A neighbor is one who comes close...

NOTE:  We are back from Montreal - and I am trying something new for the summer - a Bible study in worship with a LOT of conversation.  Let's see how it shakes out.  Weekly Eucharist, too.

Introduction

When we were away recently for vacation, part of our time was spent in Montreal at the International Jazz Festival.  Not only do I love being in that boldly multi-lingual, multi-cultural city – it just pulses with creativity and life – but I also cherish what takes place at the Jazz Festival, too.  You see, this festival is committed to the future of jazz – not just its past – and that means many of the artists are willing to share music that pushes beyond the edge of what is acceptable or fashionable.

Note for context:  In the United States jazz has become respectable. Wynton Marsalis holds court at Lincoln Center, the Berklee School of Music in Boston trains young musicians in what is narrowly known as the “jazz tradition,” jazz performance venues cost an arm and a leg to get into and most of the music that is recorded in American jazz today hails from the so-called golden era of the 40s and 50s. That means that mostly we’re looking backwards into the past – call it a museum movement or simply repertory recitals that in essence seek to reproduce legendary performances from history.  And while these replications can be beautiful and familiar, they are rarely creative or playful in the spirit of improvisation.   

Being in Montreal, however, mixes things up so that artists from all over creation get to listen and play and even argue with their peers.  And there are some fascinating sounds being brought to birth in the jazz of Africa, Norway and the Latin world as well as some equally wild and committed musicians at work just below the radar in the USA, too. When an international jazz festival brings them all together and encourages musical miscegenation? Oh Lord do I LOVE the creative flux that can come out of this kind of groove.

·      Don’t get me wrong, I cherish the place tradition plays:  it is absolutely necessary and in all things, tradition keeps us grounded, honest and humble.  I think Chesterton was spot on when he said:  Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.

·      At the same time, tradition is not the only truth in jazz – or religion, politics or sexuality for that matter.  The Nobel Prize winning author from France, Andre Gide, put it like this in 1947:  Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

So over the summer, in worship, I want to try an experiment born of the Jazz Festival with you that honors both tradition and creativity:  I want to engage you in a dialogical Bible study that invites you to be as boldly improvisational and out there as any avant-garde jazz artist on the planet.   But I want to do this within the context of traditional Christian community where love and compassion and reverence are at the heart of our gathering.  Let’s see what happens when we push against the limits of what we know and trust in pursuit of new blessings and beauty for as our ancient Puritan ancestor, John Robinson, used to say:  I am confident that there is more truth and light to break forth from the holy word of the Lord.  Let’s try it – and after we’ve had a turn at improvisation, we’ll gather together around the Lord’s Table as community.

Insights

Now to kick things off, let me share a few insights concerning today’s scripture with you so that our conversation has a foundation.  In terms of jazz improvisation, think of it like all the players on the bandstand agreeing to start in the same key:  believe me, this one little thing really helps everyone play much, much better.  So here are a few Bible study clues concerning the story we often call the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Our text comes right after one of the Lord’s prayers where Jesus gives thanks to God.  And it is important to note why he returns thanks:  he has just sent out 70 followers to bring healing and hope to a hurting people.  These people have been trained by Jesus to be signs of God’s living presence in the world:  they are to pray and teach and heal the wounded and when they returned they tell Jesus that they saw evidence that God’s love was stronger than all the demons.  It seems that their time in the wilderness was a blessing so Jesus offers up this prayer:  “Father, I thank you, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these blessings from the wise and intelligent ones but have revealed them to your innocent infants… for such is your gracious will, O Lord.”

·      So right out of the gate the context creates a tension we are supposed to pay attention to:  the lowly and forgotten, the weak and innocent are the ones who are uniquely able to receive Christ’s blessings – not the powerful – but the broken, ok? 

·      It would seem that in Christ’s time – and maybe ours as well – something keeps the powerful and proud from trusting God in all things.  And to underscore this, the Bible continues:  Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus…

Now let’s be very clear:  the word for lawyer – nomikos – is very intentional:  it means one who is a trained expert in the religious law of Israel.  This man is NOT one of the powerless and innocent ones who have trusted Jesus and followed his blessings.  Rather, this legal expert has come to… test Jesus.

