25Just then a
lawyer stood up
to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal
life?”26He said to him, “What is
written in the law? What do you read there?”27He 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.”28And he
said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will
live.”
29But wanting to
justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”30Jesus 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.31Now by chance a priest was going down that
road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the
place and saw him, passed by on the other side.33But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when
he saw him, he
was moved with pity.34He 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.35The 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.’36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to
the man who fell
into the hands of the robbers?”37He
said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do
likewise.”
¿How
Good Can
a Samaritan Be?
+ In nomine Domini.Amen.
This
Sunday and next Sunday we are spending our Gospel Reading time in the 10th
chapter of the Gospel According to Luke.Today … the “Parable of the Good Samaritan” … next Sunday
… “Mary and
Martha.”
Both
great stories, both well known, and therefore both very dangerous for
preaching
because of their familiarity as stories or terms or at least phrases,
as in:
“Oh, he was just being a good Samaritan”
or “she was just acting like Martha!”
And
how many people, using either of those phrases, know that these are
stories
only take place in the Gospel of Luke … not Mark, not Matthew,
certainly not
John … that is to say, how many people know that these two stories are
put into
Luke’s general narrative of the life of Jesus for a particular reason
to make a
particular point, to ask a particular question?
And
besides, how many people know who the Samaritans were? … are?
You
see, that’s why familiar Biblical stories are dangerous stories …
because we
know them so well that we tend to twist them into our own use rather
than let
them hook us into their meaning.
So,
before once again allowing the introduction to my sermon become the
sermon
itself, let me offer some answer to the questions just raised and then
we’ll
plunge into the Good Samaritan story itself.
If
you look up Samaritans in Wikipedia,
here is what you find:
The Samaritans (Hebrew:
שומרונים
Shomronim,
Arabic: السامريون as-Sāmariyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group
of the Levant.
Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic
religion
closely related to Judaism. Based on the Samaritan Torah, Samaritans
claim
their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to
the
Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the Land of Israel, as opposed to Judaism, which they assert is
a
related but altered and amended religion brought back by the exiled
returnees.[1]
You
will also find that as of 2007 there were 712 Samaritans gathered in Holon in Israel (near Tel Aviv) and MountGerizim near Nablus (Palestinian city in the northern West Bank called Shechem in the Hebrew Scriptures).Not many left.
The
Samaritans regarded (and still do regard) Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem,
as the
place where God wanted to be worshiped, where the Temple really should
be
placed … the spot where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac …
rather than
Mount Moriah around which Jerusalem grew up as a city.
[By
the way, even though the Temple Mount is under the jurisdiction of
Palestinians
and though not impossible to visit today, is made difficult if one is
not a
Muslim, you can still sit on Mount Moriah by going to the south side of
the
Temple Mount, walking past the archeological excavation, and going up
the
remainder of ancient steps that were carved into the side of the mound
itself
as one of the ways to get to the Temple.If you sit there, you are sitting within yards of the
southern wall,
looking up you can see the top of the Temple Mount which in the time of
Jesus
did house the most sacred spot for Jews.
When
we did this four years ago, it made me think of Psalm 24: “Who shall
ascend the
hill of the Lord?And who shall stand in
God’s holy place?Those who have clean
hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false,
and do
not swear deceitfully.”[2]
Well
to Jews, Samaritans were lifting up their souls to what was false; and
to
Samaritans, Jews (returned from Exile) were no better … and that, among
other
things, gives Luke the Storyteller the best possible way of making
Jesus’ point
about “who is my neighbor?”The enmity
between Jews and Samaritans is the setting for the Parable.How good can a Samaritan[3]
be
… anyway?
And
the real question in the story, beyond the Torah Question (“What must I
do to
inherit eternal life?”) (Answer: Deuteronomy 6 verse … “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.”) …
the real
question beyond the question “Who is my neighbor?” (for the Greek Class
… the
word used by Luke is: πλησίον… lit.
