy on him" (Luke 7:37). Jesus’ response, "Go and do likewise" is exactly his response to us, provided that we actually “do this” loving of God and neighbor. It’s not enough just to feel compassion. We have to actually start "doing" something. Compassion, to be real, must be shown in deeds. And the deeds must be done WITH those in need, not AT them. God’s gracious will is that we both give and receive love from whomever we consider “those people.”

     The lawyer asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor.” For the lawyer, God is the God of Israel, and neighbors are Jewish neighbors. For Jesus, Israel’s God is the God of grace for the whole world, and a neighbor is anybody in need. Jesus isn’t asking who the Samaritan regarded as his neighbor. He asked instead who turned out to be the neighbor of the half-dead Jew lying in the road. Underneath the apparently straightforward moral lesson (“go and do likewise”), one could see a much sterner challenge: Can you recognize the hated Samaritan as your neighbor? If you can’t, you might be left for dead.

Today, we might say: Can you recognize the poor minority single parent, or the alcohol or drug addict, or the unemployed veteran with PTSD as your neighbor?

     What lies at the heart of the confrontation with the lawyer then, is a clash between two quite different visions of what it means to be Israel, God’s people. What is at stake, then and now, is the question of whether we will use the God-given revelation of love and grace as a way of boosting our own sense of isolated security and purity, or whether we will see it as a call and challenge to extend that love and grace to the whole world.

     No church, no Christian, can remain content with easy definitions which allow us to watch most of the world lying half-dead in the road. And let’s face it, we are in the process of writing off at least a quarter of the residents of our nation as undeserving of a safety net. The passage of the agricultural bill without inclusion of the food stamp program, means a quarter of our children will go hungry. And that’s just the beginning of the drive to claim that the richest nation in the world can’t afford to take care of those in need. We have enough for those in need, just nowhere near enough for those with greed. 

     Anyone from any nation who is in need is our neighbor. Our help must be as wide as the love of God.