Loving the Immigrant
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction
Introduction
Alright, so today we have the parable of the Good… what? Good Samaritan, that’s right. Now, I need to make a little confession. I struggle writing a sermon for this particular scripture reading. Here’s the difficulty, you see the story that we have today is one that is incredibly familiar to almost everyone. It is a story that we have heard many a sermon preached on… and, quite honestly, it becomes very difficult to try to offer a fresh perspective on it.
On top of that, we come with some preconceptions about the story. As an example, the name of the parable which you so eloquently said earlier, “Good Samaritan.” It’s a rather interesting title. Do you happen to remember which verse of the story calls the Samaritan ‘good’?
I’ll give you a hint… it’s a trick question. It isn’t there. That title of “Good Samaritan” was added many many years after Jesus told the parable itself. And the difficult with that title is that it sets us up to think: “Priest and Levite; bad. Samaritan; good.” But that’s not really what Jesus is up to in this passage.
Although, I will of course note that it is important the person who shows mercy is indeed a Samaritan who was indeed a great enemy to the Jews of the day. Last year when we had a conversation about another version of the Good Samaritan parable, someone here likened Samaritans to ISIS terrorists. They were considered outsiders in a big way… and so there is something of a statement that Jesus is making here by using a Samaritan of all people. But again, it’s not Samaritan—good. Levite and Priest—Bad. That’s not what is at stake here.
What’s the Real Question?
What’s the Real Question?
So… what is at stake here? What would be a title that might be more fitting for the story? Well, let’s look at the scripture leading up to the parable.
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “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.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
So the scene that is set is this lawyer who comes up to test Jesus and comes to Jesus with questions which the lawyer seems to already know the answers. And, as the questions are asked, Jesus, perhaps infuriatingly, doesn’t actually answer them but throws the questions back to the lawyer.
Not want to look the fool, the lawyer responds rightly with his well-researched answers based on
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Deuteronomy
as well as
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
All who eat it shall be subject to punishment, because they have profaned what is holy to the Lord; and any such person shall be cut off from the people.
The answer that the lawyer gives to his own question is beautifully stated. Relationship with God extends outward beyond ourselves and to our neighbors. The debate seems ready to come to an end. One can almost imagine Jesus nodding at the lawyer with approval and beginning to turn away as he says, in essence, “Great answer, you get a gold star today.”
and
The lawyer has passed his own test—but failed to put Jesus to it. But then the heart of it… a question that deserves greater attention from Jesus. Who is my neighbor?
Now Luke records that the lawyer was trying to justify himself with this question. We don’t know precisely what this means as to whether he was attempting to justify his own actions in regards to neighbors or if he was simply flustered that the well-planned debate with Jesus fell flat and pops a question off the top of his head… but either way he nails it. Who is my neighbor?
Who is My Neighbor?
Who is My Neighbor?
The lawyer has passed his own test—but failed to put Jesus to grindstone the way he wished.
Now Luke records that the lawyer was trying to justify himself with this question. We don’t know precisely what this means as to whether he was attempting to justify his own actions in regards to neighbors or if he was simply flustered that the well-planned debate with Jesus fell flat and pops a question off the top of his head. But either way he nails it by asking a question deserving of Jesus’ attention: Who is my neighbor?
And it’s a question that is based in Leviticus… which we will be hearing quite a bit about today. Remember that earlier quote from which said:
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
That particular verse is among the orders God had given to Moses as to how the people of Israel were to live together. In the context of the verse, a person’s neighbor was specifically a person who was a fellow Israelite.
Later on in Leviticus though, we hear another verse which pushes the envelope further:
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
While the term “neighbor” applied to those who were fellow Israelites, verse 34 gives instruction that an alien who lives with you shall be treated just like any of your other fellow Israelites.
It is an instruction to be hospitable to the outsider and, as a reminder, the law recollects that the Israelites themselves had once been strangers in a strange land.
For many Americans today, we can relate to that scripture in that our ancestors were strangers in a strange land. Whether it was the pilgrims at Plymouth’s Rock who were welcomed and supported by the Native American Tribes or the Irish who fled the potato famine and received a less hospitable welcome or the African who came in chains and eventually gained freedom. Most of us have heritage of what it was to be strangers in a strange land.
This is what the Leviticus Law is reminding the people of Israel about… they too were aliens. Which, on an aside, makes the issues going on between Israel and Palestine today a religious issue as much as a political one.
But back to our story… there is the question of “who is my neighbor?” as we think about what Leviticus has to say.
To answer that question, Jesus gives what is now the familiar story of the man who was robbed. and left half dead on the side of the road. We see the familiar faces of the Levite and the Priest who are coming down the road and pass by on the other side.
