Lectionary: Proper 10(C)
Text: Luke 10:25-37
[This sermon is based on insights found in “Chapter 2: The
Good Samaritan” in Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a
Controversial Rabbi, by Amy-Jill Levine.]
Its familiarity poses a problem for preachers, because what
more can be said about it? We all just heard it read and I’m sure all of us
recall sermons that we’ve heard and text that has been written on it. Most
interpretations and applications run along the lines of “Don’t be like the
priest and Levite but instead be like the Good Samaritan.”
There is nothing wrong with this interpretation. But perhaps
it only touches the surface and there is much more that is provocative and
subversive if we allow the text to speak to us.
We should keep in mind that this is part of Luke’s “travel
document” where Jesus is portrayed going up to Jerusalem where he will be
lifted up through crucifixion and resurrection. These texts contain teachings
about what it means to have his perspective on the world and continue his work.
It also describes some of the reasons why Jesus was rejected and killed.
The text today begins with a lawyer standing up to test
Jesus. In our culture the stereotype of lawyers is generally negative. In
Luke’s gospel, lawyers are depicted negatively. But to Jesus’ audience and in
much of the New Testament, lawyers would have been seen in a positive light.
They were considered righteous. They were the rulers of the nation and
interpreters of the Torah.
The question the lawyer poses is also a problem. There is no
way to answer the question because one cannot do something to inherit
something. The Jews were already considered to be among the saved, so the
question itself makes little sense other than to try to trap Jesus into saying
something wrong and thereby discrediting him. The lawyer also asks the question
in such a way that doing something is a one-time action. He thinks of eternal
life as a commodity that can be acquired.
Jesus does not answer the question but asks a question of
his own. He asks the lawyer, “What is written in the Law (Torah), and how to
you read (interpret) it?”
The lawyer responds as would be expected, quoting from
Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, “Love God and love your neighbor.” In Christian
interpretation, this has often come to mean that these two replace the Torah
and all other laws, especially when reading some of the later New Testament
writings.
However, this would have been the furthest from Jesus’ mind.
Recall that in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to
abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
Matthew 5:17 (NRSVue) Jesus and his fellow Jews would have understood the great
command to love God and love neighbors as the lens through which all other laws
and actions should be interpreted and assessed. In other words, all other laws
are relativized to the two commands to love. If we took this approach, how
different might Christianity engage with the world around us?
The lawyer gives the correct answer, for Jesus responds, “Do
this, and you will live.” What is key to realize here is that Jesus’ “do” is
not the same as the “what must I do” asked by the lawyer. Where the lawyer’s
“do” indicate a one-time action, Jesus’ “do” is a ongoing, continuous activity.
Eternal life is not a commodity to be acquired, but a lifestyle that must be
lived continuously.
The lawyer could have stopped there, but instead he asks,
“And who is my neighbor?” That question if it stood alone could be interpreted
as a genuine inquiry, but Luke offers a motive, that is the lawyer wanted to
“justify himself.” The lawyer wanted to look good in front of the audience
around him. He wanted Jesus to list all the categories of neighbors so that he
could answer affirmatively, gaining honor and respect.
But in another sense, the question is misguided because asking
“who is my neighbor” is inferring that some are not neighbors and don’t deserve
or need to be loved. “Whom can I hate?” is the unspoken question.
Here, what becomes relevant is a question asked earlier by
Jesus, “How do you read (it)?” Levine writes, “In Hebrew the words ‘neighbor’
and ‘evil’ share the same consonants (resh ayin); they differ only in
the vowels—but ancient Hebrew texts do no have vowels… Both words are written
identically.”[1]
When Jesus asks, “How do you read?” he is asking the lawyer,
can you see “in the very words of the Torah, the equation of enemy with
neighbor and thus the command to love both?”[2]
At this point, Jesus launches into a parable. A man is
robbed, beaten, and left for dead. This is the character with whom the audience
is invited to identify and probably does. This man is oppressed and nearly
killed, something with which Jesus’ listeners would have been all too familiar.
The question raised is, “Who will help this man?”
A priest then a Levite pass by, but both, seeing the man,
intentionally pass by on the other side. Interpreters have attempted to offer
various reasons for why, including Jewish religious practices, but these
explanations have problems. From the text what can be seen most plainly is that
they simply didn’t care and didn’t want to be bothered. They didn’t have
compassion.
After this a third individual appears. We are familiar with
tropes of three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; mind, body, soul; Curly, Larry, and
Moe, etc. Jesus’ listeners were also familiar with the trope beginning with a
priest and a Levite. The expected third was Israel. It would be natural and
expected for a fellow Jew to come to the aid of this man.
