Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Apparently, lawyers haven’t changed very much over the centuries.

At least, not the "average" lawyer.

Or common perceptions about the average lawyer.

It takes a lawyer … former president Clinton, for example …

to try to initiate an argument over exactly what "is" means.

And in today’s reading, we have a lawyer,

desiring, no doubt, to split legal hairs over the question

just who is my neighbor?

Well, of course, it’s the family next door …

but what if they’re foreigners, and practice a different religion?

Are they still my neighbors? Yes or no?

What about people who live two blocks away?

What about people in my same town,

but from a different tribal origin?

What about the folks in the leper colony?

Surely not … ?

Please, Jesus … define "neighbor" for me.

Whom do I have to love?

Is it those within a two-block radius?

A two-mile radius?

Anyone within the same city limits?

Anyone belonging to my tribe, regardless of where they live?

Be careful, now.

This is case law, you know,

and however you answer, you’ll be establishing a precedent

that others will feel obligated to follow.

Who is my neighbor?

It’s perhaps quite not such a nitpicky argument, though,

given the kinds of categories of persons described in the Jewish Law.

There were certain kids of obligations spelled out

for people who were going to be living in community with one another …

neighbors.

So, if your farm is next to mine,

and your ox wanders over here and tramples some of my grain,

then you have to give me some of your grain.

And, probably, keep your ox tied up from now on.

In much of the law as it has been passed down to us,

"neighbor" presumes someone living nearby.

Someone with whom you share space,

at least to a certain extent.

Someone whose interests you share, to a certain point,

and whose interests you might also infringe on,

whether intentionally or accidentally.

For the most part, your neighbors would be people like you.

The law didn’t define it that way,

but it was pretty much assumed.

People who settled in a certain region together

probably were much alike in terms of ethnicity,

religion, manner of life.

So although the law didn’t define it as such,

everyone understood that a "neighbor" was someone

who was pretty much like you in the things that mattered.

Which is not to say that those who were different got left out.

The law is also very clear that the "insiders,"

the members of a community who were neighbors to one another,

also had obligations to the "strangers and sojourners"

who passed their way.

They were owed a welcome, hospitality, respect,

help if they needed it.

But they weren’t neighbors.

So, fast-forward a few hundred years, then,

to a time when God’s people are no longer in a land of their own,

but are subjects of the Roman Empire.

Who is my neighbor in such a context?

Are the Roman soldiers,

quartered in that garrison two blocks down,

my neighbors?

What about the prostitutes who come and hang out in the streets,

trying to get the soldiers’ attention?

Are they my neighbors?

What about those awful-looking people

in the leper colony at the edge of town?

Surely they aren’t my neighbors.

Give us an answer, Jesus.

All these people who are near to us,

who aren’t like us,

and we didn’t invite them,

and some of them take shameless advantage of us.

Do I have to love them as I love myself?

Who is my neighbor?

Well, as he is so fond of doing,

Jesus answers the question with a story.

A story that most of us have probably heard since we were children.

And the name we’ve given it,

the "parable of the good Samaritan,"

indicates for us the emphasis usually placed.

That is, the Samaritan, an "outsider,"

proved to be a better neighbor to the injured man

than his own religious leaders did.

Therefore, q.e.d., anyone who shows mercy is a neighbor;

anyone who needs our mercy and care is a neighbor.

Then, as now, that’s important.

Because one sure way to obtain power,

or to keep power if you’ve already got it,

is to make people fearful about those who are unlike them.

If I can make you believe that Muslims are your enemy, not your neighbor,

and that I can keep you safe from them,

you’ll probably vote for me.

If I can persuade you that immigrants are the reason you can’t find a good job,

and that I can keep the immigrants far away from you,

you’ll listen to me on other issues as well.

Remember, please, that there was no love lost

between Jews and Samaritans.

To tell this story to an expert in the Jewish Law

is a little bit like telling a story of

an American soldier, wounded in Afghanistan,

and a member of the Taliban comes along and bandages him up,

puts him on his camel,

and drops him off at the nearest medic station.

Yes, according to Jesus.

But here’s where it gets even more interesting,

and what I had not noticed before …

and might not have noticed this time,

except in the context of thinking about

the changes coming into our life as a congregation.

This whole story happens out on a road

in the middle of nowhere.

It’s between two "somewheres," Jerusalem and Jericho,

but it’s a deserted, desert, area,

one where robbers apparently hang out,

waiting for travelers who are alone, or seem weak.

No one in this story is at home.

There can be no question of proximity;

that is, one can’t presume any geographical connection

between the key players.

So already, one of the key factors in our usual definition of "neighbor"

is already gone out the window.

It’s not just a question of

"is that Samaritan next door my neighbor

even though we are traditional enemies?"

though that’s certainly tricky enough!

It’s a question of

"who is my neighbor

when I’m away from my usual neighborhood?"

And so, with this story Jesus not only insists

that our neighbors may be people who are not like us,

but also that "neighbors" may be people who are far away from us.

People with whom we intersect only briefly,

and perhaps at a point far away from home.

It’s almost as if he’s trying to do away with the old categories

of "stranger" and "sojourner,"

to suggest that anyone, anywhere, may be our neighbor.

In human terms, we may make those distinctions,

but in terms of our faith,

and our showing of care to people in a time of need,

we no longer get to make distinctions.

Here’s why I think that’s important for us to "rassle" with now.

We’ve always been pretty much a neighborhood church.

Oh, we’ll draw a few folks from north of the river, or points south,

but as far back as I’ve looked at the records,

at least as far back as 1930,

at least three-fourths of our members have lived

within a five-mile radius of the church,

and mostly to the south and/or west.

We wrestled in the past with questions about who our neighbors were,

and discussed moving out of this part of town

when our near neighbors began to be people "not like us."

We decided to stay.

We decided to be neighbors to people of a different ethnicity from our own,

people of a different social class,

people who spoke a different language.

Sometimes we’ve done it well,

sometimes we’ve done it not so well,

but it seems to me that this congregation has always understood

the basic message of this parable:

someone does not have to be "like us" in order to be our neighbor,

in order to be in relationship with us,

in order for us to have mutual obligations with one another.

Our challenge over the next year, together,

and into the future, individually,

is to keep on thinking about "who is our neighbor"

when this neighborhood church is no longer here.

Will we want to find a way to continue in ministry

to these geographic "neighbors,"

or is that something we will have to entrust to others?

Who will our new neighbors be,

in other churches where we settle ourselves,

as groups or as individuals?

Who will our neighbors be within those congregations;

who will the neighbors be that surround the church building?

For example, if some of us were to end up at First Pres. downtown,

we’d have a whole lot more homeless neighbors than we have here.

What would our ministry become in that place?

And, to what distant neighbors are we committed?

What people, what organizations, what "causes"?

And how will we continue to show that commitment

when we can no longer do it through this church?

Who will be the people who show mercy to us,

in our own times of need?

Who is my neighbor?

Who will be my neighbor?

Will they be a lot like me,

or very different from me?

Will they be right in front of my face,

or half a world away?

Or all of the above?

May we have ears to hear,

as God reveals our neighbors to us.

Amen.

© 2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)