 |
|
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Won't You Be My Neighbor It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, Please won't you be my neighbor? If you have been a kid or a parent or a grandparent any time in the last 40 years, chances are you know this song. Fred Rogers invited children into his television home each day by singing this song, offering a welcome that included everyone no matter how big or small, no matter what they looked like or where they came from. For Mr. Rogers, everyone was a neighbor—a person with value, someone to get to know, and most importantly, someone to care for. Most of us have a more circumscribed notion of ‘neighbor.’ We think of our neighbors as those who live in close proximity: next door, down the street, around the corner, and because we tend to live in fairly homogenous neighborhoods, our neighbors are usually like us in at least some ways. For some of us, neighbors may be close friends, but for others they may be only nodding acquaintances. Of course, this varies greatly depending on the neighborhood and its context, but increasingly it is more likely that neighbors are strangers rather than friends. In today’s gospel, Jesus challenges the notion of just who our neighbors are. The story of the Good Samaritan is a familiar one—so familiar in fact that the very term “good Samaritan” has become synonymous with one who cares for others. This story is so well-known that we tend to gloss over some of the important details, details that might give the story a richer meaning if we attend to them. So today, I’d like to walk through the story with you and take a look at some of those details. The parable of the Good Samaritan begins with a lawyer—in this case, one who is an expert on Torah, on the law that governs the lives of the Jewish people—who offers Jesus a challenge. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers by asking him what the law says, and the lawyer responds—correctly, of course—with the so-called double love commandment: “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." This double love commandment—to love God and to love neighbor as self--is found on Jesus’ lips in Matthew and Mark, and we sometimes think that it is a formulation that originated with Jesus. But Luke sets it up in such a way that it is clear that this injunction is already clearly present in Torah (Deut. 6:5, Lev. 19:18) and that Jesus and the lawyer sharecommon ground, a common understanding. The story might stop there, but it doesn’t because the lawyer asks another question: “Who is my neighbor?”—in other words, “Who must I love?” and Jesus answers with the story of the three travelers—a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan—who pass a man who has been beaten and robbed and left naked on the side of the road. The first two—the priest and the Levite pass by without stopping, not necessarily because of a lack of compassion, because touching blood or a dead body would have made them ritually unclean and unable to fulfill their duties. The Samaritan—a person who would be viewed as “enemy” by Jesus’ audience because of his home, his religion and his probable occupation as a ‘trader’—is the one who stops and sees to the care of the injured man whom we must assume, because we were not told otherwise, was a Jew. It is easy to read this tale as a condemnation of the priest and the Levite for not stopping, whether or not they had good reasons for their choices. But to do so is, I think, to miss the larger point of the story. The Samaritan—the enemy—is the one who shows mercy. The Samaritan—the enemy—is the one Jesus asks the lawyer to identify with, the one whose behavior Jesus tells him to emulate. The Samaritan—the enemy—is the one Jesus holds up as ‘neighbor’ –neighbor to the beaten man lying on the side of the road-- because it was the Samaritan who showed mercy for a stranger without regard to his identity or status. If the tables had been turned, if the story had been of a Samaritan who had been robbed and beaten and who had been cared for by a compassionate Jew, it would’ve served as a notable example of a Jew loving the enemy, and it would’ve likely been less challenging to accept. But instead, Jesus tells a story where the enemy is not the one to be reached out to, but the one who provides the example to follow. Jesus tells a story where not only is mercy important, but mercy that is extended without regard to boundaries and social taboos. What an incredible challenge. Jesus challenges the lawyer—the expert on Torah—not to abandon the law, but to expand its boundaries, to break down the conventions and prejudices that define ‘neighbor.’ Jesus challenges the lawyer—and us—to see, as the Samaritan did, that our neighbor is anyone who needs mercy. Jesus challenges the lawyer—and us—to act, as the Samaritan does, to help the other, the one in need, without regard for that person’s status or religion or nationality or the likelihood that we’re going to be repaid, or even thanked. Like the lawyer in today’s gospel it’s easy for us to acknowledge that we are called to love God and to love our neighbors as our selves. And like the lawyer, it is easy for us to feel comfortable when we act in loving ways to those around us. But like the lawyer we must ask ourselves and each other if that is good enough. The reality is that we live in a world that is increasingly polarized and compartmentalized—politically, economically, religiously—and increasingly fearful of ‘the other.’ It is understandable, I suppose, that we seek out others who are like us and that we try to protect ourselves from those whom we perceive to be dangerous to our well-being. But Jesus calls us to something more. Jesus challenges us, as he did the lawyer, to break down the boundaries and restrictions we place on defining who our neighbor is, and to move beyond our fears. Can we rise to that challenge? Can we see the rich and the poor, recent immigrants and Mayflower families, the old and the young, liberal and conservative, socialist and libertarian, gay and straight, pacifist and hawk equally as our neighbors? Can we see Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists and atheists equally as our neighbors? Can we extend our love, our mercy, our justice to all our neighbors—really and truly? What might the world look like if we did? Perhaps it is time for us to let go of our fears and to reach out to those with whom we have disagreements, with whom we have little in common. Perhaps it is time for us to look for what is valuable and worthwhile in each person, to look for commonalities rather than differences. Perhaps it is time for us take seriously the words of that great theologian, Mr. Rogers, and to welcome others, to welcome everyone by saying, “Please won't you be my neighbor?” AMEN
|
|