What Are We Going to Do About Our Neighborhood?
Luke 10:25-37
Introduction
Watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is a pleasant childhood memory. There were real life characters like Mr. McFeely the delivery man, Lady Aberlin, Chef Brockett. But it was the puppets I loved the best … like King Friday XIII, Queen Sara Saturday, and many more including the Neighborhood Trolley. The gentle sweater-wearing host calmly talked through issues serious to children and did so in a positive way. Fred Rogers was trained to be a Presbyterian minister. He earned over 40 honorary degrees. Rogers died in 2003…but one of his quotes that lives on:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
Unfortunately our neighborhood doesn’t look very much like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, especially this past week. In today’s text Jesus asks a very pertinent question for today: Who is Your Neighbor? Today more energy is poured into the question “Who Is NOT My Neighbor?” What Are We Going to Do About Our Neighborhood? It’s a scary time … and a deadly time for many. If anyone can show us the way…it’s not Mr. Rogers … but Jesus!
Luke 10:25-37
1. COLD: IGNORE THE HURTING
A. Priest and Levite avoid the beaten man - a fellow Jew. Maybe they didn’t want to be ceremonially unclean. Maybe they thought he was dead. Maybe they had someplace they had to be. Maybe they knew this was extremely dangerous road: to stop and help him would put themselves in danger. They had developed the art of ‘Looking Away’.
B. The Dangers of ‘Looking Away’ include…
-Passing up the opportunity to love someone as myself!
-Restraining compassion that should be expressed.
-Allows the other person to suffer without relief.
-Pretends that all is well, when we have hurting brothers and sisters.
-Counts the cost of reaching out to help, and decides it costs too much.
1 John 3:17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
James 2:15-17 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
Jesus is obviously unimpressed with the Priest and Levite - the ones who look away
2. COMPASSIONATE: LOVE THE HURTING
A. The Samaritan is not called “good”! Nobody in Jesus’ entourage would call him that! We label him as ‘good’ because of his actions. When Jesus said a Samaritan was coming along it was the natural inclination to think that he was a crummy person no one would want to be around.
B. What do we notice about this Samaritan’s Mercy?
-He Placed Himself in Danger, stopping in a dangerous neighborhood known for robbers. In the fifth century Jerome tells us that it was still called “The Bloody Way” (Barclay)
- He Helped someone who wouldn’t have helped him.
- He went above and beyond.
-He answered the question Who Is My Neighbor?
It is a question that relates to the way we treat “the other,” whether a homeless person who has not had a bath in months or someone of a different social class. … Is there any category of person who is not neighbor to another? … Mercy does not ask first about color or sexual identity or economic status or political party. mercy is not concerned with deserving or purity or piety. Mercy is what comes from God to the community and to each of us…. Who is your neighbor? The person you see in need of human compassion. - Mary Miller Brueggemann
Conclusion
1. Today we have the choice to be the cold neighbor or the compassionate neighbor.
2. Keisha Thomas Story http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24653643
3. The lawyer that asks the question is not a legal advocate like modern lawyers, but an expert in the law of Moses. Who is my neighbor?
Barclay: Any man of any nation who is in need is our neighbor. Our help must be as wide as the love of God. … Compassion, to be real compassion, must issue in
deeds.
Even forced to admit the Samaritan was the neighbor, he could not bring himself to utter that word, so he just said ‘the one who had mercy’.
Jesus sent him on his way: Go and do likewise. And so Jesus sends us on our way today: Go and do likewise.
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Sermon Leftovers: Good thoughts I didn’t have time to share.
The road - as Martin Luther King Jr liked to note - is very steep, dropping almost 1,500 feet. It is hard to see around a bend, and so it is a good place to get robbed.- Douglas F. Ottati, Feasting on the Gospels
However, says Calvin, the story has the virtue of forcing the lawyer to admit “that tour neighbor is the man most foreign to us, for God has bound all men together for mutual aid.” - Douglas F. Ottati, Feasting on the Gospels
This is more than a parable about a helpful stranger; it is about the transforming power of God at work in those who travel the dangerous roads in our world, moving us into the fullness of life, eternal life, here and now. - James A. Wallace, Feasting on the Word
The point is that two people who presumably represent the identity and piety of the victim do not express any concern toward him and remain unwilling to assume the risks that come with pausing in a dangerous place. - Matthew L. Skinner, Feasting on the Word
Authentic love does not discriminate; it creates neighbors, relationships, because by its nature it meets the needs of others. - Matthew L. Skinner, Feasting on the Word
Biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine suggests …. ‘To hear this parable in contemporary terms, we should think of ourselves as the person in the ditch, and then ask, ‘Is there anyone, from any group, about whom we’d rather die than acknowledge, ‘She offered help’ or ‘He showed compassion’? - Matthew L. Skinner, Feasting on the Word
“We may want to fault him for failing to acknowledge that the real neighbor was a despised foreigner, a believer in a rival creed, we should find it remarkable that this “expert in the law” breaks through all the wordiness of religious legality by naming kindness as the true mark of “the neighbor”. [kindness - new english bible, jd] … it is precisely ‘kindness’ that is so conspicuously absent from the life of our world - a world driven by competition, greed, and individualism, but also (let us note) a world whose most ethically minded often seem apt to be more concerned for rights than for forgiveness, for justice than for mercy, for equality than for compassion.” - Douglas John Hall, Feasting on the Word
…Genuine goodness and moral authenticity cannot be restricted to any one people or creed and do not depend on having learned the ‘right’ theoretical answers! … What if, in every interfaith encounter, our residual human capacity for compassion were prodded by a transcendent Voice whispering in our would-be-believer’s ears, “For God’s sake, Christian, be kind!” - Douglas John Hall, Feasting on the Word
G.K. Chesterton is probably best known to most people as the writer of the Father Brown mysteries. They are about an English Catholic priest who solves mysteries. The stories have frequently been made into “Mystery Theatre” shows on the BBC. Chesterton was also a devoted Christian and a brilliant, witty, author and editor of books and magazines on both popular culture and Christianity. He once said, “In one place Jesus tells us to love our neighbor. In another he tells us to love our enemies. This is because, generally speaking, they are the same people.”
https://lectionarylab.com/2016/07/07/the-eighth-sunday-after-pentecost-year-c/
