Who is My Neighbor

 Luke 10:25-37 July 10, 2022 Rev. June Wilkins

 

The good Samaritan is one of the most familiar of Jesus’ parables

So much so that the term Good Samaritan is a cliché in our language. 

There’s “Good Samaritan hospitals” There’s “good Samaritan laws”. 

Even someone who’s never heard of this story – or even the bible– 

knows what a “good Samaritan” is.

It means someone who does something good for a stranger in need.

 

That is usually our understanding of this parable too.

Be nice to strangers. That’s the whole thing. 

No need to go on with the sermon, right?

 

But does Jesus ever just give a nice story with a swell easily

Wrapped up moral, does he?

Of course not.

 

Especially not to a lawyer who it says is trying to test Jesus.

Now when it says lawyer,

it’s not exactly like we understand lawyers today.

Back in Jesus’ day, Jewish lawyers were those people who

understood and interpreted the law of Moses.

They were religious leaders too.

 

The question this lawyer asks doesn’t seem too outrageous.

It’s a question that we all want to know the answer to:

“What do we have to do to inherit eternal life?”

But Jesus knows that this man knows the answer, already.

He works with the law every day. He has studied and interpreted it.

It’s an answer that the lawyer has heard since he was a boy.

So Jesus throws the question back to him.

What’s written in the law, lawyer?

 

And the lawyer says it:

“Love the lord your God with all your heart soul strength and mind

and love your neighbor has yourself.”

 

Jesus says, Sure that’s perfect.  Now go do it, that’s the hard part.

 

And I’m sure if the guy had left it at that,

we probably wouldn’t have heard about this story

But the guy doesn’t leave it at that. 

 

It says that the man wanted to justify himself.

In other words, he wanted to make sure that he had

already done what was necessary to inherit eternal life.

He wanted to check it off his list.

He wanted to go away knowing that he was

secure and had earned it already.

 

This shouldn’t be foreign to us, we do it all the time.

Just read the bible for a little while and see how you do it in your head.

 

So the man asks the question to justify himself,

“Who is my neighbor?”

The man was hoping that Jesus would answer with something like:

“Your family, your friends, the people who live next door,

anyone who looks like you, those who are culturally similar,

or at least tolerable to you, those people who don’t make you feel uncomfortable, 

the people who you already like.

That is your neighbor” He would have loved for Jesus to tell him that. 

He would have been able to justify himself.

 

But Jesus doesn’t let him do that.

Jesus never gives a simple comfortable answer.

Jesus always has something up his sleeve.

 

So Jesus tells the story of a traveler

on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

This was a notoriously dangerous road.

Someone was bound to get robbed and beaten up on this road.

And the story does not disappoint.

He’s left on the side of the road half dead.

 

Then Jesus says that a Levite and a Priest go by.

As you might know, Levites and priests are the Jewish 

religious leaders the dedicated temple workers,

the ones that everyone looks up to and assumes

will follow the law and ways of God.

 

But when they come across this other guy in the road who needs help, 

they both cross to the other side of the road to avoid him.

Now we don’t know why. Maybe they were in a rush.

Maybe they were afraid, it was a bad neighborhood after all.

Maybe they didn’t want to get involved. There could be

countless reasons why. Think of all the various reasons

that you or I have not helped a person in need when we’ve

seen them. The point is, the church people did not help.

 

And then here’s where Jesus delivers the whammy.

Now everyone knows, since the beginning of time,

that all stories happen in threes.

 

And if the first two guys fell through,

then the last would be the hero of the story.

So the people hearing Jesus story

are ready for the hero to come in.

And that hero was a Samaritan.

 

Samaritans were hated by Israelites.

They were originally Israelites, but years ago had stayed behind

in a gentile land and married gentiles.

The Good Samaritan
Dinah Roe Kendall

They were looked down on by Jewish people,

They were seen as second-class citizens.

 

Most Jewish people didn’t include Samaritans

in the scope of God’s favor.
For a Jewish person to call someone a Samaritan was an insult.

 

And yet that is how Jesus’ story goes, The Samaritan comes near, 

the Samaritan is moved with pity. The Samaritan helps the man, 

takes care of him and saves his life. 

The Samaritan is the one who fulfills the law to love your neighbor as yourself. 

The Samaritan is the one who acts like a neighbor. 

And is also the one that the hearers of the story should be like, 

should emulate, should aspire to be like.

A shocker to all that lawyer, and the disciples

and all the other people hearing this story.

 

For Christians, this story might be rephrased:

A person was beaten up and left for dead,

A great pastor crosses to the other side of the street to avoid them,

and a beloved church member crosses to the other side to avoid them,

just then – and then we can fill in the blank ourselves

-- whoever we look down on, whoever we might believe

should be living up to God’s grace a little more,

whoever we consider a second-class citizen.

Not worthy of the treatment we receive. . .

an ex-convict, an atheist, a Russian soldier, an illegal immigrant,
an activist, the prostitute, the teen who rifled through your car last week and stole all your loose change, just then, that person, whoever you think is ruining America, whoever you don’t want moving in across the street from you, that person is moved with pity

and comes over to help the one in the road.

Now, this a super-clever story on Jesus part.

Jesus could have easily made the Samaritan the person that

was beaten up and left on the road for dead

And then the moral would be to help that person.

That is often the position that we put people who

are oppressed, hated, or outcast when we’re trying to include them.

We make them people that need help because

they’re so hopeless and they’ll never get anywhere

without our good guidance like ours.

They just need help to learn to be like us.

Learn our way. Poor, poor Samaritan.

 

But no. Jesus takes the Samaritan, the hated one,

and puts him in the role of the one who helps

The one who is to be admired, emulated, imitated, learned from.

Jesus tells the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.”

Go and be like him. Find your eternal life in that whole arrangement.

 

Remember, the original question was

“What must I do to gain eternal life?”

And here is another layer to this amazing story.

Jesus is saying with this story that our salvation will not

be found with the religious leaders,

or the religious institutions.

 

Our salvation is found in the outsider,

the one who is despised, outcast, pushed aside.

Our salvation is found in the second class citizen,

whoever that may be at the time.

Not just to look and to help and have pity on,

but to emulate, to learn from, partner with.

That’s the new system Jesus has ordained.

In other words, for the people of God,

Salvation is found by looking outside the people of God.

 All this with a simple story about a man who gets robbed.

 

Jesus tells this man that we cannot put a box or limits on God’s love. 

God will be working wherever God is needed, God will be on the dangerous roads, 

in the streets of the city, in another country.

 

God will even work through those that we have labeled as unholy,

even through those that are not in our little exclusive group of saved people. 

And, on occasion, God will even work in and through us,

the people of Christ’s church

 

Jesus is love and mercy,

Jesus has rescued us, cleaned our wounds,

taken us to a safe place, and paid for our protection.

Jesus was the one who was despised and looked down on

and he was crucified for it.

 

Jesus has shown us how to be neighbors to each other,

by being our neighbor first, even when we don’t deserve it.

 

And that love and mercy

is what moves us to go and do likewise.