Date: July 7th & 10th
Preacher: Pastor Ashley Rosa-Ruggieri
First Reading: Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Psalmody: Psalm 25:1-10
Second Reading: Colossians 1:1-14
Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
Stories are a powerful thing. There are books and movies whose lines have been present in wider society and affected the world as we know it for a long time. Big authors like Shakespeare or Jane Austen and big franchises like Star Wars or Harry Potter offer up the opportunity for connections to be made outside of the original works. Quotes, scenes, storylines, and even characters all become a public opportunity to connect with others and discuss bigger topics that come up in these stories and also exist in our world.
There are some stories in the Bible that are also known well because we tell them often and they are very impactful. Today’s Gospel story is one of these passages. For some examples: there are organizations named after the Good Samaritan, plenty of children’s curriculum or lessons on this story, and even references to this story outside of faith communities can be common. When we have these stories, it is important for us to recognize their significance and to consider why this story has become so important and what that means for us to hear it proclaimed as scripture.
The interpretation of the story of the good Samaritan is often summarized by Jesus’s explanation in the first part of the story. This parable is meant to show us how to love our neighbor. From a general view, this is true, Jesus is giving an example of a story when someone is hurting, and there are those who pass right by, and one who stops, helps the person, and ensures they are safe and healing. But Jesus’s illustration here also speaks to the stereotypes and discrimination against Samaritans. It is not the priest or the Levite, who would have been another type of worship leader, who help this person, but the Samaritan, the one that is unexpected to those Jesus shares the story with that makes a difference. This is important because the people listening to Jesus’s parable would not have identified with the Samaritan, they would have identified with the priest or the Levite.
There was a rift between Jewish people of the time and Samaritans, and it was very strong. This separation led to animosity and enmity between these two peoples that had been built over time and generations. And so of course the audience to Jesus’s parable would not have seen themselves as the Samaritan in the story. Jesus makes a statement here that we cannot always see ourselves as always the righteous person in the story, or always perfectly capable of living out our call to love our neighbors. It can be easy to hear a story like this from Jesus as say, “I am the Samaritan, and someone else is the priest or the Levite.” But I would encourage us to consider that sometimes, we are not the Samaritan in the story, sometimes we do not love our neighbors as we could.
There is a trap that we can fall into, and I purposefully use the word “WE” here, that allows us to believe ourselves righteous and others not. In these times, it can be helpful to read this story and see our actions reflected in the actions of the lawyer testing Jesus here. This whole conversation and parable happens because Jesus is asked two sets of questions by this lawyer. First, he asks “What must I do to inherit eternal life? What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
Now, this lawyer would have been familiar with the law on this topic, but this is only an introduction to his real question. Jesus answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus literally quotes Deuteronomy and other scriptures here, answering the lawyer’s question as he asked—with what the Jewish law says. To reply, the lawyer tells him that he is right, if you do this, you will live.
He could have stopped here after affirming Jesus’s call to us to love God and our neighbor, but he was not done with his test. In fact, our reading says after his reply, “But wanting to justify himself…” This answer from Jesus was satisfactory to his original set of questions, and yet this lawyer was not done testing Jesus and instead wanted to rely on his own justification, his own merit, and so he asks Jesus another question. “Who is my neighbor?”
Instead of answering right out, Jesus uses a story to teach those around him. Remember, stories are powerful, stories connect people and things, stories allow us to view things from our own lives in a different context and with a new perspective. So, Jesus tells them this story of a man who is beaten and robbed on a road, passed over by a priest and Levite, and then aided by a traveling Samaritan. When he finishes this story, he returns the lawyer’s question with a question of his own: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
In telling this story and asking this question rather than giving a single answer, Jesus is helping those around him to understand that the definition of who our neighbor is expands beyond a single, concise definition. Our neighbor is that random stranger on the road, and it is the priest, and the Levite, and the Samaritan who helps the wounded man. Our neighbor is those who we know, those we have yet to meet, and those who we might avoid out of having our own stereotypes or prejudices against them. The first two of those neighbor categories are often easier than the last. And yet, it is from this story of Jesus that we find the guidance, wisdom, and direction to love God and our neighbors in any category. Those we know, those we don’t, and those we avoid.
The lawyer responds to Jesus’s question, saying that the neighbor in this story was the one who showed the hurt man mercy. Jesus’s final reply is simple, “Go and do likewise.” Go and show mercy to your neighbor. Go and cease judgement of another while claiming righteousness for yourself. Go and show your neighbor the generosity, the mercy, the kindness shown by the Samaritan. Go and try to rid yourself of the growing rift between peoples. Find your neighbor and love them. Find your neighbor in the eyes of acquaintances, family, friends, strangers, and those you have animosity toward. And in those moments of finding and loving our neighbors, we too begin to form stories that become told again and again. Powerful stories that heal and connect and teach and grow. May our stories, still always in formation take inspiration from the mercy shown by the Samaritan in today’s parable. So that we too can follow Jesus’s command to “Go and do likewise.” Thanks be to God.