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| The Good Samaritan, by Eugène Delacroix, 1849 |
On Friday morning, I decided to scrap the homily I’d
been preparing for you today. I felt
like I had to address this past week’s seemingly endless news of violence upon
violence. Homilies are supposed to help make
Scripture relevant to us today, so if I were to avoid what’s going on in the
real world for a feel good homily, I wouldn’t be doing my job. Fortunately for me, the guiding hand of the Holy
Spirit nudged our Church Fathers some 45 years ago to select a Gospel for today
that’s perfect for times like these. In
times like these, it’s time to be neighbors.
In our Gospel passage, Jesus is talking with a lawyer
who wants precise answers. So when Jesus
confirms that the key to eternal life is loving God and loving neighbor, the
lawyer wants Jesus to be more specific; he wants Jesus to tell him exactly which
neighbors he has to love. You see, “the
general meaning of ‘neighbor’ at least for Hebrew speakers, is a person in
intimate or legal relationship.”[1] Not everyone falls into that category, so
Jews of Jesus’ time generally understood “neighbor” to mean those within the
Jewish community. And therein lies the
rub of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Samaritans and Jews hated each other.
They were mortal enemies. By
having a Samaritan come to the aid of a Jew, Jesus is telling us that the
command to love our neighbor extends to all.
Everyone deserves our love: Jew
or Samaritan; Catholic or Muslim; gay or straight; saint or sinner; Trump
supporter or Clinton supporter; every race, creed or color. The simple message of the parable of the Good
Samaritan is that everyone deserves
our love!
Unfortunately, I think we’ve forgotten that simple
message. We have way too many enemies,
and not enough neighbors. “The Gospel
would totally denounce the modern world as a world without the neighbor, the
dehumanized world of abstract, anonymous and distant relationships.”[2] We spend our time staring into hand-held
devices and computer screens to avoid looking each other in the eye. We categorize people by what they are to avoid having to learn who they are. We judge
people by their differences to avoid the uncanny notion that we are, in fact, created
equal. And every time we do these things,
we grow further and further apart from our neighbors; we begin to demonize
those who disagree with us; we disregard more and more the God-given dignity of
every human being and the sanctity of human life; and we slowly, but surely, lose
touch with God.
It’s time for us to be neighbors again. It’s time for us to remember that our
neighbor isn’t just the person next door who’s comfortably separated from us by
a neatly trimmed privet hedge or white picket fence. Neighbors cross
lines and boundaries:
-
Neighbors bring
each other casseroles;
-
Neighbors help
old ladies cross the street;
-
Neighbors open
doors for each other;
-
Neighbors ask
each other how they’re doing and listen to the answer;
-
Neighbors honor
their commonalities and respect their differences;
-
Neighbors pray
for each other; and
- Neighbors do all of these things for each
other no matter what or who the other may be.
If we want to be a neighbor, we have to “go beyond friend and family
and extend welcome and mercy to the outcast and even to one’s enemies.”[3]
We’re created to be neighbors. As our reading from Deuteronomy tells us,
God’s commandment to love God and neighbor is written in our hearts; we just
have to carry it out. (Deuteronomy 30:
14) It’s in carrying out God’s love for every
person that we prove that we love and serve the one who made peace for us through
the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:
20) Now I’m no dreamy-eyed idealist. I know that there’s no quick-fix to the
problems we face today. But I am confident that if we just start acting
the way we were made to act, if we just start being neighbors, things will be a
whole lot better.
As I scrambled to put together my new homily for
today, I stumbled across a Facebook post by an African American woman named
Natasha that she labeled, “Feeling Hopeful.”
Natasha’s post reads as follows:
So this morning I went into
a convenience store to get a protein bar.
As I walked through the door, I noticed that there were two white police
officers . . . talking to the clerk . . . behind the counter about the
shootings that have gone on in the past few days. They all looked at me and fell silent. I went about my business to get what I was
looking for. As I turned back up the
aisle to go pay, the oldest officer was standing at the top of the aisle
watching me. As I got closer, he asked
me how I was doing. I replied, “Okay,
and you?” He looked at me with a strange
look and asked me, “How are you really doing?”
I looked at him and said, “I’m tired!”
His reply was, “Me too.” Then he
said, “I guess it’s not easy being either of us right now, is it?” I said, “No, it’s not.” Then he hugged me, and I cried. I had never seen that man before in my
life. I have no idea why he was moved to
talk to me. What I do know is that he
and I shared a moment this morning that was absolutely beautiful. No judgments, no justifications, just two
people sharing a moment.[4]
I’m feeling hopeful, too, because among all of the
violence out there, there are still people like Natasha and that police officer
who know that in times like these, it’s time to be neighbors.
[1]
Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by
Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial
Rabbi (New York, Harper Collins, 2014) at 85.
[2]
David Lyle Jeffrey, Luke, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible
(Grand Rapids, Brazos Press, 2012) at 150.
[3]
Michael F. Patella. “The Gospel According to Luke,” New Collegeville Bible Commentary, Daniel Durken, ed.
(Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2009) at 258.
[4]
Natasha Howell, Facebook, July 9, 2016.
Thanks for making me cry! Another wonderful homily, Deacon Mike! Thank you!
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