Who is My Neighbour?

Year C Ordinary Sunday 15—9.30 am, 11 July 2010—Armidale Uniting Church—Luke 10:25-37

The story of the Good Samaritan is a very familiar one. In fact, it’s so familiar that it’s a bit of a problem. It’s a problem because it’s a parable that has almost totally been reduced to a good moral story. So, it doesn’t quite have the impact of its original telling. It doesn’t quite have the impact of a story which challenges and turns upside down our understandings about life and about God. It’s a bit of a problem really.

But it’s not quite so much of a problem if we put the story back into its context. If we remember to read it in the context in which Luke puts this parable.
Someone well versed in the law of the Jews comes to Jesus to put him to the test. The lawyer’s intent is to check Jesus out. Perhaps he wants to catch Jesus out. Perhaps he wants to decide whether Jesus is someone who can be talked to and trusted, who can be regarded as really knowing the truth about life. For whatever reason, the lawyer is said to have asked of Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now maybe the lawyer has come searching and the question is an honest one and maybe the lawyer is just trying to make a point about the orthodoxy, the rightness, of Jesus’ views. But for whatever reason, the question is asked and an answer is given but it’s a cautious one. In fact, it’s not an answer at all, it’s another question, “Well what does the law say about it?” And before the lawyer can blink, he is providing the answer to his question himself.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.”

And Jesus responds, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
Now it looks just a little bit stupid to have turned up asking a question of Jesus, giving him the respect due a Rabbi if you provide the answer to the question yourself. The lawyer wants to engage Jesus in a rabbinic discussion. This exchange is too short. So to save face, to prove that his question is legitimate or to show that he is honestly seeking the way of God, the lawyer asks, “Well then, who is my neighbour?” And before we can blink, Jesus has told the story of a man who was going from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Now I guess that you know that it was a rough road. And I know you remember that the story says the man was robbed, beaten and left for dead, that a Levite passed by and a priest but neither stopped to see what was going on. And I know that you know that in Jesus’ story it was a Samaritan who offered assistance to the man, who took him to an inn and who paid the man’s keep until the Samaritan could return.
But the story isn’t really an answer, so far as answers go. Rather, it is another question, a challenge to the assumptions which are behind the lawyer’s approach to Jesus. Thus the story concludes, “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?”

And the lawyer jumps in quickly and says, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

Now the question that the lawyer asks is “who is my neighbour?” and the question which Jesus asks is “who was neighbour to the man?” And it would be easy to say that Jesus is making a point to the lawyer about the fact that rather than determining who are the neighbours who should be loved, he should be making neighbours by loving those around him and especially those in great need. That would make the story of the Good Samaritan a nice little moral tale with a good and reasonable message—a reasonable exegesis.

Or we could listen more carefully to the question that the lawyer asks is “who is my neighbour?” and the question which Jesus asks is “who was neighbour to the man?” and think about the lawyer being cast not as Levite or priest or even Samaritan but as the beaten and half dead man on the road. And then our story just might become a parable which challenges and turns upside down the presuppositions which the lawyer has brought to this conversation with Jesus.

You see, the lawyer has come as one who thinks that he knows or that he can know truth, that he can obtain eternal life, on his own, by himself, by doing certain things. Love of God and of neighbour are works which will unlock the door to eternal life as soon as he can understand how to do them perfectly.

But Jesus says, “Uh uh, see yourself for a moment not as the one who brings all the resources, all the knowledge, all the ability. See yourself as the one who has been beaten and nearly destroyed, who needs love and friendship, especially the love of a neighbour. See yourself as one in a position not to be able to choose who is your neighbour. See yourself as one who is chosen as neighbour by another. And not by someone in your own class, but by someone whom you would consider not to be orthodox, not to be right, not to be worthy, not to be able to receive eternal life, a Samaritan.”

“Then, see your neighbour as the unexpected one who offers you life without strings attached. See neighbourliness as being founded in grace and not in pedantics or legalism. Now tell me this, which one of those three was the man’s neighbour?” Of course, it is obvious and the lawyer replies, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

“Now that you know that being a neighbour is a precious gift, a gift of grace, not something to be argued and defined or clarified with a hundred minor rules. Now you know this, go and be a true neighbour. Now you know that being a neighbour is not patronisingly offering the crumbs from your table but truly loving and caring unconditionally and without thought of reward, go and do the same. Now that you know that being a neighbour is recognising the worth of those whom you would reject, go and do likewise.” And we can only presume that the lawyer did because that is where our story ends.

But the story doesn’t really end there because that story is our story too. And we could easily ask the question that the lawyer asked “Who is my neighbour?” and look for the same easy answers, instead of hearing the question that Jesus asks “Who was neighbour to that man?” and seeing ourselves as the ones in need of neighbourliness, and seeing those others whom we had thought to be neighbourly towards as the ones who just might offer themselves to us. And perhaps in turning our assumptions upside down, we might discover something about real neighbourliness.

In our world, those neighbours who offer us something of themselves are not always the people we would wish them to be. They come from different cultural backgrounds. They have different beliefs. They have different ideas about the world and how we should live in it. They have different ways of living. They come from far away like the many asylum seekers in our world. They may be as close as our children and grandchildren who live different lives in different ways from the lives we have lived. They may be the people we pass each day in the street or those we only see on the television or read about in the newspapers.

All of these people have lives of their own, unique gifts of their own, unique contributions to make to us. All of those people are our neighbours—not because they need us, but because we need them to make our lives whole. We need them to share with us their insights, their ideas, their hopes, their dreams, their visions. Because together, not alone, we are called to be neighbours, part of the promised realm of Christ which is already being fulfilled in our midst.

“Who is your neighbour?”

“Who has been neighbour to you?”

“Go then and do the same.”