Who Is My Neighbor?

A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. Teacher he said what must I do to gain eternal life. Just replied. What is written in the law? How do you interpret it? He responded. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your being with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus said to him you have answered correctly do that and you will live. But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was a right. So he said to Jesus and who is my neighbor?

Jesus replied A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered fees who stripped him naked beat him up and left him near death. I just so happened that the priest was also going down the same road. When you saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way.

Likewise a levite came by that spot saw the engine man and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way.

A Samaritan who was on a journey came to where the man was but when he saw him he was moved with compassion. The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey took him to an in and took care of him. The next day he took two full days worth of wages and gave them to The Innkeeper. He said take care of him. And when I return I will pay you back for any additional costs.

What do you think which one of these three with a neighbor to the man who encounter thieves?

The legal experts said the one who demonstrated Mercy towards him. Jesus told him go and do likewise.

Will Jesus and his disciples were traveling Jesus enter the village where woman named Martha welcome him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listen to his message. By contrast Martha with preoccupied with getting everything ready for their meal. The Martha came to him and said Lord don't you care that my sister has left me to prepare the table all by myself. Tell her to help me. The Lord answered Martha Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part. It won't be taken away from her. during the reading

when I was Preparing for the ministry and when I was becoming reacquainted with Christianity because those of you who may not know this when I first entered the the preparation for Mastery, I entered in the Unitarian Universalist denomination, and I'd come most recently from a very Buddhist background.

Course, I hadn't raised around Christianity as a youth but it wasn't something I really studied in great detail.

Play It's been studying as part of my uu Faith at the time. Which I had been engaged in for about 7 years or so before I entered the preparation for Ministry.

and one of the things of that as I began that I changed over to the Christian faith and then started to move away from The UU faith and as I Really became engrossed in reading reading the Bible more detail and understanding Christian theology better. And I learned I read as I begin my own spiritual journey deeper into the Christian tradition. One of the things that I had to deal with in my own Journey very early on was the idea of the church. What actually is the church? It's it's a hard question that doesn't have a very simple answering people will almost certainly give you a simple answer if they will do it this either because they feel very strongly about their their own understanding or because it has simply been repeated to the many times and then they know it through rote memorization. but like so many things in faith so many things in Christianity. The answer is kind of multi-layered and has multiple meanings and different way to looking at it. When your early in your face your told one thing and when your later in your faith you find something else.

How many the church is specifically the congregation to which they belong physical building? And the people who meet there?

When I was studying the ministry, one of the things that I learned about was it called Fowler's stages of faith. It was at a gentleman named Fowler who talked about to come in a psychological understanding of the stages of Faith development. You're not a person overtime very interesting idea in one of his points. Was it the earliest form of Faith was the faith of doing so it was what was church will she ask a toddler? Who has only learn to speak maybe a year before to toddler might tell you all we get up on Sunday mornings and we go to the church and we go to service and then I go and I I go to class and then I play with my friend and we have bread and wine and then you don't but they'll described as action of going to church. He asked someone later on they'll say different things. They'll say churches is the communities outside church has this idea whatever that all these different things different things and I think that the the answer is not one of the other the answer is that it's all of those things in different different aspects depending so there's a church that is the congregation there the church that is perhaps the denomination the larger Church body to which you belong to myself this this even is a multi-faceted question because you know, I still feel very strongly connected to the UCC the United Church of Christ, which was the the the denomination that I

Was in in fellowship with for many years while I Was preparing for Ministry. I still feel some connection to The UU denomination, even though I don't I don't consider myself to be a you you anymore, I I certainly have lots of friends and I feel very close kinship to those folks on the same time. I I sir to mostly Methodist congregation and I I certainly feel a kinship to the United Methodist. I've always felt kind of at home in Anglican Church feel a kinship to the Anglican denomination certainly to that the liberal Catholic denomination, which it had a large a large impact on my faith development through the people that I that I looked at you as mentors in early on and what not. I mean, it's just a wide range of things that we went to Presbyterian seminaries of the Presbyterians are always kind of, you know, close to me in my in my heart. But the closest denomination is is of course the Universalist Church that is in its current form that the Christian Universalist Association. Of which I'm a member of the board of ordained minister in good standing. You know, my colleagues and friends are in this organization. so one thing there's the church the local church to there's a denomination to which I am most closely associated for lofted the CUA the Christian Universalist Association third though. There's the Church Catholic the the greater Church Catholic here with a small seed meaning everywhere the church that is the the collection of all believers all over the world who believe in the end and Christ and his message.

