Who Is Your Neighbour?

 Text: Luke 10: 25- 37

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?”  Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’  Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Message

1. The word “Good Samaritan” today is a big compliment and a rich tribute. But was it so in Jesus time? The answer is a plain no. It had a racial connotation where Samaritans were considered impure by the Jews and had no association with them. Samaritans worshiped at Mount Gerizim instead of Jerusalem. When one reads the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, we get an idea how deep trenched the stereotypes against each other were. Today the mainline churches have a lot of prejudice towards the Pentecostal churches and vice versa. This could be used as a reference point to understand the deeper suspicion and hatred that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans, though this is a very poor analogy. This fact should be kept in mind before we meditate on this parable.
2. It says the Lawyer stood up to test Jesus. Who is this lawyer? Some say he was a scribe and the Oxford Annotated Bible establishes that he belonged to the sect called Pharisees. Now Pharisees were people who strived to live their life literally according to the Law. Every word had to be followed. They were heroes of great piety. Philip Yancey in his book What Is So Amazing About Grace says that there was a mark with which one could identify a Pharisee. Now what was this signifier? Bizarre it may sound but it was “A Lump on the Forehead”. Seriously? Now I assumed that may be the way they prayed they must have bowed down something like the Kumbidal (Prostrating) that we in the Mar Thoma Church do during the Passion Week. So repeated act of this could have led to the lump. But wait. The reason according to Yancey is this. “Pharisees lived in fear of committing a sin. So not doing sin was the objective. So whenever they walked on roads or in the market place they looked down and walked. This was to avoid looking ahead because if one looked ahead he would see a woman, or a house or animal and would desire or covet it and commit a sin violating the 10 commandments. So the best way was to look down that would save one from sinning. But that came with a price.  Do a small homework by doing similarly in your roads and bylanes to understand the consequence of walking looking down at the road and appreciating its geological dimensions. If a house came in front, the Pharisees did not see it as their eyes were fixed to the ground. They went and hit houses, walls, and people and slowly the lump got growing after every bang.” I am just imagining that may be this lump had an effect of a medal system that determined status of the Pharisees. One with a huge lump is a good Pharisee and one with a small lump cheats in between and does look up so he is just ok ok. Who knows? What I want to highlight is the fact that the focus was on “I”. I should not sin. “What should I do to inherit eternal life?” was the question of the lawyer.  It also reflects our Christian faith that strongly is about “I, Mine, Ours” to being strongly blinded to our surroundings and the need of the others
3. Jesus asks a question to a question to which the lawyer answers well where Jesus assures him of life. But loving God is ok, it is fine, who will ask me? I Love God. He is wonderful, great and mighty. But the problem was of loving Neighbour as ourselves.  Now the Lawyer wanted Jesus to define who his neighbor is. A very human tendency to define so that we can control. It is a very common problem, we need people to fulfil certain qualifications and requirements before we can consider them as people. Matrimonial sites show our general tendencies of who we consider to be worthy of being called people. “God fearing, Born Again, Fair girl, slim, with good background, secure job…..”. It is said that we love categories more than the people. And therefore we too ask “Who is my neighbor? Who is worthy of my love
4. Jesus answered with a parable so that is more open ended than a fixed answer. We know this parable very well. The Priest ignores the man who is wounded. Many say that the priest would be impure for ritual performance if he touched body oozing of blood. Some say that on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem there were bandits who posed as wounded and when one went to help others would come from behind trees and attack the man and take his belongings. So maybe such fears withheld the priest from acting. So the priest has an excuse.   But why did the Levite refuse to act? William J. Bausch has a very interesting take. He says that the Levite saw the priest ignore the wounded man, so just followed suit. To support his argument he quotes a Psychological test where an unsuspecting man walks a lane where a man acts as if he is badly injured and cries out for help. Now two men who were part of the experiment were instructed to ignore the cries of the man badly injured. The two men just ignored and walked away. Seeing the two men ignoring, the unsuspecting man too ignored the cries for help and just moved on as if nothing happened. This experiment was repeated many times with the same result. Psychologists concluded that our response to another person’s plight is often determined by how other people respond. In other words, the most important person in any situation where compassion and courage are required is the first person to act. If he acts people will respond. The question is ‘are we ready to step out and act’. There is where the Samaritan comes to the picture. He might have seen the two people in front of him ignore the plight of this man who is wounded, but he was the first to act, to respond, to save life. He was the one who showed mercy to a stranger. Have we reached that level of loving God where we transcend our petty needs and plunge into action when our brothers and sisters are in need? Are we brave to act, the first one to step out of our comfort zones for others or are we like the Pharisees that look down so that they avoid sinning and in turn being absolutely unaware of the people who live in our surroundings, who are in need, who need fellowship?
5.  I am just imagining the faces of the audience who were listening to this parable of Jesus. They might have felt very offended at downplaying their Priests and Levites and heralding a dirty abominable Samaritan. Jesus here was challenging stereotypes that one is comfortable living with. How could a Samaritan ever be human forget being good? This parable invites us to wage a battle against our prejudices that divide people telling us who is our neighbor and who is not. As a Christian priest I have strong prejudices against Pentecostals that I thrive on. I need to battle that. Prejudice gives us comfort and certainty. Are you ready to give up on it and embrace love for the Creation of God? Is there someone who you do not associate just because he belongs to a certain community or religion? Ask God for forgiveness and hear Jesus ask you the question “Who is your Neighbor?” What is your answer?