5th Sunday after Pentecost

Our Gospel today presents one of Jesus’ most familiar parables – the Parable of the Good Samaritan. And often when we hear this parable, we may jump to the conclusion that we ‘ought’ to care for those in need, we ‘should’ be more generous to the poor. Or we may feel guilty because we do not give more, do more, care more for those in dire need – in global crises or for local homeless or neglected persons.

This morning I would like us to look deeper. (Not that sometimes we need to be challenges or to listen to our own guilt.) Let us try to see what Jesus would have us see. This parable can be a lens and an opportunity to see who is around us – where we live.

The gospel begins with a lawyer coming to Jesus. He is educated, respected, probably fairly successful. Yet he is intrigued or challenged by what Jesus was teaching and doing. He asks, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ now he already no doubt knows the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures, but he is asking Jesus perhaps to confirm his own understanding or because he senses that there is more in life and faith than he sees.

Jesus answers with a question – ‘what do you read in the Law?’ And he answers, ‘to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.’ Jesus responds – Good answer. Do this and you will find eternal live.

But the lawyer is still seeking something more. We cannot tell exactly why he wasn’t satisfied, but follows up by asking ‘Who is my neighbor?”

On one hand, he could be asking for how far he has to go in loving others – who must I love and where can I draw a line and stop loving?

On the other hand, maybe he senses that Jesus is inviting him beyond his rules and laws and orderly life, to experience something more. (which can be scary.) So he tries to get the conversations back to what is safe and familiar, to rules and principles – what are the rules of neighborliness?

At this point, Jesus tells a story, not about rules and distinctions but about persons and experience. (to offer a new perspective, that the lawyer and that we might see in a difference way.)

A traveler along to road from Jerusalem to Jericho was assaulted by robbers, beaten badly, and left for dead by the side of the road. Along came a Levite – a religious lawyer, on his way perhaps to conduct important business. He would keep important clients waiting if he stopped, and it could be dangerous, so he passed the wounded man by. You and I have rationalized such behavior more than once.

Along came a priest. He saw the man in the ditch and could not tell from the road whether he was alive or dead. If he was dead, and the priest came in contact with him, the priest would become unclean and have to undergo ritual purification, which would take time and keep him from his congregation and all that. He rationalized not stopping perhaps on the basis of religious laws.

Then “a Samaritan while traveling came near him, and when he saw him he was moved with pity.” On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a Samaritan was definitely an outsider, an alien – Samaria was far north of Judea and Galilee. In Judea, where he was, Samaritans were looked down upon because Samaria was seen as not-orthodox, not really Jewish. A Samaritan in Judea would have to live with prejudice and discrimination for being who he was and where he was from – like too many people and communities in our own nation today.

Perhaps because he knew suffering and mistreatment himself, when he saw the person wounded by the side of the road, “he was moved with pity.” He had compassion – he connected his own humanity with that of the wounded person.

That is also to say that he was not moved by rules and laws and expectations – like the priest and the Levite probably were.

The Samaritan’s compassion – pity – prompted him to serve his neighbor – to go out of his way to care for him, to take him on his own donkey to an inn, care for him overnight, and make arrangements for his further needs.

I want to suggest that the focus of this parable is not about what we should and should not do – that was how the Levite and the Priest were thinking and acting. It is about recognizing the humanity of those around us and our own humanity with them.

Remember all the arguments that Jesus had with the Pharisees about the Sabbath, about sabbath rules and laws? The Pharisees would have passed the wounded man by if Sabbath observance required it. Jesus healed on the Sabbath because ‘the Sabbath was made to help us be human.’ Human need and love are primary.

Let us think biblically here. Every one of us is created in God’s image and called very good. We are all God’s children – images of God – in all our differences and diversity.

Remember in Genesis when Abraham and Sarah welcomed three strangers, offered them hospitality, and received the blessing that they would conceive and bear a child. The letter to the Hebrews tells us to always offer hospitality to strangers for some have thereby entertained angels unaware. (You are sitting in the midst of angels – even the so-and-so quite near to you!)

Remember when Jesus taught us, in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison because it would be like caring for Jesus himself. (Imagine our neighbors and those around us, and in the ditches of our world are Jesus for us.)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta would teach her sisters that in caring for the poor and dying, they were caring for Jesus himself. One day one of the sisters observed Mother Teresa caring for a very difficult, obnoxious, even repulsive person. She asked Mother Teresa how she could care so patiently for such a difficult one. She said in response, ‘sometimes I have to tell myself that it is Jesus in a very distressing disguise.’

I want to offer a suggestion for further reflection, which I have recently been finding both insightful and challenging. Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest in Los Angeles who founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. He has 3 books, and a number of talks and interviews you can find on the internet. The first book is sub-titled “The power of boundless compassion”. The third is subtitled “The power of extravagant tenderness.” His insight – utterly Biblical and spiritually grounded – is that we are all good, and God delights in every one of us. We forget who we are, we get lost in trauma and pain, and we can help one another rediscover the dignity and glory of being who we are as beloved children of God. This mystery is simple, and therefore hard to grasp. He is a storyteller, out of his own experience. I commend them to you as follow up on this parable.

Finally, here are three applications – all very practical and hands-on places to start to begin living into Jesus’ parable and teachings. First – welcoming visitors to church. Can we see one another and those who visit, and reach out, speak with and listen to them, in spite of our usual habits and routines? Can we see them as angels bearing gifts and blessings that we may not even realize that we need? Can we respond to one another as persons who are at least as wounded as you and I may be, and yearning for mercy and kindness? How can our community be more welcoming and more human?

Second – can we welcome children and strangers who may be disruptive, not following the usual rubrics or liturgical practices? (Children make noises, etc.) Can we welcome them as family and gently guide them while remembering that the liturgy is made for God’s people, not God’s people for the sake of the liturgy?

Third – with those we disagree with, in the media and larger community and in our own circles, can we refuse to label or put people in boxes and instead consider the humanity of every person? Especially when partisan ship seems extreme, can we remember that our opponents are also God’s beloved children (even with distressing disguises)? Maybe even in ditches they do not yet recognize, they are still worthy of our love and care.

All this is hard stuff. You are wonderful people and I am glad to be with you. May the holy Communion we shall share remind us who we are to one another and may it strengthen us to be neighbors. Amen.