And this is why I'm really close to the World Council of churches to the the National Council of churches to to various. I'm always being an egg and a few minutes of them and I chemical work working with other Christian denominations. Can I talk to the church and yet?

On a more interesting level on a more perhaps metaphysical level or or theological level. The church is really.

The body of Christ that the Jesus brought into existence as part of his ministry on Earth and all of the people in all of the the things that have come out of it and the end there in this argument that can be made about if the church perfect or not. Is the church fallible or not? And you couldn't you can make lots of arguments on this. Of course, I will tell you that if you think it be the answer your question is what kind of what part of Church of your friend to be referring to the domination. If you're referring to the the end of the individual congregation, if you're referring even to the church Catholic the the larger Christian Movement across the world. Yeah. They're they're all human organizations. They are all Salve on the only mistakes. The perhaps if you think of the church. As being the body of Christ that is kind of beyond the human organization the thing that the human organization points to but can never fully become because of our own flawed nature then maybe maybe that church is infallible, but not the one that we actually have in the real world. Where am I going with this and what does it have to do with who is my neighbor? So I think that one of them that had to come to grips with that was with the church was the horrible wrongs that have been committed by the church over the centuries horrible wrongs horrible horrible things. Minnieville point to the Roman Catholic church and tell that this is the right Roman Catholic problem, but it's really not it's really not. You know John Calvin famously, but one at one of the Protestant reformers who is kind of pointed to you as the founder of the founder, but but up but up.

But ancestor of the Presbyterian Church, certainly the Reformed Church about of the Reformed Church. Who who famously broke from so many things an inmate was so angry at the Roman Catholic Church. None the less nonetheless.

brought judgment against a man named Severus and had him burned at the stake. for his Unitarian beliefs

So it's not like it and of course, you know people of the Spanish Inquisition or the you know, whatever but I mean, there's also the house of the witch trials in Salem. There were there was that the the stealing of land from the indigenous peoples in the Americas and elsewhere there. There was the the persecution of scientists by the church there there was the the kind of asset acceptance of the slave trade that the tacit acceptance of the Nazi party in Germany. There there was So many things so many things so many things that the church has done that were flawed and wrong.

But that the we are people were flawed people so that that's what we end up with a floor innovation.

The one of the things that I thought I was going to point one thing and say this this is the thing that the church gets wrong the most that the Church Catholic ever see the entire church that the all the Believers of of you and followers of Jesus all over the world. If I was going to point one thing and say this is the thing they get wrong the most often that has caused the most problems it is at they do not know who their neighbor is.

Jesus was very clear on this point very clear and Luke the author of this gospel was very clear by including this Parable that we heard today about. What what's the Good Samaritan which course now and I are in our in our modern vocabulary. We can figure the Good Samaritan to be a very common thing. We talked about the Good Samaritan in the Good Samaritan was a great person. We have Good Samaritan laws and things like this.

But that's not how it was in the in Jesus's day. You know, the Samaritans were a defendant of a mixed population that had occupied the land following the conquest by Assyria in the in the 8th Century BC. So if you remember perhaps it was there was a 2.93 all that you could have two kingdoms and Israel fell to to the Assyrians and then later to the fell to the excuse. And the syrians

Notary in the Babylonians in the end the the Assyrians conquered Israel. And then the Babylonians conquered but point is keep the people were taken away and some people were left there and that that population that was left following the conquest were the Samaritans. And you know when when the people were turned to rebuild the Temple and to rebuild Jerusalem, the Samaritans were against that they have been living there this whole time they were confused by these Outsiders you we were coming in to what they had seen kind of has their own land now that for several hundred years they live there, right? And so They can practice their own place of worship on Mount greetham. Sorry wrong believe that Jerusalem was the place to go to have their own place of worship. And so from the Jewish perspective the Samaritans were Frizzell ceremonially unclean. They were social outcasts. They were religious Heretics. They were the very opposite of what a priest or a levite the other people here in the story. The story would have been there the very opposite of kind of an upstanding model citizen of of the Jewish population of the time. and so the story of the Good Samaritan in its context and its day was a very shocking story. This was not you know something we've you know, what they call the Good Samaritan Samaritan Samaritan people. That's that's not what they thought the Samaritans were the were the bad people they were there the people that that nobody liked, you know,

