Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
This week the lectionary takes us to one of the most famous of Jesus’ parables, The Good Samaritan. To get into it we need Tom Cruise, of course, I mean who else, right? Specifically we need the movie The Last Samurai. That’s right I’ve managed to pick a movie from this century, surprise, surprise! 2003 to be exact. And of course it is a movie about the Samurai rebellion in 19th century Japan, everybody’s favorite subject. I love this movie, and not just because I think Tom looks great with a beard and long hair, he does, but because of the relationship between his character, Nathan Algren, and Katsumoto, the leader of the Samurai, played by Ken Watanabe. Algren is basically a hired gun. He is a former US Army Captain suffering from PTSD the result of the atrocities he witnessed and committed during the American Indian Wars. He is brought in by the Japanese govt., as an expert in dealing with what they called “savages” to help them put down the Samurai rebellion against the modernization movement in Japan.
Warner Bros. 2003
A key moment is in the first battle where Algren, after many protests, is forced by his superiors to lead an untrained, unprepared Japanese army into battle against the highly skilled Samurai warriors. It’s a disaster. Algren’s side is decimated, but he fights with reckless abandon and kills many Samurai before he is wounded and surrounded and as good as dead. The Samurai leader Katsumoto witnesses his fighting and it reminds him of a dream he had of a cornered tiger, and he decides to spare his life. Algren had killed Katsumoto’s own brother-in-law in the battle, but he still gives him mercy and takes him back to his village where they care for him and nurse him back to health and sobriety. And spoiler alert, as time passes Algren and Katsumoto become friends and fight side by side. It’s a story of one who has mercy and compassion on his enemy, and it changes everything.
This is the story of the Good Samaritan. Obviously not an exact match, but close. A lawyer comes to Jesus asking him the most important question that any human being can ask, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Luke tells us that the lawyer was testing Jesus, so his motives were not all that pure, but his question about eternal life is still THE question. And this guy was a scholar of the law, a lawyer, an expert in the law, so Jesus responds to him with his own subject of expertise. As is the habit of many rabbis, Jesus answers his question with another question: “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” This was the equivalent of a Samurai move on Jesus’ part. The lawyer comes to test him, but he deftly turns the table on the guy and puts him to the test. Essentially saying, “You’re the expert. What does the law say? How do you understand it?”
As an aside, this is always what the Lord does with us. Any time we deal with the Lord he is always going to make it personal. He asks the lawyer, “How do you read it?” He does the same thing with his disciples when they report to him how the crowds of people view him, and Jesus turns it right at them, “But who do YOU say that I am?” When God is dealing with you he is dealing with YOU. No one else is going to be brought into the conversation. It is all about what is going on between him and you.
SO, he asks the lawyer a direct question about the law, and the lawyer answers it correctly with the two great commandments. “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.” This is exactly how Jesus sums up the law himself when he is asked elsewhere. Jesus tells the lawyer, “That’s correct, now go do it and you will live.”
And the lawyer responds the way every single one of us does when it comes to the law. He starts to try to negotiate, to find the line or the limit. He says, “And who is my neighbor?” Can we just define our terms here? If I’m gonna go do this I don’t want to waste my time on anybody that’s not my neighbor. Luke tells us it’s because he wanted to “justify himself.” He wanted to be able to say to Jesus, “I’ve done that, I’m good.” It’s very reminiscent of the rich young ruler. Jesus gave him the law too, and he said, “I’ve done all of that.” Then Jesus applies the law to the heart of the matter and tells him to give all of is wealth away, and he is exposed for loving his wealth and not God or his neighbor. Here we can assume by the way Jesus answers with the parable that he knew that the lawyer wanted him to say something like, “Your neighbor is anyone else who is a good law following person…someone like you. Someone from your world.” That’s what we all do. We try to lower the law to make it doable. We try to compromise and negotiate with the law to make it within our reach so that we can justify ourselves. But the Lord will not allow it…he keeps the law as high as it actually is.
Jesus tells this masterful story about a Jew who while traveling runs into robbers gets beat up, stripped of his clothing, and left for dead, aka Tom Cruise. Two people come by who basically represent all of the good law abiding Jews, people just like the lawyer, who he probably had in mind when he thought of his neighbors. One was a priest, and one was a Levite, both would have worked in the temple. They see the battered, naked, almost-dead man and they walk on the other side of the road and leave him for dead. They were likely trying to preserve their own righteousness because the law said that anyone that touches a dead person is unclean for 7 days, which would mean they would not be able to serve in the temple for that long. It displays the great irony that in all of our efforts to try to keep the law we bring about the opposite result.
But then comes a Samaritan. Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. They were the result of those who were left in Israel after the exile centuries prior. They inter-married with other races and adopted other cultures and became known as Samaritans. They were half-breeds, considered unclean and compromised. They weren’t Jews any more according to the law, as good as savages. So here comes the savage, this enemy of the desperate, almost dead man, and he takes his plight upon himself. He has compassion on him. He goes to him and binds up his wounds, pours on oil and wine. Then he sets him on his own animal and brings him to an inn and cares for him. Then he gives the innkeeper a few days wages to care for him and promises to pay whatever else is needed to care for the man (Luke 10:33-35).
