Worship > Sermon Archive

The Reverend Beth Fain
July 15, 2007
(Pentecost 10c): The merciful neighbor (Luke 10. 25-37)
Here we are again-the Bible verse of the summer:
Say it with me: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself.
We've heard this morning's parable so often that the common name given to it, the good Samaritan, is a cultural descriptor of any person who does good for others.
So common that spell check capitalizes both Good and Samaritan when they are placed together.
[Though Jesus never says that the Samaritan traveler is good, only that he does mercy.]
We've heard about the priest and the Levite.
How they are professional leaders in the Jewish faith tradition
How if they had touched a dead person they would have been ritually unclean and not able to do their ministry.
[Though we are not told that the man left by the road is dead; we are told that he is stripped of his clothes and left for dead; it would not have been against the law to care for an injured person.]
We've heard how Jesus doesn't judge these two men who have made a choice between duty and duty and chose the safer, more prudent way.
We've heard about who a Samaritan is: a person who lived in an area north of Jerusalem in what is today the still disputed West Bank area.
How the Samaritans had already been in conflict with the Jews for 700 years by Jesus' time (and continue to be today);
How the Samaritans were the Jews who stayed behind after the Assyrians conquered the area north of Jerusalem in the 700s BCE, who intermarried and who built a new holy place in Shechem to take the place of the fallen temple in Jerusalem.
How their faith had grown in a different direction than the exiled Jews so that when the Jews returned from captivity and wanted to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, the Samaritans opposed and tried to prevent its rebuilding.
How the animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews were based on theology and liturgy.
Which made it even more passionate a disagreement.
Jesus spends no time discussing the actions of the holy men, the priests and the Levites.
They who see and walk on by.
He spends even less time describing the victim-we know nothing of his race or class, and those who passed him by would not have been able to either because the injured man has had his clothes, which would have given a clue about who he was, stripped from his body.
The majority of the parable is spent describing the actions of the Samaritan.
The one who saw and responded.
All those details:

Starting with the Samaritan's great compassion.
Pity that broke like a great wave over his heart when he saw the injured man
How he risked danger to himself-what if the victim had been a ploy to get a person to stop to administer aide so that hiding bandits could do him harm?
How he expended great energy--cleaning the man's wounds using wine vinegar as an antiseptic and using olive oil to anoint the wounds to heal (like a balm).
How he delayed his own journey-by not just stopping to help but also by taking a detour to get the man to a place of safety and care.
How he gave two days wages with a promise of more money as needed; a blank check, if you will.
How he promised to follow up.
The Samaritan didn't just respond, he responded by providing more than what was necessary.
The Samaritan didn't just pray from afar, though of course there is nothing wrong with praying.
The Samaritan, the neighbor, touched his neighbor, spoke to his neighbor, had a relationship with his neighbor.
This is how he showed mercy.

I was in Portland, Oregon a few weeks ago attending a class on the Bible and Christian formation at Trinity Cathedral.
As are most Cathedrals, Trinity is in the midst of downtown and, like most downtown churches, had many homeless men and women standing outside the gates and sitting on the steps and on the benches in the garden.
Trinity has a very active feeding ministry that opened at about 10 every weekday morning.
Right at the time my class took our midmorning coffee break.
Not only was the coffee delicious and served with half and half, we always had some delicious fresh baked item to go with our coffee.
One morning the offering was scones, and during the break I was in the portico enjoying my delicious coffee and scone. There was a man who appeared to be homeless sitting on a bench in the garden.
I looked around at all of us well-cared for men and women enjoying our mid-morning snack, and I thought, "This man certainly "needs" the snack more than any of the rest of us. Certainly more than I do."
I sat there debating whether or not I should take him coffee and a scone.
I sat there debating long enough that another one of my group went and offered this man hospitality.
So I am the priest and the Levite in the story today.
The professional Christian who chooses to do the safer, convenient act.
Not that I did anything wrong, but I did not show mercy.
According to the standard Jesus gives in our parable this morning, I was not neighborly.
Granted, since I missed my opportunity to share food with my neighbor in the garden in Portland, I have prayed for him.
Granted, I gave money from my discretionary fund to the feeding ministry at Trinity.
These are both good things, but I missed doing mercy like the Samaritan;
I missed the opportunity to have a relationship with the man in the garden.
Jesus does not answer the lawyer's query, Who is my neighbor? in our parable.
Rather, Jesus answers by describing what a neighbor does.
The lawyer asks, "How do I recognize the one I am to love? Who is worthy of my love?"
Jesus answers, "It's not about who you are to love, but about you doing love."
Martin Luther King, Jr. said about our familiar parable, "The first question which the priest and Levite asked was 'If I stop and help this man, what will happen to me?'
But…. the Good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'"
The priest and the Levite had no compassion, no mercy.
They were more concerned about what would happen to them if they stopped.
The Samaritan on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem had compassion, had mercy.
He was concerned about what would happen to the man on the side of the road if he didn't stop and help.
Jesus' reply to the lawyer's original question, what must I do to inherit eternal life was a story.
A story that told not to seek the meaning of life through debate but to fulfill the meaning of life by how we live our lives.
This is the meaning of our lives: to love God. To love our neighbor.
How we live our lives reflects whether or not we accept those two commandments as the meaning of our lives.
Jesus says this is our neighbor: our neighbor is the one who needs the help we have the means to supply.
The question for us to ponder today is not who is our neighbor, but how is Jesus calling me to be a neighbor?
How do I live my vocation to be a neighbor?
Jesus says we are a neighbor whenever we show mercy.
Not from afar, but by making contact, having a relationship with our neighbor.
Jesus tells the lawyer and us to go and do like the merciful Samaritan.
Show mercy with extravagance.
Even if it means taking a risk. Yes, even if it seems dangerous.
Expend more energy than is required.
Give more money than is expected.
Even follow up after the deed is done.
Go and do. Me, too.
AMEN

<< photo left: bell outside worship center