Clarence Clarence, Jordan, who's a

A role model of mine and a minister in the in the Deep South during during the middle of kinds of racial. Upheaval that occur during the fifties and sixties in the Deep South in the US. He told the story and he he made the black person the Samaritan in the story to kind of give it in phasis to his to his white audience at the time.

the Samaritan was tempted to the people who listen to the story the person who would never help the person who could not be tweaked net. They cannot be touched that you know, and then things looked let's go back and look at the at the taxes at 4 that the text is

a legal expert comes up a lawyer someone who studied the study the law of the Torah and the end the Jewish. Holy books in great detail bright scholar. This is yours is your Seminary Professor? This is your your you know, the Reverend doctor write. This is someone who has been a lot of time studying text. and they are testing Jesus's they don't they don't really want to know they their they're testing they their they're trying to have to get the upper hand i'm intellectually again.

If they asked Jesus what a must I do and Jesus replied with a question what is written the law and they respond you must love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your being with all your strength with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus yep, that's it within the Jewish religion.

But the Blood lyrics wasn't wasn't happy with that. He wanted to prove he knew better than Jesus, right? And so he said I would who is my neighbor and that's when Jesus respond to this with this story and and the people he left that he left his prisoner gets robbed and beaten to death with almost to death in the lying and let you know in the gutter on the side of the road and 1st come by priest and the priest

Crossing the street. So it's supposed to avoid the person that goes on and then comes a levite who I'm with also related Levites were that were the people who who

Are maintained the temple and then we're at the kind of really just cast ranked and then that person also crosses the street and goes on and then American come and when Jesus was telling the story you have to kind of think in his audience is mine. They expected early common really common movement, which is to say a priest a levite. And a good is a Israelite a good book a Jewish person a good a good member of society that that's what they expected that they would have expected. Jesus to say will the priests went by in the levite went by because for them to touch a dead body would make them would make them ceremoniously on unclean it would get you to leave. I was completely forbidden from touching a dead body. They didn't know if the person was a gentile or Jew who is on the side of the road that it could have been a trap. Maybe maybe it's a robbery that set a trap for them to get them to come over and help the person they were going to get going to get ambushed. They didn't know and so they had they had to make this decision between Caring for a fellow person and in doing what what they felt like God told him to do it was to maintain their purity in their cleanliness because they were going to go that you know, they're going to need to be able to to preside over sacrifices and things in the temple and then they needed to not be unclean for a week or they needed to be cleaned or they could do that if they make my decision, but it's really important that people were like horrible people. They they just they just chose one with what they saw that a good over there there came for the neighbor. What's a Jesus's listeners with audience would have expected the next person to come along to be a good Israelite man right to be to be some someone a good a good member of society but instead instead Jesus subverts the story and said Jesus says a Samaritan comes right on who's who who's on a Journeys passing through we got you the marriage then comes and he take time out of his journey to care for the person to bandage a wound to take them to an end and make sure they're well give probably a week or two's worth of of money as far as the other room in the end of concerned to The Innkeeper into the on I'll pay you whatever y'all when I come back, you know, he married to goes above and beyond well beyond and then the Samaritan remember, although they were from a different group of people. They they believe largely in the same God and they had a lot of the same beliefs around ritual purity. It would not feel so they were under the same moral dilemma of do I help somebody you in and possibly become ritually unclean and doing so or not and and yet they chose to help him Jesus really trying to force us to look at that and and and really pay attention to it.

Who is my neighbor? Will the answer is everybody's your neighbor? everybody You know.

I think that Jesus really. you try to

make this as clear and obvious as possible there a lot of places in Jesus's teachings were his Parables may be a little confusing and even he says, you know, all the people won't understand that until later. But on this point, he's very clear he hangs out with the outcasts he hangs out with with with Sinners and with the the the thick and and with women you in the story in the story right after the second half the story we heard Keep going and he's met by by Martha and her sister Mary and Martha goes out to meet him tomorrow. That is probably the head of the household. We don't know if Martha's married. We don't know if if she's willing, you know, if she lives by herself and she owns a home memes just there with her sister. We don't know anything about her in that contact, but here are two women. There's no mention of men. There's no mention of brothers or husbands. There are real fathers or anything to women and Jesus goes in and teaches them and this is even one of them eat you sit at his feet and then learns from him and this was something that just was not done it with this is was was socially taboo to do this. So Jesus really was very clear that everyone is your neighbor. And yet throughout the history of the church, the church has done a fantastic job of making a division between us and Them. And there are so many there so many. You know today we often in in the US because it really is mostly an American thing. I'm in the US. There's this huge orcas an English-speaking thing against in the UK. It's also a problem. There's a huge problem about the the glbt community for LGBT community lgbtq community.

