Year C Sixth Sunday after Pentecost July 15th, 2001 Luke 10: 25-37
Title: “Rules in the service of relationships.”
Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan in response to a lawyer’s question regarding the meaning of “neighbor” in the great commandment “Love your neighbor.”
THE LAWYER’S QUESTION (Verses twenty-five to twenty-eight)
The lawyer, as a Pharisee, believed in eternal life. One of the major differences between the Pharisees and the Sadducees was that Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, eternal life and angels. The Sadducees, more ideologically conservative, believed only in what was in the Torah, our first five books of the Bible. Since the Pharisees believed that their salvation, and hence eternal life, depended on their own efforts and power, it is not surprising that the lawyer frames his question “Teacher, what must I do,” in terms of “doing” and “obligation.” Jesus’ answer, which he makes the lawyer himself say, is not specific enough for the lawyer. So he asks another question about the meaning of “neighbor.” In answer Jesus gives an example rather than a distinction or definition.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN (Verses twenty-nine to thirty-seven)
This story is an example of compassion. It contrasts two members of the Jewish clergy who fail to show compassion with a Samaritan, a layman and non-Jew to boot, the most unlikely of people, who does. Thus the theoretical question, “Who is my neighbor?,” is answered by the practical example of one who showed compassion.
In verse twenty-five, to test him, the lawyer was not sincere in his question. He wanted to test, and, presumably, trap Jesus. No matter how often the Pharisees and the lawyer would be a member of this sect, tried to catch Jesus in an error, at least, what they considered to be an error, he would outsmart them. This occasion was no exception.
What must I do to inherit eternal life? The question would make sense to a Pharisee but not to Jesus. His whole preaching could be summed up in the two great Old Testament commandments of love of God and neighbor. While these, too, were obligations requiring obedience, Jesus would not conceive of them in terms of Pharisaic “doing” for the purpose of earning, achieving, deserving “eternal life.” Loving God and neighbor proceeds from one’s inner disposition motivating all one’s actions rather than external actions alone qualifying as measurable “works” to be put on one’s resume.
In verse twenty-six, what is written in the law?, unbeknownst to the lawyer Jesus is sort of setting his own trap to make the lawyer admit the truth of what Jesus has been teaching. Pharisees loved to quote from the law. They could not resist showing off their religious knowledge. At the same time, Jesus will show that his teaching is not opposed to the written law. On the contrary, it is the fulfillment of it.
In verse twenty-seven, you shall love the Lord, this command was regarded as at the very heart of Judaism. The concept, undivided loyalty to the God who was so faithful to them, was central to the covenant, especially as laid down in Deuteronomy.
With all your heart…soul…strength…mind, in Jewish thought these were aspects of the whole human person. Heart denotes the will. Soul or being denotes the vitality and consciousness of a person. Strength pertains to one’s instinctive drives and mind refers to one’s intellectual powers. Together they sum up the human person.
In verse twenty-none, he wished to justify himself, the lawyer now looked rather foolish having asked a question the answer to which he knew and was forced to give. Jesus said, in effect, “ Do this and you will live” in verse twenty-eight, that the lawyer had no need to ask his trumped up question. All he need do is put his answer into practice. The lawyer feigns confusion, a typical tactic when humans do not want to do something. He asks the theoretical question, “Who is my neighbor?” Most Jews interpreted “neighbor” in the second commandment to mean only one’s fellow Jews and, possibly, resident aliens. The Pharisees typically excluded even Jews who did not observe the law. The lawyer’s question reflects the debate about this issue in religious circles of the day. It amounted to the question, “Where do I draw the line?” Instead of answering theoretically, Jesus gives a practical example.
In verse thirty, Jerusalem to Jericho, in this eighteen-mile trip there was a drop in sea level from 2500 feet above to 770 feet below.
A man fell victim to robbers, it was a notoriously dangerous road. No one in his or her right mind would travel it alone. There were too many ambush places. Jericho was the country residence of at least half the priestly caste.
In verse thirty-one, a priest, the priests and Levites would be returning home from a period of duty in the Temple.
In verse thirty-two, a Levite, in New Testament times the Levites were an order of cultic officers, inferior to priests, but nonetheless a privileged group in Jewish society. They policed the Temple and were responsible for its upkeep and the good order of the Liturgy.
