Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder PCUSA
Offered to the Community Presbyterian Church of Chester, NJ on July 10, 2022
The last time I visited with you was back in February of this year and the lectionary that Sunday was from Luke 6 about the Golden Rule – “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” “As you would like people to act towards you, so should you act towards them.”
I find it most curious that today’s lectionary is almost a direct follow up to that message from Jesus. Today, we hear Jesus referring to passages from two books from the Torah. First from Deuteronomy 6: “Love the Lord your God.” And then from Leviticus 19: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Now in the previous passage, Jesus is speaking with the 70 disciples that he had sent out two by two to the villages to tell the people the good news of God’s saving love. And the disciples are recounting to him all the amazing things that they were able to do when empowered by him and the Holy Spirit. They cast out demons and cured the sick and ill. And they are floating on a euphoric high. And Jesus says to them in their conversation, “… do not rejoice that you have done these things … but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Now, listening to all this, is a lawyer, a scribe and he is listening to Jesus telling these disciples that they have a place in heaven, that they will attain eternal life. In earnest, he asks Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.” Now, I stress here the words “in earnest”. This was not one of those traps that the Pharisees often tried to set upon Jesus. This lawyer was a follower and hearing a promise of eternal life being extended to specific disciples and he is asking, “Hey what about me? I don’t want to be left out. I want that, too.”
Yes, this lawyer asks Jesus the question that would be on all our minds. “Hey, how do I get my name written in heaven? How do I attain eternal life?”
Now what happens next is quite curious because Jesus first response is to tell him, you already have the answer. Jesus asks him, “What is written in the Law?” Now two things, first we are told this man is a lawyer, someone well versed in the Law, so he should know the answer. But also, devout Jews carried on their wrist a small pouch and in it were excerpts of passages from the Law specifically Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18 and these passages are: “Love the Lord your God.” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” So, Jesus says to the man, read to me what you carry on your wrist, you know the law, what does it tell you? And we know, it reads, love God, love your neighbor. And that is the short answer to the man’s question. The man responds by quoting both of the passages correctly and Jesus tells him that he has it right.
But that is not enough of an answer for the man. Remember, he is a lawyer. And at the time of Jesus, the whole notion of loving your neighbor was the subject of a sort of legal debate. The Rabbis of the era had a passion for defining things. You know that the chosen people had been given the 10 Commandments, but the Rabbis and Teachers of the Law had created over 600 Mitzvahs to further delineate how to implement those commandments. And a part of those Mitzvahs, they defined who a neighbor was. And their definition was quite narrow, even harsh. They had decided, a neighbor was limited and defined only as fellow Jews. So narrow was their definition that they went further to say that it would be illegal to assist a Gentile woman in childbirth because it would bring one more Gentile into the world. Yeah, harsh might not be quite a harsh enough word to describe the Rabbis thinking about who a neighbor was. I think, this is yet another example of how the Jewish leaders of the time just didn’t understand their God and what God expect of them. So, this lawyer’s question is legitimate. Perhaps, he didn’t like the answers he was getting from the other Rabbis, and he sought out another teacher for the answers he was looking for.
Who is my Neighbor? Now I was going to pause in my message today to ask you all that question, but then I thought that would be putting you on the spot. So, instead, I sent a couple of texts and emails to friends and Presbytery associates and here are a couple of the answers I got:
A neighbor becomes part of your family
The person next to you
Someone willing to help when not asked
Someone who is considerate of you
Everyone, no exclusions
Anyone you interact with
Your neighbor is all of humanity
Now, I am not going to judge any of these as right or wrong. They all can be right in some way. But let’s see how Jesus answers the question.
Jesus tells the lawyer and anyone close by a parable. It is the parable we know as the Good Samaritan. Now you know the basics of the story. A traveler is on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem; he is attacked by bandits on the road and is beaten and left for dead on the side of the road; two passersby observe his plight but offer no help; a third traveler on the road stops to help. Jesus then asks the lawyer who was it that showed mercy on the fallen traveler? But before we get to his answer and Jesus’ final instruction, let’s look more deeply into the story.
The road from Jericho to Jerusalem was extremely dangerous. It was a road of narrow, rocky passages and of sudden blind turns which made it an opportunistic area where travelers fell victim to bandits. Any travelers of the time would have known that. In the fifth century the historian Jerome refers to this road as the “Bloody Way.” As late as the nineteenth century, you would still have to pay local sheiks for safe passage.
Now let me tell you this. Years ago, my wife and I and our two girls had an opportunity to vacation on St Martin Island in the Caribbean. A friend of mine who traveled there often told me, “Never travel on the road between the French and Dutch sides at night.” Why, I asked? He told me because bandits would stop a car and take whatever valuables you had and leave you stranded on the road. Now that was enough to convince me never to travel that road at night and we didn’t. But this traveler in Jesus’ story was perhaps bolder than we were or maybe just plain stupid. But there he was on this dangerous road, traveling alone where he fell victim to the plight any reasonable traveler would be aware of.
