Day 1546 - Why is It So Easy to Be a Good Neighbor?

A sermon shared at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, March 5, 2017

Psalm 15

Luke 10:1-5, 16-37

Why is it so easy to be a neighbor? Before answering, let’s sort out Luke’s record including this parable about neighbors. Throughout his ministry, Jesus used parables to ask questions that were often answers to a questioner, using a story that has a double meaning, one that sounds reasonable on the surface but on thinking about it becomes disruptive, turning reason on its head. We think we know where Jesus is going, but when he is done, we wonder, how in the world did I get from where I started to here??

A unified message threads its way through this part of Luke starting with the disciples being sent off on their first mission trip and ending with the parable about the Good Samaritan.

First, Jesus tells the disciples the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few as he sends 70 more of them (the workers) off on their first “harvest” journey (previously he sent the 12), so this suggests truly the urgency of “the harvest.”) The instructions are simple, take nothing with you except the clothes on your back, sandals on the feet, and speak to no one on the road, only knock on doors of homes. When someone answers the door, greet them, ‘Peace to this house!’ And they invite you in to share the peace, your peace will rest on them; but if not, it will return to you. If they reject you, shake the dust from your shoes/sandals and go on to the next home.

“Shaking the dust from your shoes” is an old Semitic custom that more, or less says, “I tried to help you but you have rejected me, so I leave your fate in your own hands.”  The instructions then are that the disciples are to have patience and restraint towards all those folks who reject and put them down. “Shaking the dust of your sandals” isn’t judgment, it acknowledges one’s faith is in one’s own hands. We are not responsible for “making” someone a Christian, only for having the kindness to harvest the ripened crop.

We know this is true. The last comment by Jesus before they leave is, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”  (You know who that is.)

Surely enough the 70 return, reporting great success, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” Jesus pours cold water on their pride, saying, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning... do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Jesus refocuses their attention from the power he gave them to the deed itself, sharing their peace. It was their faith that kept Jesus with them as they shared peace and faced ego-piercing rejection.  

When we say, “Peace be with you,” we are following the response of God to Gideon who feared he would die. It means “The Lord is with you, you shall not die.” Passing the peace turns us away from self and towards the other person. That is why the 70 disciples “names are written in heaven.”

Jesus knows the disciples (and us) will not get the message without some divine help, because he utters a prayer of joy for the Holy Spirit, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” We are infants in living our faith. – Infants learning to walk…

The requirement to turn from self and to the other, passing the peace, readies us for one of the more widely known parables, the “Good Samaritan.” Everything about this parable is important.

First, look at the participants in the conversation leading up to the parable. Turning from this prayer with the disciples, and talking about eternal life, Jesus makes an aside so quietly that only the disciples hear it, “Blessed are the eyes (of others) that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

Is he reminding them of all those who shared peace with them, and all those who did not? Or is he sharpening their minds to understand how “passing the peace” connects to what happens next?

An expert in the Law listening to these public comments by Jesus stands up and asks the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

We call him a lawyer. But he is a religious lawyer of the Law of Moses. Remember Jesus said he came not to overturn the law but to fulfill it. We have two “legal beagles” schooled in the Law, ready to argue. Jesus answers the lawyer’s question with a question, in classic form, “What does the Law say?”

Everyone knows that answer (Psalm 15), it is written on their doorposts Remember the mezuzah?  The mezuzah holds the Shema, the ultimate assertion of the supremacy of the Lord and source of our being,  “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.” And, “and love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

You can imagine an inward smile on Jesus, the constant fisherman, as he casts his line, saying, “Do this and you shall live.” The lawyer took the bait and ran with it, asking, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answers with the parable involving four men, a priest, a Levite, a Samaritan and a half-dead, naked man in the ditch beside the road.

We need to know some things about these four men and Jerusalem as the parable unfolds. A priest is a member of the tribe of Levi. They are set aside for duty in the Temple. A priest is a Levite. All Levites were not priests but Levites had some religious duty in the Temple. They were bound by the purity practices of The Law in order to administer their duties in the Temple. If they are unclean, they cannot enter the Temple and fulfill their duties without going through an arm-length list of rituals of purification. Touching a dead person, or human blood required purification. Also, it is considered a sin to look on another person’s nakedness. (One of Noah’s sons was cursed because he saw Noah drunk and passed out naked on the floor of his tent.)

As the Samaritans, they shared a mutual hate with the Judeans. The nation of Israel split in the reign of Solomon into ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom in Samaria and two tribes of the Southern Kingdom in Benjamin and Judah. They fought and argued other over religious precepts as Catholics and Protestants did in the days of Martin Luther, even the way some Protestant denominations do today.  Each saw the other as a heretic to be avoided.