Jesus does what he always does with the law, he makes sure that his audience sees how high the standard actually is. He doesn’t allow the lawyer to sit in his ignorance thinking that he can be justified under the law. He doesn’t allow him to compromise and try to lower the idea of his neighbor to be someone just like him. Rather, he is consistent with his teaching in his Sermon on the Mount where told his followers to love their enemies. He said, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:46-48). That’s what the law demands perfection, complete and total perfection. It requires you to love God perfectly and completely, and it requires you to love literally everyone else perfectly and completely. He drives that home by choosing the enemy of the Jews to be the neighbor in the story.
The lawyer has no choice but answer that the Samaritan was the neighbor, the one who showed mercy. Then comes the kicker…the repeat of what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “You go, and do likewise.” Remember the lawyer’s original question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s what Jesus is answering…this is a story about getting to heaven. This is missed all the time when people think of this parable. 90% of the time we take this parable and turn it into a morality tale…that Jesus was telling us how to be good neighbors, how to be kind Christians. When we do that we are literally not getting the point. This is far more radical. Jesus is telling this lawyer, and all of us, if you want to justify yourself then you must be perfect. You go and do likewise. You have to be like God. You have to keep the law perfectly inside and out, and you need to understand that it’s demand is far greater than you can possibly think. You must love your sworn enemies. And that doesn’t mean just think nice thoughts about them. It means laying down your life for them. That’s what the Samaritan does in the story. He takes the wounded, naked, and dying man’s burden upon himself. He takes full responsibility for him in every way. His health, his travel, his lodging, his ongoing care. This goes way beyond a financial commitment. He enters into the man’s brokenness and deals with it as if it were his very own.
This is impossible for us. It is impossible. You cannot do it, but it is required if you are going to join the lawyer and hang your prospects of eternal life on your doing. That was the question, “What must I do…?” Well, here’s the answer…and you cannot do it. In fact if you were to try you would kill yourself and probably kill everyone else that you are attempting to love as well in the process. Just go to any Al-Anon or Codependents Anonymous meeting and you will hear the testimonies of people who tried to do it, who tried be the Good Samaritan to their loved ones. It’s not even to their enemies, it’s to family members, and the result is devastation, just more brokenness. I know because I’ve tried. I’ve tried to be Superman for multiple people in my life, and it hasn’t worked yet.
The Good Samaritan in the story is not you or me. This is not a morality tale for us to try harder to be more loving and merciful. Thank God! If you want to find yourself in the story, I’ll tell you where you and I are. We are lying in the ditch. We are Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, but not even really because Tom Cruise is never actually in real trouble. He can’t be, he’s Tom Cruise, and his characters always have to bounce back and become the heroes, right? No, we’re really the person that is beaten, naked, and as good as dead lying in a ditch on the side of the road. Now there may be times when you feel convicted by the priest and the Levite in the story. You may remember times when you could have helped someone in obvious need and you ignored them and walked around them, and I want to tell you that’s good. That part is supposed to convict us too, but all it does is reveal to us that we are actually in the same boat as the guy in the ditch. The priest and the Levite and the lawyer all think they’re holding it together, but their avoidance of their neighbor in need reveals that they too are broken, naked under the blinding light of the law, and as good as dead in their sin…their attempts at self-justification. We are in the ditch, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything about our situation…literally at the mercy of anyone who walks by.
“Rescue” by Kate Norris
And praise God Jesus is the one who walks by. He is the only one who is truly good. He is the only one that can truly love his neighbor. He is the only one who can give us the mercy that we need. He is the only who can take our burden upon himself and do something about it. And that’s just what he did. Like Mr. Rogers, he wants everyone to be his neighbor! He enters into our brokenness and makes it his own. He takes our place, and we take his. He gets whipped and beaten, stripped of his clothing, and crucified on a cross. He goes lower than the ditch for us; he goes to the grave. As we see in the story He gives us everything that is his: his time, his oil and wine, his animal to ride on, his place in the inn, his money, his promise to continue to take care of us indefinitely, his life. There is no end to his care in the story. It goes on forever. And he does all of this for us, his enemies. That’s how Paul describes us in Romans because of our sin. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (5:8-10). Our sin makes us enemies of God, enemies of righteousness, of all that is good, and yet God reconciles us to himself by the death of his Son. Jesus takes our burden upon himself, our actual death upon himself on the cross…the very thing we deserve according to the law…and brings it to an end and rises from the grave so that we might be healed.
This is the kind of love that fulfills the law, those two great commandments that the lawyer cites. Jesus knows that he is the one that has come to fulfill those requirements on our behalf. He will do it…he has done it! He has won life for all of us…eternal life. This is the great generosity of God to us, the great gift of eternal life. It changes everything for us. You may even find, just like Mr. Rogers did (he was a Presbyterian minister, by the way), that it sets you free to love your neighbor. The great news is that it’s not out of your effort or strength any more, and it’s no longer out of the selfish desire to justify yourself. You’re just free…free because of Jesus Christ, and you find yourself wanting to give of yourself for the sake of others. Wanting to show mercy to those in need no matter who they may be because you’ve been there, you’ve been in that ditch too, and Jesus had mercy on you. What a beautiful gift it is to see that fruit born in your life. May it all be true for all of us. Amen.
From Pittsburgh:)
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