In verse thirty-three, a Samaritan, like contemporary jokes, ancient stories frequently followed the “rule of three.” There would be three people or three questions, scenes, whatever. In this story the Jewish audience would see where Jesus was going and expect to find the third party to be a Jewish layperson. That would make the story one illustrating the laity being better at compassion than the clergy, a fairly typical case. Instead, the third party is a Samaritan, a group of racially mixed people, part Jew, part Assyrian or whatever. All Jews were duty bound to hate Samaritans. It was both racial and religious bigotry. That a Samaritan would be the hero of the story would offend all. Jesus was an equal-opportunity offender.
In verse thirty-four, oil and wine, this was a medicinal mixture. The oil would soothe the wounds and the acid in the wine would serve as an antiseptic.
And cared for him, the law forbidding contact with the “unclean,” those who did not observe the law, prevented or, more correctly, provided a convenient excuse for avoiding, the clergy from helping the poor fellow. If they came into contact with someone made unclean by themselves coming into contact with unclean robbers, obviously they did not keep the law, they would become unclean too. Thus, the observance of and fidelity to the law is used as a pretext to avoid the inconvenience of compassion.
In verse thirty-five, I will repay you, the Samaritan, who had essentially the same law, did not regard his, “duty” as done when he brought the man to shelter. He continued to provide for him at his own expense.
In verse thirty-six, which…was neighbor, Jesus has brought the question into the proper context, not one of legal distinctions but one of real life. The answer is unavoidably clear. There can be no confusion about it, no debate, no hesitation.
In verse thirty-six, who treated him with mercy, the lawyer cannot bring himself to say the hated word “Samaritan..”
Sermon
We all use avoidance tactics to keep from doing compassion. Compassion is not merely a feeling. It is not just feeling sorry for someone in need, distress or dire straits. It is doing something about it. We have all crossed to the other side of the street, at least figuratively, when someone’s need interferes with our planned day, our agenda, our own exaggerated needs. We can come up with any number and all kinds of excuses. These clergymen came up with a religious one. If they helped this fellow, who had become unclean because he came in contact with someone else who was unclean, they themselves would become unclean. Since they were Temple officials, being unclean would prevent them from functioning in the Temple, thus they had a moral and religious duty to avoid helping the man. A perfect excuse!
Now Jesus was showing how religion, as Pharisees understand it, actually prevents people from being religious, as God understands the term. For people who think like Pharisees the rules are more important than the Ruler. Keeping the rules- all of them, especially the minute ones- earns one’s way into God’s pleasure. What real good is a religious attitude that places dogmas above people, sees religion as a set of restrictive regulations, and leaves someone to suffer and die in the holy name of God?
Jesus does not go in for theoretical answers. He is not impressed by our feigned confusion over distinctions. He is not interested in discussions about “And just who is our neighbor?” or any such matters. He looks for deeds, not deeds done in order to justify ourselves, but deeds done, motivated by love, in order to express our selves and our love for God. The Samaritan’s compassion is an example-in-action of agape love. It is, at least at first, unilateral, one-way. The Samaritan did not establish a friendship with the person in need. There were no strings attached to his help. He did not say, after helping the man, “You owe me one.” He went on his way without even knowing the man’s name or giving him his. He simply used whatever resources he had oil, wine, money and mount, and took the time out of his planned day, he, like the priest and Levite, was also traveling somewhere, to change a situation that he could change. He was as bound by the same religious “rules” about avoiding uncleanness as the clergy, but he did not use them as excuses to keep from loving his neighbor. He recognized there were higher “rules” calling him to act.
Compassion is not feeling sorry for someone. It is doing something about it. “Someone,” “neighbor,” “needy person” is everyone.
