Scripture text: Luke 10:25-37
“And who is my neighbor?”
One of the most famous stories from the Bible begins with a question. But it’s a dishonest question. The man questioning Jesus is not asking the question he really wants to know the answer to. Luke, who is recording this exchange, makes that abundantly clear by giving the man a motive: “wanting to justify himself.” That speaks volumes as to what is really going on here.
No, the question he should be asking; That he really wants to ask is “who is not my neighbor?”
Because that’s really what we all want to know. Who can we exclude. Who doesn’t count. Who stands outside the bounds. Who are the exceptions to the rule. That’s what we really want to know.
It may be the oldest question in human history. Scott Gustafson, in his book Behind Good and Evil, traces the origins and purposes of human morality. He says that the fundamental purpose of moral codes is to determine who is worthy of life and who is not. In ancient societies, this manifested as who got fed and who did not. Today, it might be who has freedom and who does not. Who has rights and who does not. But in the end, it all boils down to the same thing: who is truly human and worthy of life and who is not and worthy only of death.
“Who is not my neighbor?” Who can I discount? Who can I dismiss? Who can I ignore? Who can I hate? And why and how? For what reasons? Who counts and who doesn’t? That’s what the man really wants to know and so do we.
How else can we justify looking the other way when rogue police officers shoot a pinned and secured black man to death? How else can we claim that the murder of police officers is somehow a legitimate protest for that?
How else can we tell young women who’ve been raped that it was their fault they were assaulted? How else can we be outraged at the perfidy of those on one side of the political aisle and not at our own?
We want to claim morality is absolute and yet we always make exceptions for those who “not our neighbors.” Those we believe are deserving of the worst cruelties and punishments our world can dish out. Black people, cops, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, atheists, young women who won’t sleep with us (or are prettier than we are), gays, trans people, Democrats, Republicans, and so forth. All those we believe should die for crimes real and imagined.
That sounds extreme, but let’s be honest. We think the world would be better off without them, without “those people,” however we might define that phrase that I use so often. In the darkest part of our hearts, that’s what we want to believe. We want them gone.
Jesus pulls no punches about that in the story he tells. We think we know it well, but the power of the Good Samaritan runs deeper than we realize.
A man travels the wilderness road between Jerusalem and Jericho. This is a dangerous road, eighteen miles long and with a drop in elevation of over 3000 feet. Treacherous mountainous terrain, perfect for bandits and highwaymen, which is precisely what happens to the man. He is attacked and left for dead.
You can already hear the excuses starting in the minds of those hearing this story. Who would be stupid enough to travel that road alone? He was asking for it. Perhaps those questions were asked in the minds of those who came upon him, the priest and Levite, who passed by on the other side. He got what he deserved. Who am I to change that?
Jesus doesn’t fill in the details in regards to that pair’s motives. Were they judgmental, as I’ve speculated? Were they afraid the bandits would strike them (After all, they’re dumb enough to travel the road alone as well.) Was it their own strict morality? Can’t touch a dead body. Can’t touch blood or they’d become unclean because of some antiquated rules and religious dogma. Were they worried about being late to their destination? In most ways, it doesn’t matter. The wounded man had ceased to be human to them, unworthy of help. All their other reasons were more important than his life.
He was not their neighbor, so they passed on to let him die.
Jesus then brings in the twist ending with that disgusting Samaritan, who does what the “good people” do not do: preserve the man’s life, show him dignity and compassion. That’s the twist of the knife, shaming his audience into recognizing their own cruelty. You wouldn’t help him, but one of “those people” would.
Jesus warns us elsewhere in the Gospels to “Judge not, lest we be judged” in turn. That’s precisely the dynamic at play here. The man on the road has been judged worthy of death by all, yet he is rescued by yet another we would have judged just as harshly. Jesus turns our judgment against us. It is we, the listeners who so often bask in our self-righteousness and self-superiority, who are being judged by this story. We who discover that in the moral code of the universe that we are now worthy of death for our cruel indifference to our neighbors.
And yet that’s not what we receive. Our Samaritan comes and binds up our self-inflicted wounds. He takes us to the inn and provides for us. He gives all that he has on a cross for our sake and rises again on the third day to give us life.
This is the new morality, the morality of Jesus Christ. One that gives life, not death. One that judges all worthy because he is worthy. One that judges all good because he is good. A morality that we are called to embrace as his disciples.
We are founding wanting and yet we are loved. We are unworthy and yet we are saved. This is how Jesus operates. This is the way it works. This is the new world, the kingdom of God. We are “those people” and they are us. We’re all in the same boat whether we’ve realized it or not. God has and has a provided a way to life for us all. Time to live that way, with ourselves and with our neighbors. Amen.
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