The Primacy of Love: And Who Is My Neighbor?
May the love of life
fill our hearts
May the love of earth
bring joy to heaven
May the love of self,
deepen our souls
May the love of
neighbor heal our world
As nations, as peoples,
as families this day
May the love of life
heal our world
-John Philip Newell[i]
Let’s stop calling this story in Luke 10:25-37 The Parable
of the Good Samaritan. It’s long past time to admit this is a backhanded compliment
at best, and implies that Samaritans in general are not so good. Just as
calling someone a “good Muslim” can imply all other Muslims are terrorists. Lest
we forget that it was Heinrich Himmler addressing, a group of SS officers, who
said that every German knows a “good Jew,” and that even one would be too many
as it might create sympathy for them. There are still Samaritans to whom “good Samaritan”
can sound offensive. And it misleads the rest of us from understanding just how
odd “good Samaritan” would sound to Jesus’s audience, including the equally
offensive lawyer. For centuries the Jews and Samaritans had both insisted they
were the rightful heirs of Abraham, they knew the meaning of Torah, they knew how
to worship, and both insisted on where God was to be worshipped: the Samaritans
in the north, the Jews in the south. These are the kinds of enemies Jesus has
been teaching his followers to love and to pray for.
This lawyer is an expert in Torah, the first five books of
the Bible, the basis of Israel’s covenant relationship with her God. This
lawyer, who thinks he knows Torah so well that he can dare to “test” Jesus,
wants to know what he needs “to do” to inherit eternal life. That is, what box
can I check to earn eternal life. But suddenly, he finds himself being tested. “You’re
the expert in the law of Moses, how do you read it?” Love God and love your
neighbor, replies the lawyer. That’s right. Just do it, and you will live, says
Jesus. Note, what Jesus makes clear is that the law is not about eternal life –
it’s about life here and now. Eternal life is given by God and God alone. You
cannot earn it – it is pure mercy and grace. It’s all about loving our neighbor
no matter what, no matter who. As Madeleine L’Engle reminded us last week, Love
is not a feeling, it is what we do. Do something helpful for our neighbors,
whether or not you like them. The lawyer ought to know this.
Our lawyer then reveals what he does not know: wanting to
justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" As in his
opening question it’s still all about him. And underneath this question, of
course, is the question: how few of my neighbors must can I get away with?
Jesus answers with a story and a question. A story we all
know too well, and throughout the years the Church has domesticated it almost
beyond recognition. On the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, a man is attacked
by robbers and left half-dead on the side of the road. A priest and then a Levite
see the man and keep on going. Much is often made of the fact that both of them
serve at the Jerusalem Temple and may be concerned about remaining “ritually
pure.” This is odd, since on one hand it appears that they are leaving their duties
in the Temple with plenty of time to recover their “purity,” if that is even a
problem; on the other hand, it is often used to make the rules of Torah, and by
implication the Jews and Judaism, look bad.
Sidebar: Amy Jill Levine, in her book Short Stories by
Jesus, allows that perhaps the best explanation for their not stopping to
help was given by Martin Luther King, Jr: “I’m going to tell you what my
imagination tells me. It’s possible these men were afraid…And so the first
question that the priest and the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man,
what will happen to me?”…But then the Samaritan came by, and he reversed the
question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” King
went on, “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to
them?” King then went to Memphis, and it was there he was assassinated. We are
reminded that there are bandits on the road.[ii]
The story then focuses on the Samaritan. The robbers, the priest
and the Levite all leave the man in the ditch half-dead. The Samaritan returns
him to life. Again, AJ Levine reminds us of two important lessons. First, the Samaritan
is not a “social victim. He had money, freedom to travel, the ability to find
lodging, and leverage with the innkeeper. The parable in its original setting, is
not about the type of prejudice that creates people on the margins; it is about
hatred between groups who have similar resources. Second, a benevolent reading
of the Samaritan’s final actions understands him as providing not one-time aid,
but long-term care. Thus, the sense of loving neighbor means continual action,
not something to check-off the to-do list. The Samaritan’s offering the
innkeeper what amounts to a blank check, fits within Jesus’s overall concern
for generosity. Moreover, his trusting the innkeeper to care for the wounded
man echoes the trust the wounded man had to have had in him. By trusting the
innkeeper, he provides confirmatory evidence that we make our neighbors;
that trust is essential for life.”[iii]
Jesus gives the lawyer one last chance asking, “Which of
these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of
the robbers?" The one who showed mercy, he replies. “Go and do likewise,”
says Jesus – a command directed by Luke toward us all. The Samaritan embodies one of the primary
attributes of what God does – God’s love is grounded in forgiveness and mercy
and love. To love God and love neighbor does not require worshipping in a
particular location in a particular way, or even following a particular book: Torah,
the Christian Bible, the Quran, the Book of Mormon – for love does not exist in
the abstract, but rather love needs to be enacted in what we do for one
another. As the hymn Jesu, Jesus proclaims, “All are neighbors to us
and you!”
It is difficult to imagine a more relevant story for the
world in which we live. The importance of asking, “What will happen to him or
to her?” rather than, “What will happen to me or to us?” makes all the
difference. The necessity of providing long-term care and long-term solutions
to ages old enmities could not be more important. Can we become those people
who care for our enemies who are also our neighbors? Can we imagine that they
might do the same for us? Any concern for humanity’s future tells us we must.
As Rabbi Hillel famously sums it up: If I am not for myself, who is for me?
If I am for myself alone, who am I? And if not now, when?
Let’s call this something like, The Parable of the Generous
Neighbor. And pray that that is who we may one day become – as individuals,
as a nation, and as the world. Amen.
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