The 5th Sunday after Pentecost

July 14, 2019

“God’s Neighborhood”

St. Luke 10:25-37

Art by Daniel Bonnell

Jesus is a great story teller.  And one of the greatest short stories ever told is the Story of the Good Samaritan.  By the way that title would have never made it at the time of Jesus.  In the first century most Jewish people would never think of Samaritans as ‘good.’  Theirs was a mixed race.

In Biblical times, the Samaritans were absolutely despised by the Jewish tribes. They were seen as a mixed-blood race resulting from the inter-marriages between Northern Kingdom Israelites and the Gentiles that had come into the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the Assyrian invasion.  

The Jews of Judah seriously believed that they were the only "pure-blooded," truly chosen people of God.  Samaritan relatives were second-class citizens, at best. 

Even more disturbing, the Samaritans were seen as spiritual half-breeds, something to be reviled. The Samaritan Hebrew Scripture consisted only of the five books of Moses (the Pentateuch).  They believed that Mount Gerizim was the mountain on which Moses had commanded that an altar be built. The Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim (where both Abraham and Isaac had built altars according to Genesis 12:7: 33:20) in about 400 BC, Jewish tribes destroyed it in 128 BC. Hostility between Samaritans and Jews was ever on the verge of erupting. 

So ‘Good Samaritan’ would be an oxymoron – a contradictory statement that would make no sense.  But today – Good Samaritan conjures up the image of one person helping another in distress often at great peril to oneself.

We’ve heard this story so many times and it is so familiar that it has lost its edge.  This is quite a radical edgy story.  It tells of compassion in the face of blatant bigotry.  So, today, we are going to hear the Story of the Good Samaritan from the perspective of the victim – the person beaten and robbed on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  

A poem entitled “Robbed!” is printed on the insert in your bulletin.  It is an attempt to tell the story of the Good Samaritan from the victim’s point of view and how he might have reacted to what happened to him.  We assume from this parable told by Jesus that the person who was beaten and left half dead is a Jew – a person of the blessed tribe of Judah.

The victim speaks and tells his story:

Robbed! (by Kenn Storck)

A twisted fisted hand,

A bleeding furrowed brow.

My eyes saw skies—dark, threatening.

Cries arise through the tree boughs.

Tossed in a ditch like garbage

From a recent traveler’s meal.

I had no breath to shout again.

My mind began to reel.

In a mindless stupor

My inner eye could see

Images of people

Who began to pass by me.

Out of the foggy coma

A dream-like man rode by.

A Priest with prayer shawl muttered:

“Unclean!  Unclean!” he sighed.

My God!  It seemed like days

Until my inner eye could see

A Levi dressed in Sabbath garb

Hovering over me.

His look of horror struck

Within my mind and heart.

The Sabbath Law must be obeyed

And so he did depart.

A twisted opened hand,

A face I dare not trust,

Thrusted hands now lifted me

And we were in a rush.

The sky was dark and gray.

Hands gently salved my wounds.

I found myself awake from sleep

Resting in a room.

A twisted opened hand

Passed silver across the door.

Speaking softly, left unknown:

“Tell me if you need more.”

I awakened from deep pain

And thought it was a dream.

Could comrades from my race

Have left me in such a scene?

Samaritan –a face of hate

--trash –a dirty dog!

Salved my wounds and brought me here?

My God, I’m in a fog!

A gentle voice, the innkeeper’s wife, sighed,

“No, God’s Word is very near.

In those we hate and despise

God’s promise is made clear.”

God’s neighborhood looks quite a bit different than many of our neighborhoods.  Our neighbors, if we indeed know them, are usually people we are comfortable with. Someone we’d trust with our spare keys.  

It is all about conviviality – being there for one another during times of need or even during times of storm and stress.  Neighbors can bring out bring out the best in us, but a lousy neighbor can bring out the beast.  

That’s our neighborhood.

Then along comes Jesus with this edgy story to spoil our cushy assumptions.

Along comes Jesus with this story that turns the neighborhood inside out.  You see the ‘Priest’ and the Levite were indeed good neighbors.  According to the Law they acted in the interest of Temple.  Both had Temple duties to perform and stopping to help this half-dead person would have made them ritually unclean and unable to perform their priestly duties.  

These two characters were indeed obeying the ‘letter’ of the Law.  They were right.  If you’ve got your neighborhood all figured out, if you’ve identified the bad guys and the good guys in life, if you live in a world with no shades of grey – but only black and white than, like the ‘Priest’ and Levite you can be right and still be wrong.

In the ‘I’ve got it all figured out neighborhood’ – the insiders and outsiders know their place.  They maintain their distance and distrust and ‘far be it’ to expect a good deed from those who are so different than us!  Are we able to accept the kindness of one we have characterized as other, or different, or not to be trusted because of race, religion, or ethnic origin.

In God’s neighborhood the Samaritan outsider acts on behalf of the 'other' treating someone different from him  in a humane act of compassion. The ‘Other’ is the compassionate one.  

But notice the Lawyer does not get it.  He misses the point of the parable.  He will not even call the Samaritan a Samaritan – but answers euphemistically with ‘the one who showed him mercy.’  That Lawyer left oblivious to the true nature of being neighbor.

It is hard to hear the challenge of this parable.  I am uncomfortable with this edgy story that Jesus tells.  It calls me not merely to be a Good Samaritan, but to be open to compassion from those who are different from me – open to a person totally different from me helping me!

Jesus does not buy into a merely defense-minded soul set.  Where we have all our neighbors figured out and who we can really be with.  He calls me to a change of heart - openness to God’s kingdom coming near in the least of these.  God calls me to see my neighborhood with new eyes –the eyes of faith that treats others not as objects of my charity or disdain, but as sisters and brothers created in the image of the same God.

The challenge of this story can be met.  Come to the altar and hear the word –“given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sin.”  Come to this altar and walk away not only forgiven, but also with Christ within you.  Christ is in us!

God empowers us to come together because like a good neighbor, Jesus is there for all of us.  He is the all-inclusive Lord and Savior of us all.

Amen

May be quoted with permission.

Contact: kennstorck@gmail.com