Who Is My Neighbor? - Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 8C/Proper 10
Van Gogh, Good Samaritan |
Luke 10:25-37 New
Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “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.”28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
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Who is
my neighbor? That is the question that elicits from Jesus the famous Good
Samaritan parable. The question itself follows upon a question about what is
required for one to inherit eternal life, which leads to a conversation about
the commands to love God and neighbor. The lawyer wants to know who qualifies
as his neighbor. Isn’t that a question we all want to ask Jesus? Jesus tells us
that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That’s fine, as far as
it goes, but what are the criteria upon which that question is answered? Jesus
tells the parable of the Good Samaritan in response. It’s a great parable, but
I think sometimes we forget the question that led Jesus to the parable.
Quite
often the “Good Samaritan” is simply an example of someone who steps in and
helps someone in distress. There’s nothing wrong with helping people in
distress, but is that the point of the story? Remember the story is a response
to a question as to whom one should consider one’s neighbor. We all want
neighbors who will help us when we’re in distress, but do want Samaritans as
our neighbors, even if they do prove helpful on occasion? As with many of Jesus’
parables, we often miss the point because we don’t understand the context. It’s
important to remember that Jews and Samaritans looked at each other as enemies.
They despised each other. Therefore, they didn’t want to be neighbors! And yet,
here is the hero of the story, the one who rescues the person in distress, at
great cost to himself, and his inclusion in the story is both surprising and
offensive to the audience.
In this
reflection, I want to address the question of who is the neighbor. Did you
notice that when Jesus finished telling the parable and asked the lawyer who
was the neighbor, the lawyer avoided using the word Samaritan? He simply said
that it was the one who showed mercy. He would have found it incredibly
difficult to say that it was a Samaritan. He wouldn’t have minded a priest or
Levite moving into the neighborhood, but not a Samaritan.
As we
contemplate the question of who is the neighbor, we need to ask who is the
Samaritan for us today? Whom would you prefer not to move into your neighborhood?
A Muslim? A Hindu? A gay couple? How about an African American family or a
Latino family? Homeowners are always concerned about property values. If
certain people move into the neighborhood they could bring down values. So,
realtors know how steer customers to “appropriate” neighborhoods. Back in the
day, especially in cities like Detroit and many of its suburbs, there were deed
restrictions that prevented persons of color from moving into the neighborhood.
When these restrictions were deemed unconstitutional and thus illegal, people
fled the cities for the suburbs. White Flight was abetted by government
policies that determined who could receive home loans and what neighborhoods
they could be used in. Thus, the FHA loan system in the 1950s denied loans to
people of color, which allowed for the creation of newly minted suburbs that
were almost completely white. At the same time, the urban areas became
increasingly non-white. Thus, a city like Detroit is now over 80% African
American, while many of the outer-ring suburbs are predominantly white. When we’re
allowed to choose our neighbors, it appears that we like neighbors who look
like us, talk like us, believe like us, etc.
Quite
often we define the other according to stereotypes and deem them unworthy of
being our neighbor. How could a stranger, someone so different from me, offer me
anything of value? The two figures in
the parable who stand out as poor examples of neighborliness—the priest and the
Levite—are the kind of people that the lawyer would have considered good
candidates for being a neighbor. After all, neighbors take care of neighbors
(that’s increasingly difficult since we often don’t know our neighbors).
When it
comes to the person in the story who is in need of help, we’re left to
speculate as to exactly why the priest and Levite chose to avoid helping. We’ve
often assumed that they passed by because of priestly duties, but how do we
know they were going to Jerusalem or the Temple. Maybe they, like the man whom
they neglected to help, were going down to Jericho and not up to Jerusalem. So maybe the issue of clean and unclean had
nothing to do with it. It’s possible that they feared that they too could be
waylaid by robbers. After all, this was a dangerous road. Or, maybe they were
just bad neighbors. Whatever the case, they failed to be a good neighbor, but
the person that Jesus’ audience would least expect to be the good neighbor
becomes the hero of the story.
So,
when Jesus asked the question as to whom was the neighbor one should love, the
answer was the Samaritan. As we who are Christians ponder this question in our
context, I’m sure we all want to believe that we love our neighbors as we love
ourselves. We want to believe that we do good things for others. If I’m honest,
while I do try, I also fall well short!
So who
is the unexpected neighbor? In our current context, I would venture to guess
that this role might be played by Muslims. The current political climate has
demonstrated a deep antipathy on the part of many Americans, including many
Christians for Muslims. They are seen as evil people bent on taking over the
country or as possible terrorists. Thus, even though the Statue of Liberty
declares that America welcomes the teeming masses, we want to exclude migrants
and refugees, especially refugees from places like Syria and Iraq. The
rationale here is that they are likely to be ISIS-inspired terrorists (because
all Muslims are terrorists). We don’t want them to be our neighbors! So what do I have to say to this, especially since I write this reflection as Ramadan, the holy season of fasting, comes to an
end? I’m fortunate to have become friends with a number of Muslim folks. My
community has a large Muslim population. Those I’ve come to know are not
terrorists. They’re not trying to undermine America? No, the people I’ve come
to know are friendly, gracious, and generous people. They’re the kind of people
you want to have as your neighbors! Even
though our theologies differ, we have recognized in each other the presence of
God. They are the kind of people I want as my neighbors, people whom I am to
love as I love myself!
Jesus
told a story to help get this across to the lawyer. I think in our day we need
more than a story. We need to build bridges of friendship. My congregation was
blessed recently to be the host of a Ramadan Iftar Dinner. Members of the
Turkish American Society of Michigan brought food to share with us, and we sat
at tables and built friendships. We learned about Ramadan and the purpose of
the fast. When it came time for evening prayers we made space for our guests to
offer their prayers—in the building! They were deeply appreciative. These are
my neighbors.
Pushing
this question of neighbor even further: what should we say and do about the
migrant? Millions of human beings are being displaced by war and famine. What
should we do? As I ask that question, which emerged in the Brexit vote and is
driving the conversation in our Presidential electoral race here in the United
States, what would Jesus, the one who told the parable of the Good Samaritan,
do? Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz speak to this question in their new
book Public Faith in Action. They
speak of Jesus as “Christ the welcomer.” They suggest that we should imitate
him, for Jesus is the “incarnation of a welcoming God” (p. 126). Then they write
something that’s germane here:
Embracing others is just what love of neighbor looks like when our neighbor is a “stranger.” Such welcoming love is the first basic Christian commitment that should shape public engagement related to migration (p. 127).
There are other principles involved as well, like justice, but
this is the starting point. We talk
often about economics and cultural interests, but as Volf and McAnnally-Linz
remind us, we should be thinking in terms of “welcoming embrace and justice.” Obviously, there are different factors to be considered when a nation welcomes the
stranger—including economic and security issues—but how do we determine what
those limits should be?
So the
question still stands: who is my neighbor?
Picture attribution: Gogh, Vincent van, 1853-1890. Good Samaritan, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54697 [retrieved July 4, 2016]. Original source: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JxomvlRi2uo/SDTc3ruAVoI/AAAAAAAANxw/L07CjJU2AOo/s512/The%252520Good%252520Samaritan%252520by%252520Van%252520Gogh.jpg.
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