You know about the homosexual question if you will are they allowed or whatever we but we are firming whatever, you know, people point to all their Bible verse is it that say that this is a scam involving young people point the Bible verses for lots of things over the years, you know in the in the 50s, it was illegal for a white person to marry a black person and one of the reasons was it pointed to Bible verses that seem to say that you know, when they wanted to get rid of slavery. They pointed to bible verses to say that to slavery with was no part of the way of thing, you know by Paul sucks about Toby be content with you know with where you are in and serve your master is kind of thing. You know, I there wasn't this this idea is a mark of hams at the talk the talk about dark skin people and if it had the mark of ham on them and that they are, you know lesser being because this is part of what they used to it to two.

You're kind of rationalize the slave trade and you know, they're not Christians. So, you know anything we do to try and convert them if it's fine that so, you know why the other the pope divided the world and half and half of it to Spain half of it to Portugal and the missionaries land in Japan and and started trying to convert people, you know, I mean So many things throughout the history of the church that the The Crusade in the in the belief of the Muslims were Were Somehow, you know less than human yet the idea that the mhst goes on and on and on and on indigenous peoples of the world are so many times. The church has have made this argument that somehow some people are less than everybody else and that is just not true. And and that is Against everything that Jesus stand for everything that uses says, I mean, I don't understand how someone can read the Gospel of Jesus Christ come to the conclusion that somehow Jesus build walls between us and other people. I just don't understand.

So who is your neighbor everybody? everybody's your neighbor And God only asks two things of you. the love God and to love your neighbor

being Christian and there's a lot involved the law involved in being a Christian in Jesus before this passage. Jesus talks about the various like thing. You could take up your cross and follow me the all the things you have to do to be a disciple of of him, but about a me when you boil it all down. It's just these two things love God and love your neighbor.

Now I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment and back up and talk for just very briefly about something that I missed last week because I missed my my service for personal reasons. We missed talking about the Transfiguration and it's it's very important. I want to I want to bring it up the reading last week without the Transfiguration in the the detail of the Transfiguration that you can you can read it in Luke or any. In any other that's not the gospel.

And I'm really going to focus on that. I was going to make a narrative point. There are three major events in the life of Jesus that we see in the Gospel of Luke. The first one is Jesus's baptism. But yet he has four if you count at Birth the course. We have Jesus's baptism. This is the beginning of his ministry, right? He appear that a baby will have nowhere. Get baptized goes into the Into the Wilderness for 40 days comes out begins his ministry.

Second event is the Transfiguration and the Transfiguration is the pivot point where in narratively we pit it to Jesus. beginning his journey to Jerusalem where he will eventually be crucified and and raised and He says during Transfiguration scene. This is going to happen. He tells his disciples is going to happen. And in the third is of course the crucifixion and Resurrection in Jerusalem. So so these kind of these which is which is the oldest he's like three three major story points in it would be remiss of me not to go back and talk for a minute about the Transfiguration because what we see now is a pivot in the story so that now we're moving towards Jerusalem and pretty soon. We're going to get to the to the part where Jesus is entering Jerusalem. We have the Holy Week in and all of that so that's look forward to for next time. Crabby, how's it going? So just come back again apologize for the aside, but I don't want to get that at 1 to make sure that what I want you to do this week and really every week but especially this week there's so much going on there so much. Happening in the world so so much. death and illness and catastrophe happening all the time that we get kind of we get kind of numb to it all You know think about who is my neighbor who would my community? Who can I reach out to who can I check in on just call somebody or ask somebody how they're doing check in with them? Bring them something if they need it. If you live in Texas, I'm sure there's so much that can be done. If you're not living in Texas. If you want to help there are fantastic organizations, you can donate to to help people rebuild after this horrible storm and then power outage everything.

but try your hardest not to build with wall between you and other people. Beautiful call our society is driven by in-group and out-group. I'm so much. So even in Japan it's built into the language. The language is designed around in-groups and out-groups. The Jesus said that we are all in one group. And that difficult teaching is one that we should carry with us into the world and actively try to implement in our lives actively reach across the the chasm created by a society sometimes and try to reach those folks whom we are told our other for whatever reason.