Luke 10:25-37
Two weeks ago, two members of St Mark’s sat in the hot sun for two hours to pick up food from the Candlelight Ministries Mobile Food Pantry on behalf of a community member in need who first came to us through the ministry of the Episcopal Thrift Store. Through a coordinated effort of half a dozen St Mark’s family members, that community member has been provided with food and relief in a difficult and isolated season. On the same hot day, Grace members passed out cold water, coloring pages, and a special gift of gas money to the families waiting in line to pick up their own food. One of the women there, someone who is faithfully there in her car every month and always friendly and talkative, came up to me and grasped my hand to thank me for the kindness of the church. When she pulled away, the fifty dollar bill, representing less than a full tank of gas these days, was folded tightly into my hand. She told me she was grateful, and she knew that there was probably someone else who needed it more. Her choice allowed us to offer gas money to a faithful community volunteer to help her deliver groceries to the local senior center, something she does regularly with her own time and resources.
Which of these folks is my neighbor? Which of them is your neighbor? The striking question “Who is my neighbor?” is one we’ve heard countless times in our life of faith, and one we may ask ourselves from time to time. It is often mistaken for a slightly different question, with a very different answer. The question here is not “who is behaving neighborly?” although that is often the takeaway from Jesus’s famous parable. We often use the word neighbor as a stand in for a good person, a kind and generous and thoughtful person, someone who shows care for other people. But the answer to the question “who is my neighbor?” is much simpler than that, maybe infuriatingly so at times.
Who in these stories is my neighbor? All of them. Every last person. The St Marks and Grace members are my neighbors, the Candlelight Ministry team are my neighbors, the folks waiting in line for their basic human needs and the folks on the other end of the phone call asking for help with bills are my neighbors. The man on the road and the priest and the Levite and the Samaritan and the innkeeper and even the marauders on the road were all neighbors, mutual members of a geographic and cultural and political community. The difference is whether or not they chose to fulfill their obligations, their basic duties to one another. The commandment is to love God with all we have and to love our neighbor as our self. Being a neighbor is not something we can choose. Following the Great Commandment is. Being a Christian is. Love is a choice, and one we must make every moment of our lives.
The indictment upon the first two men who passed by the injured individual on the road is not that they chose certain laws or social expectations over human life. In fact, their very own laws and religious obligations would have demanded that they forsake all else in the interest of saving a life. If they believed him to be dead, as some have suggested, the priest and the Levite would both also be under the same obligation as all people of the covenant to ensure a proper burial. In fact, to provide burial rites for a stranger was and continues to be considered one of the most righteous acts a Jewish person can do, a mitzvot1, because it is a kindness that can never be repaid by the person for whom it is offered. The first two men chose not to fulfill their greatest commandments, their most basic duties as human beings in community. That is their sin, not that they chose misguided religion over their neighbor, but that they chose not to act at all.
On the last full day of his life, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached on the parable of the Samaritan and the injured man. His last speech, known as “I have been to the Mountaintop,” was given in Memphis, Tennessee to activists and striking sanitation workers. The last words he spoke in public were about the choice to love our neighbor even when it’s inconvenient, even when it’s dangerous, even when it’s hard. This is the heart of how Dr. King interpreted this parable that means so much to us. ““But I’m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It’s possible that those men were afraid. […] You know, it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it’s possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking, and he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’
“But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”2
Everyone we meet is either a neighbor or a stranger, and Scripture has been very clear about our obligations to both. We have the choice to stop asking “Who is my neighbor?” It’s a question asked and answered countless times in Scripture. It is a question that holds within it the shadow questions- “Who is not my neighbor? Who does not deserve my help, my time, my love? What if I don’t like what they do with the assistance I give them? What if I don’t approve of the life they lead after I’ve helped them? If I stop to help this person, what will happen to me?”
Those are questions that arrive unbidden in our hearts and minds and meetings every day in ministry. They are the shadow sides of important questions about stewardship of resources, boundaries, where the line falls between empowerment and enabling. But if we look to the Samaritan man in the parable, we see someone who prioritizes the same question Dr. King asked. “If I do not stop to help them, what will happen to them?” We are two communities who take this question seriously. If we don’t fill the Blessings Pantries and the Kid Care bags, what will happen to the families who are hungry? If we don’t support the good work of the Episcopal Thrift Store, how will our community meet the ever-growing needs as prices go up and wages stagnate? If we don’t organize around the needs of refugees, how will they find community and thrive in this new country? If I do not stop to help them, what might happen to them?
The number of people who lay bleeding and half alive on the roadsides of our society are plentiful, and the loving neighbors and Good Samaritans are tragically few. We are all traveling different roads and encountering different neighbors. This church community is already doing the work of seeking and serving our neighbors, and we can always, always do more. But only if you stop and help. Only if we go and do likewise, together.
1 Levine, Amy-Jill. “Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi.” pg 93.
2 Text as found here- https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2012/04/why-didnt-they-stop-martin-luther-king-jr-on-the-parable-of-the-good-samaritan/
Learn more about the context of this speech here- https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/ive-been-mountaintop
Listen to or read the speech here- https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm
Mother A Writes 