Who is my neighbor?

Sermon Luke 10: 25- 37  March 22, 2017 Ecumenical Lenten Service @ Gaskins AME Church 

Who is my neighbor?

Years ago, I traveled to seminary from Lynchburg, Virginia to Richmond, Virginia. It was a two-hour drive traveling north on state road 29 to Charlottesville then east on I64 to Richmond. I loved the drive. The trip was easy and it gave me lots of time to think or study or listen to music. I was in my own little world, feeling independent and as if nothing could burden me.

Three days a week I took to the highway and never thought twice about ever needing any help. One day on the return trip I was listening to a great song on the radio in my Chevy Malibu when my right rear tire blew out. At first I wasn’t sure what happened. But, when the car wobbled and the steering shook I realized something was wrong. I pulled off to the side of the busy, crazy part of I64 and saw the damaged tire.

Now you might think it odd that I’ve never changed a flat tire. But there I was not wanting any help and certainly wanting to prove that I could do it ‘all by myself.’ I went to the trunk to find the tire and the jack stand. I went to the glove box and pulled out the owner’s manual. I looked at the jack stand and couldn’t figure out how to use it from first glance so I sat down on the side of the road and starting reading the book.

Cars were zooming past me and some slowed down and then kept on going. I looked up a few times and kept saying when I saw those faces, ‘please don’t stop.’ I’m begging you, please don’t stop.’ I’m not sure if I didn’t want help from those kinds of people or if I was just too stubborn to accept help.

At one point a semi-truck slowed down and then kept going. Whew, I sighed relief because I really didn’t want him to stop, I’ll figure this out. But less than five minutes later the truck had gone and made a U-turn and come back to help me. His first comments were, ‘lady, I saw you sitting there reading the owner’s manual and thought if anyone is reading a book to figure out how to change a tire they need help.’ He changed my tire and sent me on my way. I was truly grateful for the help I received. He was a gentleman and had gone out of his way and interrupted his schedule to help someone who needed it. To this day grateful for this grace lesson.

‘Who is my neighbor’, the lawyer asks Jesus. Jesus shares the Good Samaritan story with him. It is a lesson in Levitical Law. The lawyer knew the Law and didn’t need this lesson. As Christians, we know the lessons of Jesus. We really don’t need a lesson on how to be kind to others. We were raised up on those lessons. We can tell each other how good we are at helping the needy.  

But what about when we are the ones in need?

Have we ever considered how we would respond to a Samaritan coming to our aid?

I ask this today, because I believe ‘how we are willing to receive help and from whom, gets to core of our own prejudice’.

It gets to the heart of our deep feelings about others.

It gets us to realize how far we are willing to go with this command from Jesus.

Who is our neighbor?  The one we fear the most, coming to us with acts of mercy.

There we are on the side of the road, stuck in a ditch and people who are just like us drive by and don’t even stop to look or slow down.

The one we find less desirable takes time to help and makes sure we have everything we need. Can we handle that?                          Can we handle that?

Samaritans, according to the Jews of the day, were ‘stupid’ people.

(And we know a lot of ‘stupid’ people. We might not say it in public. But we sure do say it in the privacy of our homes. Yes, we call people by name frequently and we know it.) They were ‘dirty and unworthy’. They were the ‘less than’ people.

Who are the Samaritans of our day? Who are the people we would beg to not come to help us?

 

Bishop Kevin Dowling-a true Good Samaritan-
Tapologo Hospice, South Africa 

The priest and the Levite who walked past the man in the ditch felt burdened by the idea of having to interrupt their lives to help someone else.

A lot of how we help has to do with our schedule and our agenda.

We stop to help others when we are not already late to get to somewhere or to do something. When we are on our way to work or school, places where we punch a clock, we have tunnel vision and preoccupation with what matters for us.

A person on the side of the road just can’t fit into that agenda.

This parable is more than a good deed. It has many twists and turns with the outcast caring for the elite and the vulnerable showing hospitality to the less vulnerable. It has the twist that hospitality comes from a willingness to have our vision turned to the side to notice others around us and to disrupt our routine to offer ourselves, our money and our time.

A few years ago, I took a youth group to spent three days working at a homeless shelter in Louisville. The shelter was a hotel and those who lived there were learning all the skills of hotel work. Cooking, cleaning, management and so on. It was an eye-opening experience and a lesson about ‘all God’s creatures’.

I asked myself, ‘would I be willing to be vulnerable and get help from one of these people? I came to serve them, this was my mission to feel good about what I did not what they did for me.’  And yet, my life was altered and my tunnel vision changed.

I think the experience at the homeless shelter was recognizing the dignity restored to the men and women in the hotel.

People, once homeless, were given new life.

The men working in the kitchen were able to teach us how to do their job.

They taught us with pride and

helped me to realize that I wasn’t there just doing something to lift them out of the ditch

but

they were doing something to lift me

out of my short sightedness.

The Samaritan in this story looked beyond the lens of prejudice and could only envision mercy.

It took guts to do what he did.

Everything one could imagine could have kept him from helping.

But, he did it anyway.

You see, To act in love for our Lord in the world demonstrates the power that love gives to discipleship;

pure love and tenderness

wrapped in the package of pure audacity and boldness.

It wasn’t too long ago, that we were unwilling to accept a blood transfusion based on the color of the skin of the donor.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were not willing to be taught by a teacher of a particular sexual orientation.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were not willing to receive a son or daughter in law based on religion.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were unwilling to have a person working for us who had a thick accent.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were unwilling to receive mercy, love, care concern, from anyone different from us.

Who is our neighbor? Jesus doesn’t need to answer us, we already know. Go and live it!

The family of God has many members and they are not all just like me.

Brothers and sisters come in all shapes, sizes, and behaviors.

As we discover how our community is diverse in many ways here on the Eastern Shore, we have the opportunity to discover how to live with shared faith, shared experience, and shared traditions.

Who is our neighbor? The one who showed mercy. Go and do likewise. Amen.

Excerpts from FPC sermon of 7/14/2013 ‘My Flat Tire’