Sermon 07-11-2010
Psalm 82 Luke 10:25-37
Who is the Samaritan Today?
In Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke “is doing much more than endorsing compassion, generosity, and etiquette for travelers. It demands that its hearers embrace the opportunities to practice love for others in powerful ways and perhaps to learn from surprising sources how to do that.”
(Cynthia A. Jarvis. “Feasting on the Word,” Year C, volume 3, pg. 239)
PRAYER
“The lawyer who stands up to test Jesus likely understands the law as gospel. He is, after all, a lawyer! In response to the lawyer’s question about eternal life, Jesus presciently cuts to the chase: “What is written in the law? What do you read there? He quotes the law… when Jesus tells him to love God with everything in him, (heart, soul, strength and mind), and to love his neighbor as himself, he can obey only if he knows exactly what the law commands… Here is a significant question… whom am I to love as myself? When the law is gospel, I am the actor, and my actions ultimately must be justified by the understanding of and obedience to the law humanly defined.
The story Jesus tells the lawyer… is the story that casts us and those we serve not as actors but as those acted upon by a love whose limitless goodness we cannot fathom.” (Cynthia A. Jarvis. Idem, pg. 238-240) “The injured man in the parable is a Jew, as suggested by the wider narrative context and the setting in which his attack occurs. Jesus does not explain why the priest and the Levite – highly esteemed Jewish religious figures associated with the Jerusalem temple – neglect to assist one of their own people. The parable treats their staying across the road from a fellow Jew in need as a shocking event. Nothing indicates that they think the victim is dead or that they fear contracting contamination from a corpse; even if the man were dead, such purity concerns would be insignificant compared to the weightier need to arrange for the burial of an expose body. The point is that two people who presumably represent the identity and piety of the victim do not express any concern toward him and remain unwilling to assume the risks that come with pausing in a dangerous place. The two act in identical ways: each arrives, sees the man, and passes by on the other side. Nothing can excuse their refusal to reach out.”
(Matthew L. Skinner, “Feasting on the Word,” Year C, volume 3, pg. 241-243)
Who was the Samaritan? The one from another culture, race, ethnic background, the enemy, the outcast.
“He appears out of place on a Judean road. To most Jews in Jesus’ world, this character represents an enemy the other. During Jesus’ time, Samaritans and Jews claimed to worship the God of the ancient Hebrews, but each group had its own Scriptures, temple and religious practices. Differing ethnic identities and longstanding cultural antipathy give every reason to assume that the Samaritan in the parable and the wounded traveler will have nothing to do with each other.” (Matthew L. Skinner, idem)
Who is the Samaritan Today?
The minorities, those who are different from us in culture, race and ethnicity. The ones who sit next to us in church, at work, and in the common places, those we interact with in our daily lives almost unknowingly, those are the Samaritans in our world today.
It’s not my custom to bring a political perspective from the pulpit, but I do believe that we as Christians are to look at the text and to our reality in light of the word in order to know what our response may be in relation to our neighbors. I say this because I read in the Washington Post a few days ago that the Arizona law SB1070, in the intent to find a solution to their problems on the border with security and illegal immigrants, the results of applying that law creates and “promotes racial profiling which is unconstitutional because the regulating is reserved for the federal government.” In search for a solution what it does is to create an anti-immigration law based on “reasonable suspicion,” becoming then a racist, separatist, discriminatory law, instead of finding solutions with views of justice, fairness, kindness and compassion. The fearful result is that those who are innocent and those who are guilty are pooled together as one. The assumption is that the one who is different from me is suspicious of being no good.
“The Samaritan‘s compassion stands in opposite to the unconcern of the priest and the Levite. The Samaritan treats the man not as an enemy but as one dear to him, as shown in the multifaceted care he provided. His exemplary deeds, born from compassion, demonstrate the lengths to which love goes. Real love does not discriminate; it creates neighborly relationships, because by its nature it meets the needs of others. Jesus does not return to the lawyer’s original question (what must I do to inherit eternal life? and instead asked) him to identify who in the parable he should consider to be his neighbor. When Jesus asks the lawyer to name which character ‘was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers’, he reorients their conversation away from the lawyer’s question about limiting one’s responsibility. The lawyer wants to define who deserves his love, but Jesus’ parable suggests that love seeks out neighbors to receive compassion and care, even when established boundaries or prejudices conspire against it. Jesus’ question also forces the lawyer to admit which character demonstrates what it means to act in a neighborly way. His refusal to utter ‘the Samaritan’ as his answer underscores the parable’s deep offense. A Samaritan is the exemplar. The lawyer is pushed to learn about genuine love from the deeds of one whom he regards as his enemy. To be committed to love of neighbor involves a willingness to see an enemy as a benefactor, one who can offer instruction about true compassion and righteousness.” (Matthew L. Skinner, idem)
The question Jesus asked the lawyer is who was the neighbor?
“Unable to answer on the account of his religious exclusivity, (and his prejudicial profiling), he could not say ‘the Samaritan,’ he replied, ‘The one who showed him kindness.’ It’s interesting to see that this “expert on the law” breaks all the wordiness of religious legality by naming kindness as the true mark of “the neighbor.”
(Douglas John Hall, “Feasting on the Word,” Year C, volume 3, pg.240)
What is lacking in the lawyer and in our world today “but precisely “kindness”? – in a world driven by competition, greed, and more individualism, but also (let us note) a world whose most ethically minded often seem apt to be more concerned for the rights than for forgiveness, for justice than for mercy, for equality than for compassion.”
(Douglas John Hall, idem)
The question today is…
What can we do for our Samaritan neighbors?
BENEDICTION
As a result of loving God,
with all our heart, soul, strength and mind,
we can love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
May we be moved to kindness and compassion
and to a profound concern for others. Amen!
