Today I am challenged by the Law of Moses and Jesus “to love my neighbor as myself.” The words make me squirm a bit. In our real world, they exhibit a quaint “stained glass” piety.
Surely I can’t love everybody! Sometimes I don’t love myself, or what I do. How can I love a stranger … or worse, an enemy … a Taliban. It is altogether “meet and right” to ask: Who is worthy to be called my neighbor and incur such extreme moral obligation?
During our 9:00 Sunday service, we will be performing three baptisms. The baptized and their sponsors will pledge “to serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.” Through water and the Holy Spirit they will die to self and rise to newness of life … “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” (BCP p. 308)
What are they getting into? Well, today’s Gospel from Luke gives us a clue. A lawyer seeks to test Jesus, and asks: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus turns the question back on the questioner. “What is written in the Law?” The lawyer’s response combines two commands from Jewish Scriptures — “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
Our Prayer Book calls it the Summary of the Law. (BCP p. 324) The two complete each other. Both are essential.
The response pleases Jesus. “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.” But the lawyer seeks to further assert himself. “Who is my neighbor?” The way he asks the question puts him in the driver’s seat. This is his game. He’s in control. He’s the one doing the “loving”, and the one who decides if another person is truly virtuous or important enough to be a neighbor.
How shall I recognize my neighbor, the person I am obliged to love? The question comes out of long-standing debates about “who” are God’s people, and therefore worthy of such love. The lawyer is confident he knows. Probably so are we! The neighbor is, of course, a faithful Jew … certainly not a Samaritan.
Jesus’ parable must have shocked Jewish ears … because for them, there was no linkage between “good” and Samaritan. Not possible. For us, it would be like hearing about the compassionate Al Qaeda terrorist. Of course, that’s Jesus’ point.
To be fair, there had been many centuries of conflict between Jew and Samaritan, beginning with the division of King David’s kingdom following the death of his son, Solomon, in the tenth century BC. The northern kingdom of Samaria broke from the southern kingdom of Judah.
The Assyrians occupied Samaria in 722 BC. The southern kingdom of Judah remained nominally independent for another 135 years until being overrun by Babylon in 587 BC. After a 50-year exile, Judah was freed from the yoke of Babylon by conquering Persian armies. But during the restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah, the Samaritans opposed the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, and instead worshipped at a shrine on Mt. Gerizim in the north.
Jews considered Samaritans to be a mongrel people … compromised racially and spiritually. Disputes naturally evolved over theology and liturgy. The result was enmity, distrust, and limited contact between the two groups.
Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is disconcerting … to both Jew and Samaritan. We know nothing about the man who fell among robbers … except that he was “going down from Jerusalem.” He was probably an Israelite, like the lawyer. Was he a loving man or cruel, trustworthy or conniving? We aren’t told. He was vulnerable … as are we all.
A priest and a Levite first saw the stripped and beaten man, lying as dead along the road. They were Jews, like the beaten man … co-religionists. But fearing him dead, they passed by. Coming in contact with him would render them “unclean.” It was a reaction to be expected … a social convention.
The compassion of the Samaritan for the beaten stranger, according to Jesus, is extravagantly over the top! He does touch the victim; binds up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Olive oil was often used to heal wounds and to anoint the sick, while wine acted as an antiseptic. He puts the victim on his own beast and takes him to an inn, where he gives money to the innkeeper to pay for a period of healing. He doesn’t even wait to be thanked.
The Samaritan does all this for a Jewish stranger … proving him the better neighbor than the two men of God. Even the lawyer admits that. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus tells him. I wonder if he did? Do we?
Who is my neighbor? For Jesus, the answer is not a matter of carefully vetting likely candidates, and finding some worth bothering about. It is not a matter determined by our discretion. No! In the moment, our neighbor is whom we are given … regardless of his race, politics, religion, or virtue (or lack thereof). He is in need.
If we are blessed with the ability to meet that need, our Lord expects us to be his hands and “bind up the wounds of the broken-hearted.”
My friends, our faith in God alone is not enough. We are called to live it. The gates of heaven open through the acts of saints. You cannot contribute anything to the ideal of brotherhood … however much you preach or posture … unless you live it.
And this is the tough part of love as Jesus commands us: Our neighbor is our enemy as well as our friend. God’s love extends to both. No relationship is expendable. Each is a labor of God, as well as man. We learn and grow from them all … even bad ones. In fact, it could be argued that we learn most from those who vehemently disagree with us. It has been said that great men are measured by the quality and strength of their opponents. Achilles had his Hector … Wellington his Napoleon. We cannot attain a mature spirit without admitting rival passions.
Remember, Jesus called Judas among the twelve apostles, and included him at the Last Supper in the Upper Room … just as he includes you and me, knowing some will betray him and others deny him. But whatever our sin, his grace redeems our defect. He is resolute, if we are not. Thanks be to God!
How many feuds between individuals, churches, and nations might be avoided by first recognizing our adversary as a broken child of God along the way, with a mind and ability divinely intended to mix with and complement our own … and thus effect a deeper truth than either.
How tragic that our feuding too often prevents the healing of our wounds … because our own impaired genius will not admit the possibility of a larger, truer vision … witness Catholic/Protestant, Muslim/Jew, Republican/Democrat, Sunni/Shia.
All feuds wound our spirit, crippling our capacity to be a loving neighbor … blinding us from seeing in the “other” a reflection of God’s self-image. We have energy, time, and tears to invest … limited resources from a loving God for a fleeting moment. Let’s honor them.
We all need to understand and be understood. It is good to have a neighbor. It is better to be a neighbor. After all, we all fall among robbers from time to time.
God’s only Son died “with one on his right, and one on his left.”
A young man eagerly described what he dreamed of doing for the poor. His master queried: “When do you propose to make your dream come true?” He replied: “As soon as the opportunity arrives.” “Opportunity never arrives,” said the master.
“It is here.”
Who is my neighbor? He is the one given me in the moment. Lord, in baptism you grant me a portion of your Spirit. Let me be as the Samaritan … and let it be now.
And all God’s children cry, “Amen.”