Luke 10:25-37 as told by Lego people
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So, the Good Samaritan story. This
is kind of a tough one to preach because I bet all of you could preach a sermon
on it. Sermons about loving your enemy, about caring for those who are hurting,
about doing the right thing even when it’s hard or inconvenient. And you’d all
be right; the story of the Good Samaritan points us to all those things. They
would all be really good sermons, but all sermons you've heard before. So what
am I supposed to preach about?
Truthfully we
live in a world where this story has lost its impact, where we can hear this
story and not be uncomfortable or moved to change. You know when I lived in
Chicago I took the train to work every day. And my route to work hit at least 4 beggar hot spots. My train station, the train itself, the stop I got off on and
Michigan Ave. where I worked. I probably passed at least 4 or 5 people asking
for money every day. And I helped 3 of them. 3 out of probably 300. I had
easily rationalized to myself that I couldn't help everyone, so it was better
not to really help anyone, I knew that there were organizations designed
specifically to help people in their situation and reasoned that they should
really just go to those places. And I got jaded, I once bought a man a pair of
shoes. He had made flip flops out of cardboard in the winter and his feet were
a mess. I saw him a lot because he would sit right outside of WaterTower place,
this huge mall and when I took the bus, the stop was right in front. So I
bought him a pair of shoes, and socks, don’t forget the socks! I gave them to
him and he seemed so pleased and I felt so good. Until the next day I saw him
with his cardboard flip flops asking for money again. It’s really easy to walk
on by after that, it’s really easy tunnel our vision and just not see it any
more. We just don’t see it anymore.
Although
we’re all pretty familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan, it’s not the
only story going on in today’s scripture and I think, I pray that this other story
will give us new insights into the Good Samaritan.
The
story starts with a lawyer, an expert in the law, asking Jesus a question. One
of the main jobs of a lawyer is to ask questions. I know this because I loved Mock Trial when I was in middle school
and high school and one of my favorite parts was cross examination when I got
to ask the witness for the other side questions. The great part about it was
that I never asked a question I didn't know the answer to. Not once. My main
goal was to get the witness to say what I already knew. And God forbid they
said something that I didn't expect, because I was ready to prove them wrong. I
only asked questions that I knew the answers to, so that I could get the
answers that I wanted. And scholars would say that is what this lawyer is
doing too based on Jesus’ response. The lawyer asks: “what do I have to do to
inherit eternal life” and Jesus turns it around and asks him “what’s written in
the law?” I mean, you’re the lawyer, the legal expert, what does it say? And
the lawyer does know the answer, “love the Lord your God with all your heart,
soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he’s right, he
knows it, Jesus knows it, but the lawyer doesn't stop there. He knows who God
is, but he doesn't have a definition of neighbor. So he asks, “and who is my
neighbor?” The lawyer is looking for the legal definition, something he can use
as justification at the pearly gates if he has missed helping one of his
neighbors now and then. I think ideally he’d like Jesus to really spell it out,
Fredrick Buechner suggests something like this:
"A
neighbor (hereinafter referred to as the party of the first part) is to be
construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within
a radius of no more than three statute miles from one's own legal residence
unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter to be referred to
as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part
than one is oneself, in which case the party of the second part is to be
construed as neighbor to the party of the first part and one is oneself
relieved of all responsibility of any sort or kind whatsoever."1
That would be really helpful, not just
for the lawyer, but for us as well. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,
God does not always give us a list of do’s and don’ts, what’s right and what’s
wrong. Sure there are lists and there is right and wrong, but over and over
again, Jesus challenges what was believed to be absolutely right or wrong in
favor of doing what’s right or wrong in God’s eyes. And that very often causes
us a lot of discomfort. We’d much rather have a firm definition, just like this
lawyer, so that we too could be sure we toe the line and stay on God’s good
side. But that’s not what Jesus offers, Jesus offers a story instead. Jesus is
inviting the lawyer, inviting us to experience what it’s like to be a neighbor.
Jesus refuses to give us a black and white definition of neighbor, but instead
calls us to experience it, to feel what it’s like to be a neighbor. And guess
what? It doesn’t seem to be all rainbows and unicorns.
Jesus tells the story of the Good
Samaritan, someone who this lawyer probably despised, someone considered to be
completely beyond his social, cultural, ethnic group. I would imagine it would
be like the Taliban for some, or maybe Anti-Christian groups in Africa. We are
not just talking about the guy at work that we don’t get along with, Jesus is
picking out someone way more disliked than that. Now if Jesus could have easily
made the Samaritan the one who was attacked and showed the lawyer that the
Samaritan was his neighbor, that if he were to come across a beaten up
Samaritan you should help him out. While that’s true, Jesus doesn’t do that.
Jesus doesn’t make the Samaritan the victim, he makes him the hero. He makes
puts the person or group of people that you despise the most into an example.
Not just an example of a good and righteous thing to do, but somehow as the key
to eternal life.
I’m not sure how to convey to you the
radicalness of this story. We’ve heard it so many times that I know it’s hard
for me to imagine what story Jesus would tell us today in its place. We can
imagine the Taliban or any other terrorist organization, we can think of that
person at work that we don’t get along with, but somehow for me it still doesn’t
quite come across as radical as what Jesus is really saying. I know we were all
shocked, scared, confused and angry after the Boston Marathon bombing. We knew
people that live there, people who were running the race, we heard the stories
of the victims on the news. There was a real righteous anger flowing through
our country. And then I started to see on Facebook a call to pray for one of
the bombers, the one that was still alive, the one that was in the hospital.
