Proper 10C--Luke 10:25-37
Copyright Ó 2001 Mark William Frazier
Woody Allen tells the story about somebody asking a rabbi “why do you rabbis always answer a question with a question?” And the rabbi’s answer (after a long pause), “Why shouldn’t a rabbi answer a question with a question?” Jesus the rabbi is challenged by a lawyer today. This guy was not a lawyer the way we think and joke about lawyers, but he was an expert in the Torah, the Jewish Law. Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus answers the lawyers question with another question: what is written in the law? The lawyer responds with what we call the summary of the Law. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself”Jesus then seems to be ready to let the guy off and tells the lawyer, “right answer, “do this and you will live.” but the lawyer isn’t happy with the easy approval that Jesus has given him, and he pushes Jesus by asking another question. “who is my neighbor?” Jesus loved to respond to a question by asking another question, but he also loved to answer questions with parables: these incredibly clever stories about the kingdom of God that can have different meanings and are not easy to figure out. So in today’s Gospel reading Jesus tells the lawyer the parable of the Good Samaritan to answer the question about what it means to love your neighbor.
Before we get into the parable of the Good Samaritan, let’s explore the first part of the story. The lawyer asks Jesus a question about a specic law of the Hebrew scriptures. The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself is found in the book of Leviticus, which must have been this legal expert’s favorite book, because it is just filled with laws. The love your neighbor law is in chapter 19 which is a section known as the Holiness Code. The holiness laws were very important because they made the Israelite people unique, these laws made them different. In a sense, that is what holiness is, apartness. The Israelites were to be a people set apart, and their lives would be determined by the relationship that they shared with God. Chapter 19 of Leviticus starts out: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy." The laws included commandments about religious life, commandments about taking care of the poor, how to conduct business, and how to treat neighbors. but these laws also commanded the Israelites to treat strangers kindly, "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” The torah was never meant to be just a list of laws, it was the way of the Israelites and their God. The people of God were to be holy in imitation of their holy God. Holiness was how the people of the covenant lived. It was a part of the story of the exodus and the calling of Israel to be a people. The law determined what kind of society the Israelites would have in response to what God had done for them.
And the torah and its laws have kept some people very busy studying and asking questions. Who is my neighbor? This is one of the juiciest and most unanswered questions in the history. Even Jesus sort of dodges the question, the parable of the Good Samaritan isn’t about knowing who is your neighbor, but it does describe being a neighbor. It’s been suggested that the parable of the Good Samaritan is misnamed. The story is really about the man who fell among robbers, the guy who is in the ditch half-dead. He is the person who the story revolves around and who demands a decision. The Samaritan didn’t respond to the guy in the ditch because he could “identify” him as a neighbor, he responded because he was half dead in a ditch. And he was right in front of the Samaritan. So he was moved with pity. He felt compassion. For the Samaritan this other person in this kind of trouble was a gut-wrenching site. He had to do something, it didn’t matter whether he knew the man in the ditch or whether they were members of the same class or community, or had the same religious beliefs. people. Jesus is telling us in this story you can’t tell who your neighbor is going to be. The word “neighbor” is often used to exclude. We might like to think neighbors are members of our in-group. Respectable residents of our community. But in this parable Jesus is telling us that a neighbor is anyone we encounter. And sometimes to love our neighbor involves seeing her trouble, allowing ourselves to be moved by her pain, and to be involved in her agony. And sometimes it is us in the ditch, and we become neighbors when we need the mercy of a stranger.
So this commandment to love our neighbors is really important then. It’s part of our Christian identity.But we are not saved and the world is not saved by doing good works. If good works were enough, then the laws and the holiness code would have been enough, and Jesus would not have needed to come among us and to die for us. Salvation is not some blissful state to which we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps after we have gotten the right attitude and done enough good deeds. We inherit eternal life by becoming a new creation in Christ. Baptism is the sign of that new creation.
Through our baptisms we are brought into the body of Christ. And we each enter into a baptismal covenant. A covenant is a two-way agreement, between God and the people of God. The baptismal covenant certainly isn’t an agreement between equals, but we respond to God with promises, and among them is to seek to serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. So maybe the parable of the Good Samaritan can help us to put the baptismal covenant into perspective—into practical terms.
We should ask ourselves how can I be a neighbor? I would answer that you will know what it means to be a neighbor when you have received help, or friendship, or mercy from a neighbor. Likewise we can only serve Christ in response to what Christ has already done for us. Jesus our friend and neighbor has lead us through his death and resurrection from the bondage of sin and death into everlasting life.