And Who Is My Neighbor?

Text: Luke 10:25-37

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Several years ago, being from New Mexico, I was excited to see there was a television show that quite accurately portrayed Albuquerque. It’s not a major US city, and often when it’s shown on screen, it seems like the people in charge of depicting it have never even stepped foot there. But then in 2008, a show premiered that did: Breaking Bad. And while I first tuned in for the setting, I stayed hooked because of the characters. The main character, Walter White, was a high school chemistry teacher who eventually began creating drugs so that he could pay for his cancer treatments and stash some money for a rainy day. He knew it was wrong, but he was always able to come up with reasons why it was OK for him to do it in his own specific circumstances. This set him down a road of justifying himself for several seasons, walking a progressively darker path, all the while explaining to himself and others he had good reasons for doing something that he knew was actually wrong.

            We mortals are very good at self-justification. We recognize that there are rules, that right and wrong are clearly spelled out in the Ten Commandments, but we’re also quick to explain why those rules don’t always apply to us. We have reasons for why we don’t do what we should; why we do what we know we shouldn’t. And like Walter White in Breaking Bad, we’re so good at it that we can even dress it up in wholesome, sometimes even pious sounding words and phrases.

            Take the priest and the Levite from the Parable of the Good Samaritan in today’s Gospel reading. In the parable, there’s a man who’s jumped by robbers who strip him and beat him and leave him half-dead on the side of the road. Now when the priest, and later the Levite, come down the road, they see the man lying there. They know the commandments, to show mercy, to help those whose lives are in danger, to not leave someone to die if they can help them. They know that they are always supposed to have compassion and help a fellow son of Abraham. Either of these men could go to him, roll him over, check for a pulse, for breathing, tend to his wounds. But there is a chance that he could already be dead or otherwise unclean. They don’t know just from looking if he’s a corpse, a leper, or someone who has indulged in unclean practices forbidden by the Law of Moses. But what they do know is that touching a dead body or unclean person will make them ceremonially unclean. The Law of Sinai is very clear about that. If they’re ceremonially unclean, it means that they won’t be able to serve in the temple, which is their job, until they are cleansed. In their minds, they can’t risk touching what is perhaps unclean and not being able to perform their jobs in the temple, so, they reason in a fine bit of self-justification, they’d better not get close. They pass by on the other side of the road.

            It’s this type of reasonable sounding self-justification that prompts Jesus to tell the parable in the first place. A lawyer, an expert in the commandments, protocols, and laws of Mount Sinai, asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him what the Law says and the lawyer knows how to sum it up: “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.” Jesus says that this is correct. If this is followed perfectly, he will live. But then we read, “But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'” He knows the Law and knows what he’s supposed to do, but he also knows that this is very hard—impossible—for him. So he tries to find a reason why he shouldn’t have to love his neighbor as himself, or at least not all his neighbors. He tries to put up a dividing line between who is his neighbor and who isn’t, so that he has a reasonable, and even pious sounding, excuse to not help the people he determines are outside that Law.

            We do this all the time. We draw dividing lines of why this or that Commandment doesn’t apply to me: Because it’s too hard to keep. Because I don’t like those people, even if I never admit it out loud. Because they’re too different to deserve my help. Because I would be spread too thin if I actually cared for someone as I do myself. Because I have leverage to judge someone else when they’re down in the ditch. Because I simply like doing this thing that I know I shouldn’t do. Because I just don’t want to. We paint it up, but when we examine our hearts, we know that the self-justifications simply don’t hold up under the withering heat of the command: “Love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you will live.”

            But just when we’ve constructed our nice, neat reasons and self-justification, just when we’ve made it all make sense why this Commandment doesn’t apply to me in this circumstance, when it sounds reasonable and maybe even righteous, the Good Samaritan arrives. He does what is unreasonable. He goes to the stranger on the side of the road. He takes the risk of uncleanness. He picks him up and puts him on his own animal, choosing to walk and make himself that much more uncomfortable. He provides first aid out of his own supplies. He gives his own money to the innkeeper to care for a stranger; more than that, an enemy to his own people. Jews and Samaritans were at each other’s throats at this time. They did more than argue, they tried to strike at the heart of what they knew mattered to others, desecrating holy sites and refusing to even eat or drink in the same places. This outsider shows mercy that the robbed man’s own countrymen didn’t show him. He shows such compassion and care that it’s undeniable that he’s keeping the great commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” so that when the expert in the Law is asked, “Who do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man?” he had no choice but to answer, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus says, “You go, and do likewise.”

            For Jesus Himself is the eternal Son of the Father who desires His brothers and sisters to reflect our Father’s grace and mercy as He does. He is the great Outsider. Even though humanity had made itself God’s enemy through the rebellion of sin, He could not simply stand by or pass on the other side of the road when He saw us robbed, beaten by sin, and dead in our trespasses. He came to be with us, taking on our human nature, our flesh and blood, to be with us in our unclean world. In fact, He absorbed our uncleanness; He who knew no sin became sin for us. He poured on the oil and wine of forgiveness for the healing of our bodies and souls. He carries us to the safe haven of the Church. He pays for what we owe, whatever we will owe throughout our lives, on His cross. He had every good and pure seeming reason, every reasonable excuse not to show such reckless compassion, but He did it anyway. He gives it freely and abundantly, without regard to what it will cost Him.

            That’s where we receive mercy and strength to spare, so that we can care for others. This is why we show mercy to them, because we have received limitless mercy. This is where we can have compassion, even for outsiders, even for enemies, for all neighbors who cross our paths. It’s because of Jesus. It all flows from Him and what He has done for us. In the name of Jesus, who has shown us mercy, Amen.