“YOUR NEIGHBOR”
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10) July 10, 2016 Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
[Jesus said:] “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” [The expert in the Law] said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Luke 10:36, 37 (ESV)
I remember, back when I was a freshman in college at Concordia-Bronxville, my mother sending me a newspaper clipping about an experiment that was conducted at a very well-know divinity school in New England. A class of students was scheduled to take an exam on the parable of the Good Samaritan. The professor had arranged in advance that in a corridor through which his students would have to pass on their way to take the exam, a ragged-looking stranger would appear to suffer a heart attack and collapse right in the path of the students. I don’t think that I have to finish the story, because I’m sure that you probably already know what happened. The overwhelming majority of these seminary students did nothing to help the stricken man on the floor, but instead found some way to walk around him so that they could make it to their exam on time.
That experiment, like our Lord’s parable, teaches us a lot that we probably don’t want to learn--a lot about how people in general and we in particular value the life and well-being of others in comparison to the various other “important” things in our lives. One of the great dangers in reading or studying a Bible story as familiar as this one is that we get to the point where we think we know it so well that we actually stop listening to what it is has to say to us. Like the expert in the Law who prompted this teaching of our Lord, we tend to have a very safe and narrow view of who our neighbor is and how we are to help him. But then Jesus comes along and ruins it for us by putting it in very real and graphic terms. Listening carefully to what He is saying, let’s go through the uncomfortable and painful process of seeing ourselves in the priest and the Levite in this parable and seeing especially our example in the Samaritan so that, as we think of all that Jesus has done for us, we might find forgiveness, comfort, hope, and strength in Him. One of the things that we can learn from this story as it unfolds is that our “neighbor” includes more than people who are just like us. We tend to evade our responsibility toward our neighbor under God’s Law by narrowing our definition of “neighbor” to such a extent that most of the people we meet who are in need are excluded. What did this Samaritan traveler have in common with the man who had fallen “among robbers” (Luke 10:30)? The animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans is well documented in the Gospels. The Samaritan certainly had no reason to feel any obligation toward this Jew, who undoubtedly considered the religion of the Samaritans to be nothing more than a cult. Besides that, how was the Samaritan to know whether or not this man was really injured? It wasn’t all that uncommon in those days for someone to stage such a situation in a remote place in order to distract a lone traveler so that an accomplice in hiding could come out and assault him. There were all kinds of excuses that the Samaritan could have used to avoid helping this man. But he didn’t see it that way. All he knew was that right here in front of him was a person in need, and he saw that person as his neighbor.
But the contrast between the Samaritan and the injured man seems insignificant when you consider the infinitely greater contrast between the Lord Jesus and us. He is divine and we are merely human. He is the perfect Son of God and we are the rebellious creatures of God. He is “worthy . . . to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12) and we are worthy of nothing more than God’s judgment and condemnation. Jesus has far more reason to be indifferent to our predicament than the Samaritan did to that of the man lying in the road. The man in the road found himself there through no fault of his own, whereas we are in our predicament of sin and death because of our own rebellious choices. What’s more, most of us don’t really see any connection between our choice to reject God and His ways and our hopeless condition. To put it in modern terms, we just don’t get it. In view of all of this, why should God trouble Himself with our self-inflicted problems?
What the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable and the Lord Himself have to teach us here is that our “neighbor” is anyone we encounter who happens to be in need, regardless of who or what that person may be. When the Samaritan saw the wounded man lying in the road, he didn’t take into account the man’s ethnicity or religion. He didn’t see someone who was a traditional enemy of his people. He didn’t look at this man as being a threat or an inconvenience to him in any way whatsoever. All that he saw was a fellow human being who needed his help. He reasoned that he had no choice but to help the man, since he could easily find himself in a similar predicament. To the Samaritan the issue was not whether or not this man deserved his help, but rather whether or not this man was in need of his help.
In the same way, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ looks at us not in terms of our worthiness or our innocence, but rather in terms of our need. As He beholds our helpless and hopeless condition He has compassion on us despite the fact that we ourselves have created the mess that we find ourselves in. It is we who have chosen to turn away from a loving God and to fend for ourselves. It is we who have entrenched ourselves so deeply in selfishness and sin that we cannot extract ourselves from it or escape its consequences. It is we who have turned our back on the grace of God over and over again. But our Lord looks upon us not with the judgment and condemnation that we so richly deserve, but with love--love that is so strong that it moved Him to enter our messy world of sin as One of us in order to redeem us from our sin and its consequences, taking our sin upon Himself and enduring its just punishment in our place when He suffered and died on the cross. And as if this wasn’t enough already, He also gave us His Holy Spirit who, through Word and Sacrament, convinces us that it’s all true, thereby creating and nurturing saving faith in our hearts--all so that we can have the forgiveness of our sins, peace with God, and the sure and certain hope of everlasting life.
There is a purpose for which our Savior has done all of this for us.In his Small Catechism Martin Luther describes that purpose with these words: “ . . . that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness” (Small Catechism, explanation of the Third Article of the Creed). You and I, unworthy sinners that we are, have been redeemed so that we might be changed. We who have despised Him have been redeemed so that we might honor Him. We who have been indifferent have been redeemed so that we might care, as did the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable. The Holy Spirit cheers us with the knowledge that we are forgiven for everything that we have done (and have failed to do) and for everything that we have been. And He also blesses us with the motivation and the strength to become what God has created, redeemed, and called us to be in Christ.
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.