5th Sunday After Pentecost

 

Luke 10:25-37

So now we are getting into the meaty part of this green season of the church year where we learn to follow Jesus and discover how to be his disciples.  All summer, we have been hearing stories about Jesus crossing over and breaking boundaries and reaching out to the least expected people imaginable.  He has taught and healed and cast out demons and then he even called out and sent his followers to join in his boundary breaking ministry.

And now this week, we reach the capstone of this series of readings with our gospel story for today.  The Story of the Good Samaritan.  Which has to easily be one of the most popular stories in the whole Bible.  We love this story.  And we tell it so often that it’s easy to scarcely give it a second thought.  It’s just a simple object lesson about how we should be kind to strangers and help people in need right?  To us today it couldn’t really be more straightforward.  Clearly, we all just want to be Good Samaritans.  We love Samaritans.  Even the word Samaritan has become synonymous with doing good and helping people.  So much so that we often name our homeless shelters, our soup kitchens, our social service agencies and even our churches after the good Samaritan.

And this is where we run into a problem.  The positive concept of the Good Samaritan has become so ingrained our culture that many of us have no idea how truly ridiculous this would all seem to the people who first heard Jesus tell this story.  You see, Jesus’s followers and nearly everyone else in Judea hated Samaritans.  They were evil, dangerous, sinful and mean.  The very idea of a having a “Good” Samaritan would have seemed like any oxymoron.  It would have made about as much sense as telling the story of the good rapist or the helpful terrorist.  The very idea would have been repulsive.  These same disciples and Jesus routinely traveled days out of their way into the land across the Jordan river just to avoid passing through Samaritan territory on their way between Galilee and Jerusalem.  Just one chapter earlier Luke recounts a story of Jesus and his disciples being rejected and thrown out of a Samaritan village when they tried to visit.  There was nothing good about Samaritans.

So let’s try to take another look at this story, but this time through first century eyes.  The story begins innocently enough with a religious scholar quizzing Jesus the rabbi about an important theological question.  “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus like a good rabbi questions him about what scripture says.  Then the scholar parrots back the textbook answer that I’m sure he has been trained to give right out of Deuteronomy: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."  and Jesus replies "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

And that could be the end, in fact in other gospels this is the end.  But… the scholar just can’t help himself, he needs to justify himself so he ask Jesus “Who really is my neighbor?”  I mean I’m a good person, I love my family, I help out my neighbors and my community, that’s got to be enough right?  I mean how many people can I possible be expected to give as high a priority as I do myself?   And so Jesus, again like a good rabbi, tells a story.  In fact it’s a story most of the people probably think they have heard before because it starts by following a really common form used by rabbis and religious teachers at that time.  In these stories a priest, a Levite and an ordinary Israelite all face a similar situation and how they react teaches a lesson about how we should live.  It’s the first century equivalent to a priest, a rabbi and a _____ walk into a bar jokes.  Everyone thinks they know where this story is going.

And so, the priest and the Levite come and go.  Now it must be time for the Ordinary Israelite, hero of the story to come in and save the day.  So, imagine their dismay when marching over the hill comes not an Israelite but a Samaritan.  And suddenly it becomes abundantly clear to the crowd that we are not going to get to be the heroes in the story.  Even the intense desire to be the good guy in the story would never overcome the repulsive notion of identifying yourself as a Samaritan.

Suddenly the larger picture becomes clear, we were never meant to be the Samaritan in the story, we are the ones in the ditch.  We are all the ones left for dead on the side of the road in the ditch of our own sin, desperately hoping for someone to come and save us.  And guess what, it’s not going to be the Priests or the Levites, the politicians or the morality police or any other representatives of the whole massive system of self justification.  There is no combination of sacrifices and offerings, no pile of good works or virtue signaling that can save us from this fate.  It is only the love and compassion of the self-giving stranger that will restore us to life and wholeness. 

What a different perspective this story gives when we become the wounded traveler and Jesus is the Samaritan.  It is very easy when we commit ourselves to acts of service to see ourselves in the role of the Samaritan.  To see ourselves as a sort of savior, coming to bestow our resources, our knowledge, our care on those who are less fortunate.  How different the view when we see ourselves in the ditch alongside those we seek to love.  When we see ourselves as equally in need of love and compassion, community and connection, and ultimately divine salvation as those we seek to care for.

Yet the story was once very clear, Jesus is to be the Samaritan not us, he is one who is rejected and despised yet shows us unexpected love and mercy.  We were still enemies of the gospel he had compassion on us, loved us and saved us.  Jesus is the one who breaks boundaries, crosses over and is willing to give his life even to those who hate him.  He is the neighbor who shows us mercy.

Let us not forget, in the very beginning of this story, before he led himself astray, Jesus tells the scholar that he answered correctly when he said.  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."  In that order.  We love God first.  We acknowledge our brokenness, our need for salvation, and the saving unearned love of Jesus Christ.  And then we go forth to love and serve all people but not because this is the way to ensure we inherit eternal life, but because we are so beloved, we cannot help but love our neighbor.  Our good works will never save us.  Instead we love and serve our neighbors out of a sincere desire to follow Jesus’s example and to share the love that he has already given us with all others. 

In this time when we are being forced as a country to wrestle very deeply with who truly is our neighbor and how to respond to those in need at home and around the world, this change in perspective becomes more important than ever.  What would it mean to understand truly and deeply that there is not separation in the eyes of God between ourselves and those we serve?  What would it mean to truly stand in solidarity with those who have been harmed by the same systems of oppression that give us advantages?  What would in mean to truly set aside our notions of self-righteousness and self-justification in favor of acceptance of God’s unfailing grace for all humanity?  What would it mean to act first out of sincere gratitude for all God has given us?  When we truly put God in the center, it opens up a whole new world of truly loving all of God’s children, no exceptions.  Amen.