Who_Is_My_Neighbor

Sermon preached by the Reverend John E. Kitagawa at the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Sunday, 11 July 2010 (The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost) at St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson, Arizona

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?[1]

Deuteronomy 30: 9-14; Colossians 1: 1-14; Luke 10: 25-37

Things are not as they appear. That would be true of today’s Gospel. A Good Samaritan, is almost universally recognized as someone who tries to help someone who is hurt, poor, or unable to take care of themselves. The term comes from today’s parable. However, if we content ourselves with this level of meaning, we will miss deeper, more powerful, and I must say, more challenging and difficult aspects of Jesus’ teaching.

Let us begin with a close look at the text. A man leaves Jerusalem for Jericho. If you were in Jesus’ audience, you would assume the traveler to be Jewish. You would know there is a fair distance between Jerusalem and Jericho. You would know it to be a dangerous road, so you would not be surprised to hear bandits severely beat and rob the traveler—almost killing him. You would know this road to be well-traveled, so it would not surprise you that a priest came along. That the priest did not stop to assist the injured man is disturbing to you and me, but not necessarily to Jesus' audience. A priest at that time and in that tradition was required to maintain ritual cleanliness in order to perform his priestly duties. In telling the story, Jesus said the robbers “departed, leaving him half-dead” (Luke 10: 30). Touching a dead body would make the priest ritually unclean. So, Jesus' audience could rationalize, though perhaps not condone, the priest's inaction. Similarly, the audience could rationalize the Levite’s behavior. A Levite was a Temple official, and also lived under injunctions concerning ritual cleanliness.

It might occur to you that Jesus was criticizing religious leaders of his time. There are plenty of Biblical examples of him doing so. If that was Jesus’ intent, he could have made the merciful third traveler a Jewish layman. He did not. Jesus made the helpful third person a Samaritan. It is difficult for us to understand how absolutely shocking this would have been for Jesus’ audience. Here is why it would have been so unexpected:

There were several centuries of conflict between Samaritans and Jews (Jn. 4: 9), beginning with the Assyrian occupation in 722 BC.C. During the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Samaritans opposed the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, and centered their worship around the shrine on Mt. Gerizim. Over the centuries other points of dispute over theology and liturgy evolved, which resulted in enmity, distrust, and very limited contact between the two groups[2].

There was such deep animosity and hostility between Jews and Samaritans that the lawyer could not say "the Samaritan" when Jesus asked,

Which of these three … was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" (Luke 10: 36).

Instead, the lawyer said:

The one who showed him mercy (Luke 10: 37).

Because we associate the word “Samaritan” with people who help those in need, this parable does not appear to be confrontational. If we survey Tucsonans about the main point of the parable, the general response would be something like this:

The Samaritan was the neighbor because he showed mercy, took the trouble to stop and to help the injured man on the road. We should do likewise.

By casting the hated Samaritan as the one who cared for the half-dead Jewish traveler, Jesus makes a rather stunning point. This is what a commentator writes:

[T]he parable is not a pleasant tale about the Traveler Who Did His Good Deed: it is a damning indictment of social, racial, and religious superiority[3].

To understand this comment, we must try to place ourselves in the shoes of Jesus' Jewish audience. Jesus structures the story to make a positive judgment of the hated Samaritan the inevitable conclusion. Just that would have been tough to swallow. But think again. If Jesus had intended to teach his audience to love their enemies, it would have been radical enough to tell a parable about a Jew stopping to assist a "half-dead" Samaritan. But no, Jesus goes further. Jesus turns his audience's whole world upside down. He demands the nearly impossible—for the lawyer to say, and the Jewish audience to think "neighbor" and "Samaritan” in the same breath, and to put the adjective “good” and "Samaritan" together.

In effect, Jesus’ audience is being asked to conceive the inconceivable[4].

It would be like Jesus telling the parable in an American context: casting an American in the role of the traveler and a sympathizer of the most radical terrorist leader in the role of the Samaritan —or, perhaps, asking a modern-day Israeli to say "neighbor" and "Hamas” in the same breath, and to put “good” and "Hamas" together.

Jesus intends this parable to force the lawyer and his audience to affirm the hated Samaritan as “good” for stopping to help the “half-dead" Jewish traveler. Why? Jesus confronts the stereotypes, prejudices and preconceived notions of his audience, so they could first accept the despised one as neighbor, and secondly, to see something positive and good in that newly perceived neighbor. Jesus asks the lawyer, the audience back then, and us, “Who proves to be neighbor?” In the Gospel context, the only response is “the Samaritan”. Jesus told the lawyer, to go and follow the example of the despised one. Go and follow the example of the Samaritan who overcame his prejudices, hostility, and animosity to see an enemy as neighbor, to have compassion, and to help him in his hour of need.

“Questions” by Mark R. McMinn in Christianity Today[5] brings the challenges of the parable into contemporary focus.

[It] makes me wonder how blind I am to the cultural deceptions of our times. What hidden sins skulk in my soul? And if I am without the awareness or language to name them, how can I change?[6].

In an article on “Doing Compassion”, Paul J. Nuechterlein[7], offers this observation:

… there’s a word I’d like to suggest … The word is denial. I suggest that the opposite of being moved with compassion is to be shut down with denial. We shut off any feelings of empathy with a person in need like the man in the road by somehow denying that person’s connection with us, and therefore denying any responsibility we might have to help the person[8].

Jesus wants us to move beyond our denial. Jesus wants us to see and interact with the humanity of our “bogeymen” and our enemies; and to understand them to be our neighbors. Jesus wants us to embrace the truth that we are deeply interconnected with the diverse people God presents to us, and that we have a mutual responsibility to one another. In today’s Global Village, the web of human inter-relatedness extends further than ever before, but continues to be grounded in our own communities. The Holy Communion we will soon share is an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of our connectedness with God and of human inter-relatedness. At the same time, the Eucharist calls us to live in ever more inclusive communal relationships and deeper spiritual connectedness.

The words of William Sloane Coffin offer a perspective to contemplate:

God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but [it is] because we are loved that we have value[9].

Learned religious leaders pass the “half-dead” man without lifting a finger. Instead it is the despised outcast who shows us how to love and value a neighbor.

What appears to be a rather straightforward example of how to be neighborly turns into a more complex confrontation with “conventional assumptions of the religious and politically ‘correct’”[10]. Through this parable, Jesus turns everything upside down. Anyone who dares to ask ultimate questions about life in relationship to God must be prepared to respond to Jesus’ deceptively simple question, “Who is your neighbor?” It is a question that ushers us to a moment of truth.

… in the moment of the story’s ‘turn’, everyone who has ears to hear is challenged at the very core of his or her belief structure. Will the old judgments and values hold, or will the new wine of the Spirit prevail in [our] lives [?][11].

In order for the “new wine of the Spirit” to prevail, let us confess our distrust of, distance from, and perhaps fear of others. Let us get in touch with our assumptions, prejudices, and animosities; and then, ask God to help us transform them into to a deeper and more inclusive sense of interconnection with all of God’s creation. Let us take the first steps together by going to:

[Christ’s] table to be fed with the bread of life and wine of compassion[12].

AMEN.