8 Pentecost, Cp10, July 10, 2016
Deut. 30:9-14 Ps.25:3-9
Col. 10:25-37 Luke 10:25-37
We as citizens of our world have had some heart wrenching events of death and dying dominate the news cycle. Some events in our country and some overseas. The Orlando night club shootings which targeted a group of LGBTQ people; the bombing in the Istanbul airport, the bombing of a restaurant in Dacca, Bangladesh, the deaths of almost 300 in ISIS bombings in Iraq, the deaths of two African American men in seeming routine law enforcement interactions and the shooting and injury of police officers and bystanders after a peaceful rally in Dallas, Texas. All lives are valued lives even though the apparent effects of the death of people are different for each of us. We feel particularly moved in the death of members of the armed service and our police officers because these are people who have voluntarily signed up to put their lives on the line to protect the lives of other people. And so we feel rather devastated when the lives of the officers who were protecting the rights of free speech had their lives taken and injured.
Today, more than ever everyone in our world needs a lesson in the meaning of the word neighbor. Killing others because they are anonymous people reveals a terrible pre-condition of the heart. Killing people because of their race, their various personal identities, nationalities or occupation means that someone has dehumanized another person to the point of eliminating them from one's world.
Most people have not killed or thought about killing other people, but we are all tempted to "eliminate" people from our lives by just pretending that they don't exist or by complete neglect or passive aggression.
The Gospel account is about an encounter between Jesus and a lawyer. "Jesus, what must I do for eternal life? Love God and your neighbor. But the lawyer wanted to quantify the meaning of the word neighbor? The lawyer was really asking, "Jesus, who are the people whom I have to love in order to say that I have kept God's law?"
Jesus answered him with a story. The famous American story teller Garrison Keillor retired this past week. In one of his books he wrote, "You get old and realize that there are no answers, just stories." Jesus taught with stories, the ones we call parables. And so we have the story of the Good Samaritan.
The Good Samaritan story was a brilliant way to counter this debating lawyer. The story is simply cleverly wise and hits us right between the eye, and Jesus does not even have to say, "Gotcha!"
The rules states: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. With the Good Samaritan, Jesus was saying that You are the neighbor when you are treating everyone like your neighbor. Who do I have to love Jesus? No, you are the neighbor when you are doing the loving care. Do you see how Jesus showed us that neighbor is both a passive and an active notion. The lawyer wanted neighbor to be a very passive and limited notion. "Well, Jesus, I will love the people whom I like but don't ask me to love the people whom I don't like or whom I don't associate with."
The Good Samaritan story also reveals the smallness and the ethnocentricities of our hearts. What do we feel like when someone whom we do not like, does something wonderful and kind? We get angry when our prejudices are exposed. The Jews in the time of Jesus did not like the Samaritans. So what did Jesus do? He told a story to the Jews which had a natural enemy of the Jews play the role of the loving kind person. And he used Jewish religious leaders as those who could not be inconvenienced to stop and help the man who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead.
Whether one is Gentile, Jew, Samaritan, white, black, red or yellow, everyone is supposed to act neighborly and regard everyone as one's neighbor.
Can we see how Jesus expanded the notion of being a neighbor from the passive to the active?
We need this full notion of what it means to be a neighbor today. You and I can sometimes be in the passive mode of being a neighbor. We often need the kindness of friend and stranger in our lives. And may God grant us friends and Good Samaritans in the times of our needs.
The point of the parable of Jesus was this: the passive notion of neighbor is not enough. All of us need to be active neighbors to anyone who needs us. The reason we have embraced a path of spiritual transformation is so that our hearts can be expanded to be active neighbors when the opportunity arises.
If I have fear, bias and prejudice against people which inhibit me from acting in a caring way, then I am not a neighbor as Jesus Christ defined neighbor.
Ask not what my neighbors can do for us; let us ask what we can do as active neighbors toward all of the neighbors who come into our lives.
Today, more than ever our world, our country, our neighborhoods need this Good Samaritan notion of neighbor.
Let us ask God for the largesse of heart actively to be good neighbors today. Amen.
Today, more than ever everyone in our world needs a lesson in the meaning of the word neighbor. Killing others because they are anonymous people reveals a terrible pre-condition of the heart. Killing people because of their race, their various personal identities, nationalities or occupation means that someone has dehumanized another person to the point of eliminating them from one's world.
Most people have not killed or thought about killing other people, but we are all tempted to "eliminate" people from our lives by just pretending that they don't exist or by complete neglect or passive aggression.
The Gospel account is about an encounter between Jesus and a lawyer. "Jesus, what must I do for eternal life? Love God and your neighbor. But the lawyer wanted to quantify the meaning of the word neighbor? The lawyer was really asking, "Jesus, who are the people whom I have to love in order to say that I have kept God's law?"
Jesus answered him with a story. The famous American story teller Garrison Keillor retired this past week. In one of his books he wrote, "You get old and realize that there are no answers, just stories." Jesus taught with stories, the ones we call parables. And so we have the story of the Good Samaritan.
The Good Samaritan story was a brilliant way to counter this debating lawyer. The story is simply cleverly wise and hits us right between the eye, and Jesus does not even have to say, "Gotcha!"
The rules states: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. With the Good Samaritan, Jesus was saying that You are the neighbor when you are treating everyone like your neighbor. Who do I have to love Jesus? No, you are the neighbor when you are doing the loving care. Do you see how Jesus showed us that neighbor is both a passive and an active notion. The lawyer wanted neighbor to be a very passive and limited notion. "Well, Jesus, I will love the people whom I like but don't ask me to love the people whom I don't like or whom I don't associate with."
The Good Samaritan story also reveals the smallness and the ethnocentricities of our hearts. What do we feel like when someone whom we do not like, does something wonderful and kind? We get angry when our prejudices are exposed. The Jews in the time of Jesus did not like the Samaritans. So what did Jesus do? He told a story to the Jews which had a natural enemy of the Jews play the role of the loving kind person. And he used Jewish religious leaders as those who could not be inconvenienced to stop and help the man who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead.
Whether one is Gentile, Jew, Samaritan, white, black, red or yellow, everyone is supposed to act neighborly and regard everyone as one's neighbor.
Can we see how Jesus expanded the notion of being a neighbor from the passive to the active?
We need this full notion of what it means to be a neighbor today. You and I can sometimes be in the passive mode of being a neighbor. We often need the kindness of friend and stranger in our lives. And may God grant us friends and Good Samaritans in the times of our needs.
The point of the parable of Jesus was this: the passive notion of neighbor is not enough. All of us need to be active neighbors to anyone who needs us. The reason we have embraced a path of spiritual transformation is so that our hearts can be expanded to be active neighbors when the opportunity arises.
If I have fear, bias and prejudice against people which inhibit me from acting in a caring way, then I am not a neighbor as Jesus Christ defined neighbor.
Ask not what my neighbors can do for us; let us ask what we can do as active neighbors toward all of the neighbors who come into our lives.
Today, more than ever our world, our country, our neighborhoods need this Good Samaritan notion of neighbor.
Let us ask God for the largesse of heart actively to be good neighbors today. Amen.
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