Jerusalem is on a hill and this road up to the Temple is steep, on a hill 2500 feet above sea level and 3800 feet above the Dead Sea. A traveler from Jericho would make a 3500 foot climb over 14 miles.   During the time of Jesus, it also a dangerous road where traveling Jews bringing money to buy sacrifices for the Temple could be assaulted by robbers hiding off the roadside.

That is the setup as Jesus begins his parable with, “Once upon a time” there was a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan. The Levite and priest see this half-dead, naked man in the ditch on the side of the road, an obvious victim of violent crime.  Or is it an ambush, perhaps?

The priest and then the Levite cross to the other side to road to avoid the man. Thus far, the Jewish listeners might consider this a proper, if slightly questionable decision of expediency since they have religious duties to manage and avoiding becoming unclean is of primary importance.

Then a Samaritan comes down the road and the logic of the story breaks down. The Samaritan’s presence makes no sense to his Jewish audience. He would not have been welcome, or safe in Jerusalem among Jews celebrating Sabbath. What is going on??

Nevertheless, he sees the man in the ditch and pity moves him.

PITY. On occasion, the committees who translate the old Greek NT manuscripts into English make choices about how to express the deeper meaning of Greek words. (See an earlier post for more on this word.)  To us, pity, compassion, sympathy, loving kindness can all mean the same thing.  But pity can also have the flavor of a sad event, e.g., what a pity your dog died, or even be negative, e.g., “your excuse is pitiful.”

The Greek word described by “pity” is a special word. It is used about six or seven times in the Gospels to describe the compassion Jesus feels towards a human who is suffering, ill, or over the death of child. It is the strongest word for compassion in biblical Greek. For the Greeks, the seat of deep emotion was the gut, the bowels.

The literal meaning of this word is having one’s entrails twisted, so the most direct translation might be “gut-wrenching.” Have you ever had an intestinal virus, if so, you may appreciate the power of the word.

For us modern, delicate folks who think the heart is the seat of emotion, we could say “heart-breaking compassion.” Either way, biblical Greek means, “divine compassion.” It is the love that God has for humanity that moved God to send to us the good news of how to live the good life through Jesus who defeated death by dying. That victory left us with the most precious religious image of divine compassion, the empty cross. Remember the lawyer is asking the answer about gaining eternal life.

There are two instances in parables where Jesus uses this word not to describe his compassion but human compassion towards another person. One parable is the man who had two sons, the older son and the prodigal son. The father saw his prodigal son coming up the road home and was filled with divine regardless of wasting his money. Most of us see the father symbolizing God and the two sons symbolizing the Hebrews and the Gentiles (or Samaritans) coming home to the celebration of salvation.

The other parable is this one. The Samaritan, the hated heretic, sees and has divine compassion for the wounded man (who is probably a Jew). He ignores the potential danger of the robbers lurking nearby. He ignores that he is getting bloody as he tends the man’s wounds and lifts the man onto his draft animal to take him to an Inn. There he leaves a large sum of money for safekeeping the man, promising to return to cover any more expense by the innkeeper.

Jesus has the probably angry attention of the Jewish audience with this Samaritan becoming the hero of the story.

Then Jesus does his little trick. He answers the two questions of the lawyer, “How do I inherit eternal life?” and “Who is my neighbor?” with a single question, “Which of the three was the neighbor to the wounded man?” The lawyer replied correctly, probably through clinched teeth, “I suppose the one who showed him mercy.” Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” (Left unstated but implied: “if you want to inherit eternal life.”)

So, is it so easy to be a good neighbor? Is it as a sarcastic question, or a statement of faith, or both? The mission of the 70 preceding this parable carried a message to share the peace focusing not on ego and self but the other person. Jesus says this is what put the names of the disciples in the register of Heaven.

To seal that message, the parable states unavoidably that the Divine compassion the Lord has for us is exactly the compassion we should have for each other. You cannot escape this conclusion.

Love the Lord with every part of your being, love your neighbor the same way. Jesus turned the tables on us, the man in the ditch is not your neighbor, you, like the Samaritan, are the neighbor. The question becomes not, “Who is my neighbor?” but “Am I a good neighbor?”

So, “Is it so easy to be a good neighbor?” is not sarcasm but is a statement of what our goal of behavior towards each other ought to be.

Did the Samaritan expect a reward for treating a stranger as a friend? Jesus said it is easy to love your friend, which may be sarcasm. We often treat strangers better than we treat our friends and brothers and sisters.

The true measure of grace is how well we love those who are not very friendly and those with whom we disagree or are angry. It is the constant battle between ego and humility. I know from personal experience how hard that battle is, and I’m sure you all do also. But if we take one thing from this passage, it ought to be that as Christians, we are in the business of having divine compassion towards each other.

Amen.