Who is my Neighbor?

Luke 10:25-37

Who is my neighbor? I've asked myself this question all week. Who might I be leaving out of the neighbor equation? Its not a comfortable neighbor Jesus presents to his audience in the story. Its a Samaritan, one of those people.

A little background for us. First, this story only appears here in Luke. It is in no other gospel, it makes it a special story. As one it has something to tell us. Something we forget because the story is so familiar. It has faded into memory of the story of helping someone in need. But this isn't the story.

Samaritans were an awful thing to be. A Samaritan couldn't be good, they couldn't be righteous in any Jews estimation. They were the mixed race result of being conquered and sent away to Assyria. They took the Jewish worship and combined some idol worship and they went to a different place than Jerusalem. They were dirty, low down, and took the word of God out of context. So this story is shocking to its hearers.

Second, if someone was beaten and near death a priest couldn't take a chance and help the person because then they would be ritually unclean. They would have to wash, say the prayers, do the offering to be able to serve again at the altar of God. And the Levite would know this law as well. Just listen to Amos this morning about purity. If you're not pure, you are...well in trouble with God.

What is at the heart of this story though is it doesn't matter. Your purity doesn't matter. Your laws about touching someone don't matter. What matters is being the good neighbor and the example of this generosity is a Samaritan. Now we can fill in the blank here the generous caring one is a Republican. The generous caring one is a Democrat. The generous caring one is a ... This is the heart of the story. We see the person we hate being the one who is kind and generous.

Now I may be getting this quote a little off but this week on Facebook a quote from poet Amanda Gorman was going around about the biggest hurdle of our time is in loving one another. We make up so many excuses not to see the other human being, to say they are other, to demean and devalue them, we can't see them and because we chase justice we can't associate with them. 

Do you remember what Paul says? By being nice to our enemies we heap burning coals on their heads (Romans 12:20). Now this is my translation because it is in doing encouragement, kindness, we can begin to hear one another. 

We have become so consumed in who is right or wrong, or what is just we forget there are actual people being affected from our decisions. We bring up the issues and don't see the faces which go with them. See the faces of those we have forgotten. See them in your child, your mother, your father, your best friend imagine they are the ones explaining to you about what this issue (whatever it is) means to them. 

It all comes back to the gifts of the Spirit: kindness, generosity, patience, humility, self-control, and yes love. Because these all plant hope. They are the seeds of it. Can you plant them?