“anyone near”) … the real question beyond all this, maybe we should
say, beneath all this … is “Where do we find
ourselves in these stories?” … this morning in the tale of the Jew and
the
Samaritan along the road … and next week in the story of Mary and
Martha.
Yes,
it’s about loving God by loving one’s neighbor … yes, it’s about not
being so
religious that you miss the point of being religious (love of God, love
of
neighbor) … yes, it’s about letting go of some personal whatever
that keeps you from the community of faith (as in “Well, I
just don’t really go to Church anymore; my needs are not being met; I’m
not
being filled …”) … sorry, friend, that’s not the community of faith’s
purpose
nor it’s agenda … let’s just move beyond those things … and yes, the
story is
even about the centrality of others in the life of the self (or as
Luther would
insist … the center of our being is to be found elsewhere … first in
the Jesus
who tells us who we are (beloved children of God), and then in the
neighbor to
whom following Jesus always leads us … and we should add, given today’s
clue by
Luke, we should add … even if that neighbor is someone you can’t stand.
Want
to modernize the story?Go ahead.Insert modern Israel and modern Palestine into the roles played by their ancient
counterparts.Or, how about … tutsis and
hutus in Rwanda?Or Ranchers
and Vegetarians?Or Republicans and
Democrats?
Or
how about this:a pious woman was going
along the road from Nambe to Chimayo one Good Friday for the Pilgrimage
… and
along the way some overzealous Pilgrims (of a religious community no
one ever
heard of and when no one else was looking) beat her up, stole her
backpack and the
small wooden cross her Grandmother had asked her to carry to the
Shrine, and
tossed her down the side of the road into the chamisa and cholla,
unconscious.
Along
came a Lutheran Pastor, who pretended not to look and changed sides of
the
road, nearly getting himself struck by another pilgrim riding a
Harley-Davidson
Road King ® (or one could say another pilgrim bicycling on a 1987
Trek 520
Cirrus™).
The
woman began to moan, coming back to consciousness.Just then a subdued Methodist, walking,
praying, and reading a copy of John Wesley’s Sermons happened by, but
he/she
dodged the speeding Rio Arriba County Sheriff and made it safely to the
other side
as well.
But,
along came a man who was walking to Chimayo praying to be healed of
HIV/AIDS
and he noticed the woman lying up against the chamis and cholla.He barely had the strength, but he went down
the bank, held her in his arms, took off his bandana and stopped the
bleeding
of her injuries, and slowly and with great effort carried her back up
the side
until he came to the roadbed whereupon he waved to his friends who were
his
support team who were following him at a distance in their worn Subaru
Outback™
… loaded her inside, tended to her wounds as they all drove her to
Christus St.
Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe.
You
get the point.
It’s
not doctrine that saves us.It’s not
bowing at the name of Jesus every time we hear it in the liturgy
(although I really
try to do that!).It’s not reading the
Bible this way or that way.It’s not
making the budget.It’s not even knowing
Greek and Hebrew.It’s loving God and
loving πλησίον… the
one near you.
That
is why we come to Church, that is why we are the Church, that is why we
leave
to be the Church … we call it, living the Good News and it is what
brings
health, healing, and wholeness into the world.
Your
assignment for next Sunday is to read the next story at the end of the
10th
chapter of Luke’s Gospel, and answer the question, “Am I Martha, am I
Mary, or
who am I in that little story?”
Let
us pray.
Gracious
God, our Mother and Father, we cherish the closeness of your presence.
As we
embrace your presence with us, we pray that we will act as neighbor to
one
another. Manifest yourself in our bodies, in our words, in our actions.Manifest yourself in our communion with each
other. Manifest the power of inclusion in your church.Let us live your Good News every day, every
week, every month, every year.This
we
pray in the name of the one we follow, Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Deo Gratias (+)
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor, ChristLutheranChurch Santa
Fe, NM