But Jesus breaks the pattern and introduces a Samaritan. You
are probably quite aware of the hatred between the Jews and Samaritans. Their
history is one of violence against one another. When the Samaritan sees the man
left for dead, he experiences compassion for the man, something that the first
two did not. He approaches and gives aid. Not only that but he takes the man to
safety and offers the innkeeper funds to care for the man, promising to make up
any difference if the need continues.
At this point the listener is forced to consider that the one
they have labeled as the enemy might be capable of doing good. They must contemplate
the possibility that the one they have been taught to hate might be their only source
of help.
Levine suggests that this parable might be rooted in an
incident recorded in Israel’s history, in 2 Chronicles 28:1-15. Ahaz became
king of the southern kingdom of Judah, but he did not reign righteously, and so
it is written that God allowed enemies to defeat him, conquer his land, have
many of his people killed and the rest taken captive. One of those victorious
over Ahaz was the northern kingdom of Israel. The northern kingdom took two
hundred thousand of their defeated cousins as captives and their possessions as
spoils, leading them to Samaria. It is here that we will read from the biblical
text:
9 One of the LORD’s
prophets named Oded lived in Samaria. When the army arrived there, he went to
meet them and said, “Don’t you see that the LORD God of your ancestors was
angry with Judah and let you defeat them? But look what you’ve done! Your
merciless slaughter of them stinks to high heaven! 10 And now you
think you can enslave the men and women of Judah and Jerusalem? What about your
own guilt before the LORD your God? 11 Listen to me! Send back the
captives you took from your relatives, because the LORD is furious with you.”
12 At this, some of the
Ephraimite leaders—Johanan’s son Azariah, Meshillemoth’s son Berechiah,
Shallum’s son Jehizkiah, and Hadlai’s son Amasa—confronted those returning from
battle. 13 “Don’t bring the captives here,” they told them. “Your
plan will only add to our sin and guilt before the LORD. We’re already guilty
enough, and great anger is already directed at Israel.”
Then we read what might be echoes found in the parable Jesus
told.
14 So the warriors
released the captives and brought the loot before the officers and the whole
assembly. 15 Then people named for this task took charge of the
captives and dressed everyone who was naked with items taken from the loot.
They gave them clothing, sandals, food and drink, and bandaged their wounds.
Everyone who couldn’t walk they placed on donkeys, and they brought them to
Jericho, Palm City, near their Judean relatives. Then they returned to Samaria.
(2 Chronicles 28:9-15 CEB)
A prophet was brave enough to confront the actions of the
king, his military, and all the people who saw the southern kingdom as enemies
and their oppressors. They had plans to dehumanize them—their own kin—as
slaves. The prophet said, “No.” That courage and reasoning allowed a few other
leaders of the northern kingdom to rise and confront their own people and lead
them away from violence and oppression that they were about to commit. For the
people of the southern kingdom taken captive, salvation came from an unexpected
source: the ones that a few moments ago were their enemy.
Returning to Jesus, after finishing telling the parable he
asks the lawyer, “Which of these three was a neighbor to the one who fell among
the robbers?”
The lawyer responds, “The one who did mercy.” Even though he
cannot get himself to say the hated term “Samaritan,” he gets the point of the
parable. What is also interesting is that the lawyer goes beyond simply saying,
“The one who showed compassion.” The neighbor is the one who shows compassion
and responds in mercy.
It is not enough to have compassionate “thoughts and
prayers.” In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus tells his disciples, “35
Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.
Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he
himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Be merciful,
just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:35-36 NRSVue)
As I wrap up this message, consider who each of us might
consider our “enemies.” Who are the people and groups we fear and maybe hate?
Who are those whom society, politicians, tradition, and some religious
teachings say we ought to hate, ignore, send away, cause them to suffer, and
delight in their suffering?
In Jesus’ reading of the Torah, there is no distinction
between neighbor and enemy. All humanity is one. When we claim the name of
Christ as our identity, we are agreeing with Jesus. If we think of anyone as
not deserving of mercy, we cannot be truly Christian. If we elevate any law
above the lens of the command to love God and neighbor, we should question our
sincerity in following Christ. And may God give us the courage to speak out for
compassion, the courage to do mercy, and the courage to confront hate, fear,
and oppression.
In the name of God who is Compassion,
In the name of God who is Mercy,
And in the of God who discomforts our selective love, Amen.
Bibliography
Bailey, K. E. (1976, 1980). Poet & Peasant
and Through Peasant Eyes (Combined Edition). Grand Rapids, MI: William B.
Eerdmans.
Levine, A.-J. (2014). Short Stories by Jesus: The
Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi. New York, NY: HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc.
Levine, A.-J., & Brettler, M. Z. (2011, 2017). The
Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed. Oxford, NY: Oxford University
Press.
[1]
[2]