Now… pause again for just a moment. Both the Levite and the Priest would have been Sadduccees. In other words, they were individuals whose primary function in life was to understand and live by the Torah… by the written law.
The Sadduccees were the ones who presented food offerings to God. They carefully followed the laws of the Torah and, more specifically, the Priestly Laws of Leviticus. Ah ha! Getting back full circle here.
The question about who is my neighbor comes from Leviticus. And if anyone would be a good interpreter of Leviticus, it should be a Priest… and if not a Priest then most certainly a LEVITE would interpret LEVITICUS well. Right?
The Sadduccees were the ones who presented food offerings to God. And as such, they needed to remain pure.
Well, you and I know what happens. the Priest and the Levite see the man who is half dead… and they stay on the other side of the road. But why?
It’s What We See
It’s What We See
I think it’s all in what they see. You see, among the Priestly Laws of Leviticus is a law that a Priest was not allowed to be in the presence of anyone who was dead, deformed, mangled, etc. No one who was blind, lame, disfigured, or anything else was allowed to be in close proximity of a Priest while a Priest was on duty, lest the Priest become unclean. And, should the Priest become unclean, the Priest would have to undergo a number of rituals to once again be cleansed before God.
When the Priest and the Levite saw this man lying there half dead on the road—they saw someone that they likely believed would make them unclean. They didn’t see a fellow Israelite, they saw a person who was broken and cast away to die. To put it over-simply… they didn’t want to get their hands dirty.
I don’t believe the Priest and the Levite were simply being callous, though. I think they were interpreting scripture. Their focus was to keep their own hands clean—to not get into the muck that they saw but rather to stay above that in order to serve God. I think that’s what they had on their minds. They weren’t bad… but they were wrong.
The
Because when the Samaritan comes forward, what does the Samaritan see? The Samaritan sees a neighbor in need—a person who needs his help. It doesn’t matter that they are different nationalities. It doesn’t matter that they likely speak different languages and wear different clothes. What matters is that the Samaritan sees a person in need and responds to that neighbor with love. The Samaritan shows mercy, even to one who is an outsider from his own culture.
Today
Today
Remember how I mentioned earlier that it is difficult to say something fresh about this story? Well, that is in part true. But the reason we keep hearing this story year after year in its different versions is because we continue to struggle with the question, “Who is my neighbor?”
And as we think of the Lawyer’s answer to his own question that we are to:
He answered, “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.”
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
As we consider the question of laws within Leviticus as to who our neighbor is and how
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
, it should not be lost on us that we have a deep question in our society today about who our neighbor is right now. It should not be lost on us that we have aliens who reside among us… that we are called to love as ourselves.
It should not be lost on us that as we worship today, ICE is in the midst of rounding up thousands of individuals and families who had been seeking asylum in the United States and will be preparing them to deportation back to countries that they had fled hundreds if not thousands of miles—and often fled on foot.
And it should not be lost on us that for someone to speak in favor of mercy toward those individuals and families seems today to be a greater sin than it is to say love your enemy and point to ISIS.
The Great Challenge
The Great Challenge
The great challenge of this parable of the Neighborly Samaritan for us is that Christ calls us to see ALL people as our neighbor. Christ calls us to see ALL of those around us as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ—which, by the way, many of those being rounded up are indeed fellow Christians—Catholic more specifically, not that it really matters.
Because whether they are Christian or Jew or Norse or Muslim or anything else… they are still our neighbor… and we are their neighbors too.
I do not intend to say that issues around immigration are simple… they are not—indeed they are incredibly complex. There are laws in place and those laws should be followed—but we must also recognize that the system is broken and people are hurting for it.
There are some who will be deported who sought asylum and missed their first court date—not necessarily because they intentionally skipped it but because notification of their court date went to the wrong address.
Just this last week Ashley and I had mail from the government handed to us that was sent to our old address—an address that we changed 2 years ago. I shudder to think if that had been a court date notification for asylum.
I pray that we see our neighbors for who they are… they’re not issues that we have to deal with… they are fellow human beings.
What would this world look like if the world saw one another from our own human perspective… but instead from Christ’s perspective—from that Samaritan’s perspective. What would it look like if we didn’t wait for the other person to prove their worth… but if we first acted with love?
What if Christ could tell a parable today about the neighborly American? What would that look like? Would it look like you and like me? Or would we be among those who choose to keep our hands clean?
Peace and God’s blessings on you as we remember that we have a God that sees all of us… even you and me… as God’s children. And may we breathe with comfort in the knowledge that we have a God willing to get hands dirty for all of our sakes—that we indeed might have eternal life.
Let us pray,