And all of a sudden I was pulled so strongly in two directions. I searched my
mind for an argument that would allow me to continue to be angry, to comfort myself
with the knowledge that one day he too would face God. I reasoned that God
would want us to be angry, to speak out against violence against his children,
to stand up to those trying to make us live in fear. God does not want us to
live in fear! I thought that sounded pretty good, and you know, I still believe
it, but God is not a God of one emotion, of one way, of one response. God is a
God of possibilities, of black and white and shades of gray; our God is a God
of justice, but our God is also a God of mercy and love. And I can’t deny God’s
call for us to love and pray for our enemies and I couldn’t deny the fact I
believe that that person who had committed such a horrible, horrible act, is a
child of God. And it almost makes me sick, I have a physical reaction to that
reality and what that means to a follower of Jesus.
And I
wonder if it was like that for the lawyer. I wonder if he walked away with a
lump in his throat or a sinking feeling in his stomach. Because it was that
radical.
Now I can pray for the Boston Bomber,
the Taliban, people I don’t get along with, I can include them as my neighbors
if they’re ever dying of the side of the road. I will call 911. But I have a
sneaky suspicion that while we should absolutely include these persons in our
definition of neighbor and treat them as such, that’s not all of what Jesus was
really trying to show the lawyer and it’s not really what he’s trying to show
us. What Jesus did by telling this story, what Jesus did by making the hated
the hero, is not an attempt to help us define neighbor, but to help us to see
our neighbor. It’s about seeing. The priest and the Levite saw the man as a burden,
an inconvenience, a hassle, a waste of time. The Samaritan saw him as a
neighbor. When we look at people, how do we see them? You can call everyone and
their mom your neighbor, but when you look at them, do you SEE them as your
neighbor? Can you think of the person,
the type of person that you would pass by? Someone who is a burden, an
inconvenience, a waste of time? Someone that you believe deserves to be where
they are. Whether that’s in a homeless shelter or in rehab or on the street or
in prison. How can we begin to see those people as our neighbor? How can we
possibly change the way we see the world?
Some of you may be familiar with a man
named Shane Claiborne. Shane lives in Philadelphia and at one point there was a
lot of anti-homeless legislation and he reportedly prayed about what he should
do about it. What is a follower of Jesus to do in this situation? I want to
share with you a little bit of his story today as told to Fredo Villasenor.2
Shane and his friends
prayed for inspiration on how to deal with the problem of the anti-homelessness
legislation. They were inspired by Luke 14, where Jesus teaches how to throw a
party: by inviting those that are not invited to anyone else’s party.
They invited their
homeless friends to Philadelphia’s LOVE Park, one of the places where there was
a no-feeding and no-sleeping ordinance in place. They held a worship service,
complete with the serving of communion bread. They ended by sleeping in the
park together, about 100 people total.
Shane said, “We did
that night after night for lots of weeks and then, one night at about midnight
when all of us were falling asleep, the police were ordered to come in and to
arrest us.They swarmed in from all sides and they handcuffed us and took us to
jail and we were charged for disorderly conduct. For sleeping.”
The group of activists
fought the charges in court. Believing that the Holy Spirit would give them the
words to defend themselves, they chose a homeless man with no background in law
to represent them. And although his defense was as simple as standing up and
saying to the judge, “Your honor, on behalf of the group, I’d like to say
we believe these laws are evil and wrong,” they won.
“The judge ended up
saying, ‘You know, what’s in question is not whether or not these folks broke
the law; what’s in question is the constitutionality and the rightness of the
laws that we are passing in this city,’ And he said, ‘If it
weren’t for people who broke the unjust laws, we wouldn’t have the freedom that
we have.’ ”
The judge said that
they were freedom fighters, not criminals; and he found them all not guilty on
all charges.
Just this past year,
Philadelphia again passed an anti-feeding ordinance. Claiborne and his
co-activists challenged it by hosting public picnics. They brought a Catholic
theologian to court to argue that feeding the poor is a sacrament.
He said, “We believe
that we are feeding Jesus, and it is a violation of religious freedom to say,
‘You cannot do one of the most fundamental acts of human compassion, to feed
someone who’s hungry,’ ”
In one instance, their
lawyer said, “We are not willing to come before God, and when God says, ‘Did
you feed me?’ we’re not going to say, ‘Sorry, our mayor wouldn’t let us.’ ”
The no-feeding
ordinance has since been declared a violation of religious freedom by a federal
judge.
He saw these people as
his neighbor, really saw them as his neighbor and treated them as such. I think
more than the rules about who is and isn’t our neighbor and how far we ought to
go in serving them, what the scripture for today shows us, is how to look for,
how to truly see everyone as our neighbors. Admittedly, it’s not easy, but God
never promised us that. Friends God does promise to be with us through it, to
work in our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit to help us to see, help us
to love and help us to serve. We have to open ourselves up to the ways God
wants to change our hearts and minds. It might not be changes that you want to
make, it might involve some pretty radical stuff, but we can trust that it’s
for our good and it’s for the good of God’s creation and God’s kingdodm. I pray
that you think about how you see others this week, who you consider your
neighbor. I pray that God will open your eyes and help you to see better. And I
know that God will continue to empower you not just to love your neighbor as
yourself, but to really see them. Amen.