·      And the only other time this word test – ekpeirazo – shows up in the gospel of Luke is back in another wilderness story where Jesus is being tested – or tempted – by Satan.  Do you recall that story? We often read it at the start of Lent when Jesus goes out into the desert after his baptism to be tested, right? 

·      So the text is telling us to be alert:  this is NOT an innocent conversation between equals or even those who care about one another.  This is what is known as an intellectual and theological challenge – a riposte in dueling jargon – where a rhetorical confrontation is thrown down that calls into question the honor of the adversary and demands a response. 

The lawyer – the expert in the way of religion – is calling into question the honor of Jesus as a rabbi and holy man.  And in that time and culture, this was a serious matter.  We may say things like “sticks and stones can break your bones, but names will never hurt me” but not so in first century Palestine. The credibility of the Jesus movement is at stake here so we’re being told  that the lawyer’s question – what must I do to inherit eternal life – is as mean-spirited and potentially destructive as any of Satan’s temptations.  So, Jesus has to respond – and he has to do so in a way that both knocks the lawyer down a peg and resolves the challenge.

·      Are you still with me?  There’s a lot going on here and we haven’t even gotten into the story of the Good Samaritan, right?

·      But let me pause and ask you what you are thinking and feeling so far…

Now look at how Jesus responds to the lawyer because while he doesn’t shy away from the challenge, he does so in a way that models for us something of God’s grace and creativity:  Jesus knows that the lawyer understands the Scriptures – he’s an expert – so rather than fighting with the man, Jesus honors his expertise but raises the stakes by asking him:  you know the Law so how do you interpret it? Literally:  You know what is written in the law so what do you read in it?

·      And for a devout Jew that would mean two things.  First, the Shema, a prayer lifted up to the Lord two times every day in Jewish prayer – Hear O Israel, that the Lord our God, is one God.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and mind.” (Deuteronomy 6: 4-6) And second – you shall love your neighbor as yourself – from Leviticus 19.

·      Together these two truths form the Great Commandment that all devout believers honored and tried to give shape and form to with their lives – and according to our text the lawyer answered Jesus in the correct form, right? 

So pay attention to what comes next:  Jesus tells him that he has read the words correctly but wants to hear the lawyer’s interpretation of the text – how do you understand the words you have quoted he asks -- so why is the interpretation of the text so important to Jesus? 

·      Could it be that Jesus recognized in the lawyer something that is true to human nature?  Namely that we all try to find the easiest way out of the hard work of loving one another as God loves us? 

·      The lawyer knows the words of the Scriptures – he understands the depth and demands of his tradition – but like most of us he is mostly concerned with himself.  He isn’t any more wicked or lazy than anybody else, maybe he just wants to make his religion more comfortable.  What do you think about that? 

Now it goes deeper:  Jesus doesn’t scold the lawyer for being self-serving but he doesn’t he run away from the challenge either; rather he tells his opponent a story about what it means to love our neighbor.  Not to trick or shame the lawyer but to help him come to terms with what the Scriptures really mean about this kind of love.  He wants each of us to realize that literally a neighbor is anyone who comes near – sick or well, strong or weak, friend or foe or even stranger – and most of the time we don’t have a lot of choice when it comes to those who come near to us. 

Sure we can choose our schools and neighbors – and our friends – but most of the time we have very little control over who comes close to us.  So I’ve come to think of this story as a gentle, face-saving option that Jesus chose to help his opponent wrestle with what it means to live in a world we can’t really control.  In a word, he called his opponents arrogance into question in a very tender way.

And the details in the parable suggest that this is true.  There are six main characters here:  the naked, wounded man left for dead by the side of the road, the Temple priest, the Levite, the Samaritan, the criminals who robbed the man in the first place and the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.  Each pushes us beyond our traditional comfort zone to figure out where we are most uncomfortable – and how God is calls to us from this place.

·      Let’s take the easy ones first:  the robbers were violent criminals who sat in hiding on the Jericho Road – a 17 mile trade route between two cities – that drops 3,600 feet along the way.  It is a symbol for suffering and a dangerous place once known as the “place of blood.”  Can you think of people and places in our world that are frightening to you?

