4th SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
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Readings:
I wonder how many sermons have been given on the apparently simple question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ In much of the bible’s teaching there is an emphasis on showing respect for people who are different from us and accepting that they have a rightful place in the world. This is as much to be found in the Old Testament as in the New. But we find this respect and acceptance becoming increasingly eroded in so many of the situations we hear about in today’s world. I’m afraid that in much of contemporary thinking, tolerance of others is low down on people’s agenda. Despite much movement towards inclusivism, and crackdowns on racial abuse and the disrespecting of people on social media, intolerance remains. We all have to admit that it is easy to think that we are right and therefore that the opposing view is wrong and so the person who holds that view can be discounted. That most definitely isn’t the biblical way.
This morning’s first reading came from Deuteronomy, and there was constant reference in it to ‘the commandment’ or ‘commandments.’ The name Deuteronomy really means ‘the second book of the law.’ Of course, the commandments formed the basis of Israel’s law. So when Jesus was asked by the lawyer in the gospel reading today ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ he responds by asking ‘what is written in the law?’ The lawyer easily answers “You shall love the Lord your God…and your neighbour as yourself.” Today many things are written in our law or laws, but neither of those injunctions are among them. But that reply by the lawyer was part of what he literally carried around with him, for the faithful carried a little leather box called a phylactery that was strapped on the wrist, and these important laws were contained in the phylactery.
Looking after the other was a significant feature of the law of Moses. So we find instructions to offer hospitality to strangers, to leave some of your mowings for the wayfarer to gather; to return your neighbour’s ox or sheep if you notice that they have strayed; not to disturb a bird’s nest if you think there are young there. Today we would call much of this good neighbourliness or good citizenship, and we hope that people would do it as a matter of course, but sadly that isn’t always the case.
‘Loving your neighbour’ is easy in theory, but not so easy in practice. Over the last fifty years or so people have been keen to move out of urban areas where other ethnic groups have moved in, because their way of life was different. And similarly, those groupings tend to live in close communities as they feel safer together, and it’s easier to keep your traditions going if you’re living amongst like-minded people.
But let’s look at the parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s often said that if someone is attacked in a street today, they are more likely to be helped if they’re found by an individual than if there are many people milling around. If we see somebody in trouble and no-one else is around, it seems this deeply rooted sense of responsibility for the other, whoever the other may be, kicks in. But if many people are around, it seems they think someone else will do it, and often nobody ends up doing it.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, two people you certainly would have thought would go to the aid of a stricken victim decided against it. They both constructed arguments for not getting involved. Had the priest stopped and touched the stricken man – if the man was dead the touching of him would have made the priest unclean, and therefore unable to perform his duties for seven days. It seems he was concerned more with ceremony than with charity. Getting involved was more than his job’s worth! The Levite was perhaps afraid that the robbers might still be around, so if he stopped and hung around he too might be attacked. And the same restriction on touching a dead body would also apply to him. Easier to ‘pass by on the other side.’ We may criticize them.
But were they any different from those (we – dare I say it) who pass by people sleeping or begging on the streets or selling the Big Issue – not always giving them even a glance? It was the Samaritan who showed compassion. Now the Samaritans were, at first, people who lived in the hill country between Galilee and Judea, not at all far from Jerusalem, really. Then before the exile they became known by the Judaeans as their northern neighbours – people who were ‘like us’ but not quite. After the exile, when more water had flowed under the bridge and social groupings reformed, they had definitely become the wrong sort, who believed in God differently, who did strange things. How easy it is to start demonising people because they aren’t like us, and so much easier to disregard them than to understand or inter-act with them. This seems to be the cause of so much of the deep unhappiness and antagonism in the world today.
But to return to the story – it was the Samaritan who stopped and offered help – moved with pity for another human being. He goes over to the man and pours on oil and wine – normal usage for both, but also symbols of peace and joy. So he picks him up, carries him to the inn and takes care of him.
At the beginning of the conversation between Jesus and the lawyer, after the man had recited the main tenets of the law, Jesus had said, “Do this, and you will live.” Then the lawyer asked that all-important question; and Luke notes that the lawyer ‘wanting to justify himself, asked ‘And who is my neighbour?’ Then after the parable had been given, Jesus seems to ask a very obvious question – ‘Which one of the three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell among robbers?’ He thus forced the lawyer into stating the obvious.
The priest and Levite justified their actions with what seemed to them reasonable arguments. But it wasn’t enough. David Adam in his commentary says ‘We are challenged to accept as our neighbour and to show concern for those we try to avoid; those who get into trouble through their own fault; those who are racially or religiously different; all who are in need or trouble.”
Now many addresses have been offered on the story of the Good Samaritan. But just look at it from the victim’s point-of-view for a minute. It wasn’t just that the Samaritan went to help the Judaean, but that the Judaean was helped by the Samaritan. Sometimes it is a lot easier to help someone else than to receive help yourself, especially if you don’t like or don’t feel comfortable about the person offering the help.
And what about the inn-keeper? He took both men in, but when the Samaritan left next day, he asked the inn-keeper to look after the wounded traveller, with a promise that if there was extra expenditure he would pay him later. How did the inn-keeper feel about the responsibility for the wounded man, with no guarantee that he would be paid for his trouble? He has suddenly become caught up in a situation not of his own making, which might inconvenience him. How do we react in those turn of events? It may not always feel comfortable when we are forced to become the neighbour as a moral duty.
So perhaps the question is – not ‘who am I prepared to help today?’ – but – ‘who am I prepared to be helped by today? Who am I prepared to be inconvenienced by today?’ It could be that you are offering as much service in allowing someone to help you than by doing good to them. Maybe a more pertinent question, and I certainly ask it of myself, might be ‘who do I not want to be helped by today? Who do I not want to be inconvenienced by today?’ That might lead us to some constructive soul-searching, and to rediscover what it is ‘to love thy neighbour as thyself.’