July 11, 2010 - Pentecost + 7

Jesus is Our Neighbor
Luke 10:25-37
Pentecost + 7 – July 7 & 11, 2010

Neighbor:
State Farm (Like a good neighbor...)
Sesame Street (who are the people in your neighborhood?)
Mr. Rogers - invited everyone, every day to be his neighbor
– “I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you; I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you... Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor?”
So welcoming & accepting; no requirements to be his neighbor, just accept the invitation.

Such a contrast to the lawyer in the gospel,
who comes to Jesus asking, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
student of the Law, God's law written down in the Hebrew Scriptures – so Jesus asks him – what does the Law say about it? How do you understand it?
Lawyer knows his stuff; comes back /w the right answer: Love the Lord your God... & your neighbor as yourself.
But the lawyer is not like Mr. Rogers; he's not accepting all comers
– he wants to know “Who is my neighbor?”
Loving neighbor is hard work; you have to be selective
hoping for a clear, finite, definitive answer – perhaps geographical (the people next door) or based on religion; the people who look, act, dress, believe the same as you

We can understand this question
I love Mr. Rogers, but he lived in TV land, after all,
kind of a little fairy tale, Land of Make Believe world.
And taking everybody as your neighbor, loving everyone as yourself is a lot to ask, a big responsibility.
So we try to narrow down the playing field a little bit
because we have enough to do w/ work & family & home
& we want to have some time for fun, hobbies, etc.
and if we start seeing everyone as our neighbor, we won't ever have time to do anything else...

Parable reminds us of what we should do.
We know that priest & Levite should know what to do.
They of all people should know what it means to love God & your neighbor,
& yet they just walk right on by.
And we know we are guilty of the same thing.
We know that there are times we see someone in need and just pass by on the other side, look the other way at the intersection where the person looking for food or work is standing right next to us.
And we feel guilty about it – sometimes anyway.
This parable forces us to confront the fact that most of the time, most of us aren't very good neighbors to people in need
.
But perhaps that's the twist in this parable that Jesus tells.
Parables always have something surprising, shocking about them.
Lawyer not supposed to identify w/ priest or Levite or Samaritan – but w/ the man who fell into the hands of robbers...
to see himself as the one who is in need,
the one who has to accept help from the last person he ever would have wanted or expected to receive help from –
a Samaritan, someone different, someone “other”,
but someone who is like Mr. Rogers – and just doesn't care about any of that stuff
– someone who just sees another person in need and is willing to go out of his way to help.

Maybe we too, are supposed to put ourselves in the place of the one who is hurt,
who is wounded, who is desperate for help
because at one time or another, in one way or another, we have all been there
– or we will be;
those times we feel like the world has chewed us up & spit us out,
when life has beaten us down and left us lying there with no one who cares.
But there is someone who cares!
Jesus is our neighbor, who sees us & is moved w/ pity,
who comes to us & bandages our wounds,
and takes us to a place of rest and healing,
commits to take care of us, who takes responsibility for our well-being,
who offers us mercy whether we deserve it or not.

This parable isn't so much about guilting us into loving our neighbor as it is about seeing how we have already received that love.

And it is then that Jesus says to us, “Go and do likewise.”
May we give as we have received.
Amen.