OK. So now the worst happens. He is attacked, beaten, and left to die on the road. And now we have a sequence of fellow travelers coming along. First is a Temple Priest. What does this priest do? He sees the man lying ahead of him on the road, he suspects that he is possibly dead and crosses to the opposite side of the road and continues on his way. We are quick to condemn this priest for not helping. By virtue of his title in the story, we expect more from him. But let’s examine why he did this. In Numbers 19, the Jews were told that anyone that touches a dead man would be considered unclean for seven days. Now if this priest was on his way to the Temple in line for his turn for duty in the Temple, if the man was dead and he touched him, he would lose his turn to serve at the Temple. Now, he couldn’t know from a distance if the man was dead, but he wasn’t going to take that chance. The priest makes a choice to put the claims of ceremony above those of charity. In short, liturgical rules held more meaning for him than human suffering. So, he crossed to the opposite side of the road.
Now we have Levite come along on the road. It appears in the story, the Levite came closer to the man, checked him out but then kept going. Now Levites were also of the Priestly caste but perhaps on this day he did not have a turn at Temple duty. But he is wary and doesn’t risk being suckered into a trap. After all, this could just be a setup, the man a ruse to draw a sympathetic traveler in so that other bandits could attack. Not to chance, the Levite crosses to the other side and keeps on his way. This man choses safety first over helping the fallen man.
Next, we have the Samaritan. Jewish listeners would have heard the word “Samaritan” and assumed that now, AHA, the villain in the story had finally arrived. So hated were the Samaritans. Because Samaritans didn’t keep orthodox Jewish ceremonial law, they were considered heretics and despised by the Jews.
So, upon his arrival, what does this third traveler do? First, we are told, he is moved to have pity on the fallen man. He bends to him, binds his wounds using wine and oils, then puts the man up on his horse and takes him to an Inn on the road. At that Inn, he pays in advance for the innkeeper to care for the man with the promise that he will pay any excess expenses incurred.
What can we learn about this Samaritan from the information in the parable? First, his credit was good. The Innkeeper must have known him as a usual traveler and visitor at the inn because he fully trusted him and was willing to do as instructed trusting that he would be compensated for his trouble. So, while as a Samaritan, he would have been theologically thought of by any of those listening as untrustworthy, he was in fact an honest man and worthy of the innkeeper’s trust.
Second, while he may have been considered a heretic, he had the love of God in his heart. So here we have a comparison between the Priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan. Here we see people who hold up the importance in orthodox dogma more highly than those in need of their love. There is a lesson here. It is that in the end, we will be judged not by our creeds we espouse but by the life we live.
Now, we are ready to examine the heart of Jesus’ teaching for this Scribe. First, the question is in earnest, so Jesus is not being curt or impatient with these questions. Jesus tells him to look at the Law and the Scripture texts that he carries on his arm. What do they say? “Love the Lord your God” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”. That is Jesus’ answer to the first question, “How to attain eternal life?”
The parable is the answer to the man’s second question, “Who is my neighbor?” And what does Jesus tell us in his story?
First, the narrow, legalistic, and codified definitions of a neighbor that the Rabbis had created were not the answer. Jesus is describing a much wider definition. For Jesus, a neighbor is ANYONE in need and we have to be prepared to help even as in the case of this careless traveler, they bring trouble upon themselves. Our help must be as wide as God’s love. Secondly, our help must be practical and not simply be that we feel sorry for someone’s plight. No doubt the Priest and the Levite felt a pang of pity, but when that is the extent of their response, in effect, they had done nothing. For our compassion for our neighbor to be real, it must be displayed in our deeds.
So now, Jesus asks the Lawyer, “Which one of the three was a neighbor to the man who fell victim to the bandits?” The Scribe answered, “The one who showed mercy on him.” Jesus closes by telling him, “Go and do likewise.”
Jesus’ response to the question is that he invites us to stop defining who is a neighbor and to start being neighborly. Jesus’ story invites us to offer healing in places where lives are broken and abandoned.
So now the question for us today is, how do we do likewise? I am not going to suggest that we go out on the roadside searching for people who have been robbed and beaten trying to be roadside Samaritans. But there are ways that Jesus quite clearly and quite plainly lays out for us. Hear these words from Matthew 25.
Matthew 25: “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
Now, we as Presbyterians can have discussions in committee meetings on how to go about feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked and helping the sick or visiting those in prisons. We can have those debates, but we must be mindful that we are called to put into action the love and mercy of God. We are not only to have pity perhaps offering prayer from afar. But as the Samaritan in the parable, we are called to put our faith into action and to bend down and help.
So now, go and do likewise.