In fact, these two clergymen were traveling from Jerusalem, not to Jerusalem. They were going home from their Temple service and, even if they had become “unclean” by contact with the man who was robbed and beaten, they would have had time to recover from it and become “clean” again. Scrupulous Jews, and the clergymen would have been among them, believed they could inadvertently become unclean by walking over a grave unbeknownst to them at the time. That is why they washed their feet as soon as they came home, regardless of the fact that it was also hygienic to do so. Their “excuse” did not even hold water, if you will excuse the water washing metaphor. Even their own exaggerated interpretation of the law would give them a loophole to help the man. However, as in the case of most religious excuses, these “holy guys” chose not to think through the implications and applications of the law they were invoking. Most, if not all of those listening to Jesus, would have seen through their flimsy excuse. They were used to religious rigorists being strict when it suited them and less so when it did not. What really surprised the listeners was that the good guy in the story was not a fellow Jew, a layman, but a Samaritan! This twist in the story stretched “neighbor” too far for even their liking. So, they were guilty of the same narrow thinking as the Pharisees, even though they were not quite as narrow. If we put the matter into conservative vs. liberal categories, we must say that just because one position is wrong, in this case, the “conservative” one, does not necessarily make the counter position right, in this case the “liberal” one. Jesus transcended religious arguments to get at the real substance. His religion was about doing compassion, not arguing about the meaning of the term for it.
Like agape love, compassion is as compassion does, not as it feels.
Even religion can prevent a person from being religious, if it is based on rules rather than relationships.
Not all the rules of religion are of equal weight; love outweighs all the others.
Everyone is our “neighbor.”
Relationship: Jesus clearly valued relationships over rules. That does not mean that Jesus ignored rules or intentionally disrespected them or violated them. It is just that he saw everything in the light of eternity and evaluated everything accordingly. For Jesus a person in need, real need, not simply felt need, is himself or herself a “law” of God, challenging those with the power to help to obey God by helping humans, all humans. At first glance that seems to be just another rule, albeit one above all other rules, canceling out the other rules if they conflict with it. Indeed, Jesus did teach that truth when he spoke of “weightier matters of the law.” So, Jesus’ position is not “relationships vs. rules” and “rules don’t apply,” but “rules in the service of relationships.” It is a “rule” of Jesus that we “love our neighbor.” We do not do this out of good feeling for our neighbor, although good feeling may be present. We do it out of obedience to God, the Ruler, our Ruler. The word “love” in that rule is in the imperative mood, the grammatical mood of command. So, whether we feel like it or not, we go out of our way or stop what we are doing to help another in need and we do so because we are in a relationship with God, Christ, that requires it. Obedience, then, is based upon and rooted in our relationship with God, not our relationship with the person we help. The Samaritan did not establish a relationship of any depth or length with the man who fell prey to robbers. They did not even know each other’s name. It was the legalists who wanted to base the commandment to “love your neighbor” on human relationship, namely, whether or not the person in need was related to them by race, nationality, religion or law. Such legalists could and would quote the law, either the letter of the law or their interpretation of it, as the basis for their behavior or avoidance of behavior. They had a relationship with the laws of God that was important to them than a relationship with the God of the laws. It allowed them to finagle the law to suit their fancy at the time. First, they decided whether or not they would act to help someone and then they looked for a legal justification for their preemptory decision. This is much like a lawyer who decides what side of an issue he is on and then looks in the law books for cases that will support his decision. Jesus took a different approach. He taught us to look for God’s decision, his “side” of an issue or argument and then look for ways to implement it. He valued examples over argument and in giving us the example of the Good Samaritan he showed us a model that is not nearly as easy to reproduce, as it is to talk about.
Samaritan: The word “Samaritan” evoked a negative emotional reaction from most Jews. It would be much like the word “Palestinian” today. Jews considered them a mixed race and hated them for it, among other things. How ironic that the Jewish people would fall prey to the same feelings throughout their subsequent history, especially during the time of the Nazis. That a Samaritan is the primary example of compassion in this story would have made their skin curl when they heard it. Even the lawyer could not bring himself to say the word “Samaritan” when Jesus asked him who was “neighbor” to the victim. Well, Jews are not the only people who have such emotionally charged prejudices. We can substitute our own hot-button words for “Samaritan,” the list is usually pretty long, groups of people we do not like for one reason or another or for no “reason” at all. When we do, we will experience the impact of this story and not reduce compassion to “making nice-nice.” God’s love, agape, breaks down these barriers to love and reveals love as tough, capable of melting icy hearts and breaking through stony minds, changing the human situation and then going on its merry way to help another in any way on any day, come what may. Amen.
