UCC Church of Charlotte

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Not Too Hard
Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Luke 10:25-37

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.

Recently, I heard Diane Rehm interviewing Garret Kaizer, author of
“The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want.”  Kaizer studied how much
noise surrounds us on a daily basis and how noises affect our lives.
One caller to the program mentioned the night of a power outage, when
all of the background noises of the house were no longer running.  The
couple couldn’t sleep.  It was too quiet.
    
One comment really struck me.  He says he thinks that every noise
complaint ever filed began as a lapse in community.  I think he is
right.  If you and I are neighbors, know each other by name and see
one another fairly often, what is the likelihood that I will play
music too loudly at three in the morning?  If we are really neighbors,
why can’t we talk it through rather than go to the police?
    
He did not use the word covenant; that is our word for it.
    
By now, we know that the word “lawyer” in this morning’s story means
one learned in Torah, an interpreter and teacher of the Mosaic Law.
    
Today’s Gospel reads like the typical rabbinic discussion of scripture.

    “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus answers the question with a question:

    “What is written in the law? How do you read?”

    “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.”
    
Right answer.  “Do this and you will live.”

    “And who is my neighbor?”
    
Here is the crux of the debate:  Who is my neighbor?

Is the militant Islamic fundamentalist my neighbor?  Is the guy with
the dog that barks all night keeping me and my family up until all
hours my neighbor?  If I am a good Republican, are Rachel Maddow and
Nancy Pelosi my neighbors?  If I am a good Democrat, are Newt Gingrich
and Glenn Beck my neighbors?

The description of the Torah scholar as “trying to justify himself”
leads me to think that the question “who is my neighbor” is designed
to ask the opposite.  Who am I allowed to not love as I love myself?
Who am I allowed to treat as outside the covenant, as less than I am,
as unworthy of neighborly treatment?

Jesus, having answered a question with a question, now answers a
question with a story.

Most of us know the players: one victim of violence; two religious
figures from the victim’s own people, each with a work-around, an
excuse for not stopping to help; one outsider, one of “those people,”
who stops.  This stranger has compassion.  He spends his own time, his
own money, his own energy to take care of this man.  And Jesus ends
not with an answer of who is or is not a neighbor, but with the
question “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the
man who fell among the robbers?”

Every time this story has come up in my preaching, I have preached the
virtue of the outsider.  And I have cast the church in the role of the
religious folks who are too busy to help.  But many of you are
involved in good and important ways with taking care of others,
including strangers.  This church has come a long way in welcoming
people.  And if this story is to be meaningful, it has to be more than
a guilt trip.

Recently I read a comment by Stephen Patterson that flipped this story
on its head for me.  Let us not read it as if we are the religious
types who are too busy to help.  Let us not read it as if we are the
Samaritan, the good guy who crosses the lines and ignores the barriers
to be merciful to this hurting person in the ditch.  Let us read it
from the perspective of the one in the ditch.

This is the one for whom this story is urgent.  This is the character
for whom this story matters.  If we are the one in the ditch (and we
are all hurting a little more than we want to let on, aren’t we?  We
are all a little more tired, a little more anxious, a little more
angry than is polite to let be known, aren’t we?), then it matters who
is a neighbor to us.  We all have those moments, don’t we? The ones my
mom calls “there but for the grace of God” moments.

Were we the priest or Levite, we might justify our behavior, confess
our sins of omission, hope all was well with the man, and go on our
way feeling better about ourselves.

If we were the Samaritan, we might revel in our righteous defiance of
convention and our good deeds.

But if you and I are the one who is hurting, relying on the stranger,
then we learn what Jesus means.  The question is personal, and it is
life and death, and it is communal, and it is about whether our
grandchildren will have a world to live in.  Now we start to
understand what Jesus is getting at, and why loving the neighbor,
whoever they might be, is important.

We are the one reliant on the mercy of another.  This offends our
sense of empowerment.  This threatens our need for control.  This
flies in the face of our hard-earned individualism.  This means that
we are vulnerable, and human, and all in this thing together with one
another.

This commandment is not hidden away in heaven, nor is it in a distant
land across the seas.  It is not too hard to find, or to practice.

Who was proved to be neighbor?

The one who showed mercy.

Go thou and do likewise.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.