·      Now Jericho and Jerusalem are two different towns:  one is a place of commerce and one of religion – and it seems that everybody is heading away from Jerusalem towards Jericho.  And the only reason I mention this little fact is that all too often Christians have inverted the direction of this story as if the Priest and the Levite were heading towards Jerusalem.  This mistake has allowed Christians to come up with reasons why the Priest and the Levite didn’t help the wounded man:  they were in a hurry to get to worship services, they couldn’t let themselves become unclean by touching a man thought to be dead, etc.  But I think those are examples of Christian anti-Semitism because Jewish law does NOT forbid contact with a corpse.  And the story clearly states that people were coming down the Jericho Road – they were moving away from Jerusalem.

·      So why do you think Jesus mentioned a priest and Levite in this story?  I used to think that it had something to do with calling out religious officials – how they were too busy or too self-important to care for a hurting man – but if that were the case the third person in the story would have been a lay person – “an ordinary Jew in contrast to the professional]clergy” (Stoffregen) not a Samaritan.  The Jewish Annotated New Testament suggests that Jesus was making a point about who is included in God’s community.  Traditionally when Israel spoke about itself there were three groups that defined the community:  the kohanim – the Priests and descendants of Aaron – the levi’im – the other relatives of Levi who cared for the Temple by chanting the Psalms and caring for the physical building – and the Israelites who are the children of Jacob.  As one scholar notes, “to cite the first two anticipates the mention of the third… but this parable shocks by making the third person not the expected Israelite but the unexpected Samaritan who was an enemy of the Jew.”

·      Are you still with me?  Jesus is playing with expectations here – brother lawyer, you think you really know how to interpret the Scriptures – then what about those who are close to you that you hate but have no control over?  Can they be your neighbor? Can they share God’s mercy with you in ways that are bigger than your prejudice?  That’s the Samaritan – who once upon a time followed the traditional ways of Israel – but started to change after the best and the brightest were taken into Babylonian exile in 587 BCE.  The Samaritans were the Jews left behind – not the cream of the crop – but the bottom of the barrel.  And over time they not only inter-married pagans outside the fold but developed some traditions and practices that weren’t a part of the ancient tradition.

And it would seem that this is why Jesus puts together the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan: it would have been a shock to the tradition.  It also explains why the one who chose to come close to the wounded man had both wine and oil with him:  he was a trader or roving merchant who knew all the inn-keepers along the road.   So after sharing all of this, Jesus offers one more twist: instead of asking, “Who is my neighbor?” as the lawyer did, he asks: “Who was the one who came near to the wounded man and acted a true neighbor?” 

·      Notice how the lawyer replies:  he can’t even say Samaritan – let alone GOOD Samaritan – all he can muster is:  the one who showed mercy.  To which Jesus replies:  go and do likewise.

·      What grabs you about all of this?  What makes you uncomfortable?  Where is the biggest challenge in all of this for you?

·      What do you sense matters for you in this story?  What’s the take away for you? 

Conclusion

Some believe this is a simple morality tale where Jesus tells his opponent to go and live like the Samaritan.  And while there’s nothing wrong with being encouraged to share compassion, I just don’t think that’s something a first century Jew in Palestine would say to anybody.  Go and act like Samaritan?  Not likely.  No, my hunch is that Jesus used the shock of the Samaritan to cut through the smug expectations of his opponent:  you can’t control God’s mercy so don’t act like your race, heritage, culture, class or gender puts you in the driver’s seat.  You are not in control.

That’s one insight born of the words: now go and do likewise.  But I think there is an even more challenging blessing that can be ours when we start to realize that we are the wounded man in the ditch by the side of the road and so often God comes to us as a Samaritan – one we don’t recognize – or like – or understand; one who asks nothing of us at all but that we let ourselves be made whole by grace.

·      One of the quiet, hidden and mysterious ways the Lord speaks to us in our generation is through the Samaritans who enter our lives when we are in need, when we ache for help, when we are completely unable to care for ourselves.  

·      I believe that God comes to us when we are most vulnerable and powerless and invites us to rest in a love that is greater than our imagination, fear, prejudice or tradition.

So what would trusting this love look like for us as a congregation?  How would that make us different? 

credit: 
the good samaritan @ www.theweeklings.com
the good samaritan after delacroix @ http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/the-good-samaritan-after-delacroix-1890