Lectionary 15C Proper 10 2022
Grace Lutheran Church
Lakeland, FL
July 10, 2022
Amos 7:7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10: 25-37
Grace to you, dear children of God, and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Please pray with me.
I was driving into the community where I live, past the flag pole and I saw a weak draping flag at half staff. There was not even a puff of breeze to stir it. And I paused in my thinking to remember the cause of this honorarium – was it still the 21 victims in Uvelda? No. Was it the 7 in Highland Park? No. Though it was two days before. No, that day it was because of the assassination of former Prime Minister Abe of Japan.
My beloved ones in Jesus, I hardly know what to say as I come before you once again on yet another Sunday after more death and violence. And my brain is weary of it. I want to turn away from it and simply shake my head and then move on. But that would not be honest, would it. That would be pretend. That would be like the ostrich with her head in the sand. This is the reality in which we live. And in the midst of this, I put my head in my hands, perplexed at what word God might offer through me in the face even more violent deaths.
Are not our hearts heavy and our spirits numb? Are we not among those shaking our fists, whether literally or internally? Might we be trying to find ways to distance ourselves from all of this – to put it on some kind of distant shore? Yet that is not to be. There is no distance to be had.
We along with the lawyer in today’s Gospel ask – Who is our neighbor?? For whom must we care? To whom must we reach out? Really Jesus?? Even “them”?
As author and theologian Frederick Buechner wrote, the lawyer, and likely some in the crowds listening to all of this, probably wanted a definition something like this:
"A neighbor (hereinafter referred to as the party of the first part) is to be construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within a radius of no more than three miles from one's own legal residence unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter to be referred to as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part than one is oneself, in which case the party of the second part is to be construed as neighbor to the party of the first part and one is oneself relieved of all responsibility of any sort or kind whatsoever." This one and no other is your neighbor.
Okay then. That settles it. But we must pause a moment and look deeper into this story of Jesus.
And, again, like many of Jesus’ parables – what Amy-Jill Levine calls his “short stories” – we are very familiar with this one. Laws passed in our legislatures are called “Good Samaritan” laws. If you have an RV, you can join the Good Sam Club. There are Good Samaritan hospitals, Good Samaritan charitable organizations. When we say in our ordinary speech that someone was a “Good Samaritan” we all know what that means –even those who haven’t been in church for years.
As we have said before, the parable is a very common style of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels. There are about 25 of them in the Gospel of Luke alone. By means of a parable, Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God and God’s people as kingdom-bearers. But parables cannot be considered to be tight and tidy tales the meanings of which are obvious.
A parable is more like a kaleidoscope – with a slight twist, a whole new pattern emerges. A parable is like a suite of music – at different times of listening you might focus in on different voices or recurring themes. A parable is a carefully wrapped gift that we enjoy for its beauty and for the anticipation of what it contains and then we unwrap it. So putting aside what we learned in Sunday School in years and decades past about this, let’s look at this from some other vantage points.
Fundamental to hearing and exploring this parable is an understanding of the relationship of the Jews and the Samaritans. The tension, animosity and anger between these two groups was longstanding – centuries long – and it was palpable. The Jews looked upon the Samaritans as unfaithful deserters of all that they held dear. The Samaritans were their enemies. They would use the phrase “good Samaritan” in the same way that we would say a “good gang member” or a “good robber.” It was an oxymoron.
The Samaritans of Jesus’ time lived in a region north of Jerusalem, what had been the Northern Kingdom in times past, and the Jews would travel great distances to avoid going through that region to get to Galilee and other places north. They didn’t talk to each other, they didn’t socialize, they held each other in mutual distaste and contempt.
And so we see that Jesus’ story brought together an unlikely cast of characters. A man robbed and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. We know nothing else about him. He simply was one in need.
Two folk are on the road where there is the man lying in the ditch. A priest – a Jew serving in the Temple. Not a member of an elite class. Simply a priest. Then a Levite – one who was born in the line of those descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses – no particular status attached to that. About the first, Jesus said, “he saw him and passed by on the other side.” About the second, Jesus said, “he saw him and passed by on the other side.”
Now, there has been no shortage of speculation about why the priest and the Levite saw him and passed by. All sorts of rationale has been suggested. Some cite the purity codes in Leviticus and how they would preclude these two from engaging in actions that would render them unclean for Temple duties. But you see, they were traveling away from Jerusalem, away from the Temple. Others have said that their socio-economic position would have made reaching out to a stranger a lessening of their personal status. But being a priest or a Levite did not elevate them to the upper-class unlike the chief priests and high priests who stood in judgment of Jesus. There was no status to be lost.
We simply do not know why these two passed on by. And we don’t need to because that is not the point of this short story by Jesus. Don’t we labor to avoid the part of the story that may apply most directly to us and our lives!
The point of Jesus’ story is found in the next one who comes along the road – the most unlikely of them all – a Samaritan. Today we might say, along came a “thug.” And while the other two saw the man in the ditch and passed by on the other side, the thug saw him with a heart of compassion. And this is what the thug did – he WENT to the man, he BANDAGED his wounds, he POURED oil on them to soothe them, he PLACED him on his animal, he BROUGHT him to an inn and TOOK CARE of him. The thug’s compassion led to action and care. And THAT is the point of Jesus’ story. The one who showed mercy was the neighbor to the dying man in the ditch. Even a Samaritan.
Neighbor. Who is my neighbor?
Those who are our neighbors are defined not by those closest to us, most proximate to US, but by those to whom WE are able to come near, those whom we may touch with God’s grace and love and balm and peace. It is in our drawing near that we become neighbors with others, with the stranger, with the Samaritan in our life, with those lying in the ditch. We are neighbors by our actions.
Amen.
