Sermons

“Who Is My Neighbor?”

Psalm 82; Luke 10:25-37 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – July 10, 2016

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might open our hearts to the power of your compassion and truly see others with your eyes of mercy. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

It’s such a strange answer to the question. “Who is my neighbor?” asked the lawyer. We’re so used to the story that we hardly even notice, but Jesus didn’t really answer the question very directly. He could have just said “Everyone.” But he didn’t. He responded to the question with a parable that confuses the perspective and introduces multiple other issues, and then concludes with another question. And yet, the point is crystal clear. We know what the lessons of the “The Good Samaritan” are, and yet, we still have trouble applying them.

Let’s review those lessons for just a moment, as we get started. First of all, we know that part of what Jesus is teaching us in this story is that society’s categories of good versus bad or in versus out, are not reliable guides for true righteousness. As he spun this tale, Jesus specified that the men who ignored the hurting man were a priest and a Levite (a member of the ancestral priestly line among Israelites), and then contrasted them with the Samaritan – that is, a member of a separate cultural group whom the Israelites would likely look down on – who did stop to help. These specific descriptors are a huge part of the point of the story. We know that Jesus is trying to help us look past our biases and assumptions about who is moral and who isn’t.

The specificity of those characters stands in contrast to what we know about the victim in this story. The only demographic information we have about him is that he’s a man. We don’t know his role in society, or even his nationality for sure. What we do know about him is that he’s been attacked – stripped, beaten, robbed and left for dead. As far as Jesus is concerned, this is the most important thing for us to know about him. The classification that matters about this man is “victimized”. “Who is my neighbor?” asked the lawyer. And with his concluding “Go and do likewise” Jesus is telling us that we are called to be neighborly to those who are hurting and in need. He could have just answered “Everyone,” or even “Everybody, including and especially those who are different from you,” but he didn’t. He was more specific than that. The fact that he didn’t more exactly describe the man means that anyone could fall into this category, but the story shows us that the particularity of the need is what creates the priority for neighborliness. “Who is your neighbor? Whom should you love as you love yourself? The ones who need the love, whoever they may be. Those who have been taken advantage of. The ones lying beaten in the street and left for dead. The ones whose plight is being ignored by those who are supposed to be taking care of God’s people.”

Jesus was specific. There plenty of verses where we hear about Jesus healing multitudes of people. But the stories are specific. Jesus didn’t just save generic lives. He saved leper lives and female lives and Syrophoenician lives and tax collector lives, and yes, Samaritan lives. Through his ministry, Jesus declared that all these specific lives matter to God. Indeed, one could argue that the Incarnation itself was God making clear that the lives of those living under occupation matter to God. The Incarnation itself is an unavoidable act of specificity. If this is the God we love with our whole being, and this is how we’re instructed to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must also be willing to focus our neighborliness on the specific places where it is needed.

It has been a rough week. Two more high-profile, extra-judicial police killings of African-American men, caught on video and coming in rapid succession, followed by the death of five officers in Dallas, in the midst of a peaceful protest, at the hand of a lone gun man bent on reprisal. How can these scriptural lessons about neighborliness guide us in such difficult times? “Neighbors” and “police” are words that ought to go together. Many communities have requirements that police officers live within their city limits, so that policing happens by the people of their community. “Neighborhood policing” has been a model that many communities have used to positive effect, based on the premise that the stronger the relationships between officers and residents are, the better off everyone is.

Indeed, the sad irony of the shootings in Texas is that the Dallas Police Department has been held up as a national model for how a police department can improve relations with its community and be a positive part of the neighborhood. Their department had a close and respectful relationship to their local Black Lives Matter movement and had been lauded for their willingness and capacity to make appropriate space for protests and free expression.

Anyone who tells you that if you support the police, you must oppose those speaking out against police brutality, or that if you speak out against police brutality, you are disrespecting the police, either isn’t paying attention, or is intentionally lying in order to support a separate agenda. Our neighbors are those who are left for dead in the streets, whether shot down by cops or vengeful snipers. Our neighbors are all those who come together to tend to and memorialize the wounded and dying, whether officers, activists, paramedics, politicians, or grieving mothers, fathers and children.

But beyond the immediate grief of the events of this week and the ways in which they complicate the discussion, we must realize that the church, indeed the nation, is standing confronted by a “road to Jericho” moment. There was an article in Friday’s Union-Tribune featuring an auspiciously timed report from the Center for Policing Equity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. After analyzing more than 19,000 reports of use-of-force incidents by police officers across the country, they have definitively determined that “African-Americans are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account.” Many have had the sense that this is true for years, but the data was held so closely it was difficult to compile for analysis until this careful, comprehensive (yet still anonymous) study was done. African-Americans are more than three times as likely as whites to be affected by police use-of-force all across the spectrum, from mild physical force, to Tasers, to gunshots.

Friends, we are on the road to Jericho, and there are very specific neighbors lying on the side of the road, bloodied and dying. If we are going to live an incarnational faith, if we are going to follow the Christ, God’s being made into very specific flesh, if we are going to “go and do likewise”, we cannot pass by on the other side. We know that feeling. We know that temptation. That priest and that Levite are the spiritual ancestors of the parts of our hearts that are weak and afraid. Who are we to get involved? What will happen to us if we do? What will the cost be, in money, in time, in pain, in judgment? There are so many reasonable excuses for passing by on the other side. But that is what we said we would not do when we claimed the name of Christ. Jesus calls us to love very specific neighbors: the ones who are hurting and left for dead in the road. To pretend that a generalized love for “all God’s children” is somehow the same is a cop-out. To act as though it is not our responsibility is to deny that we’ve ever heard the gospel.

“Who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ answer may have been complicated, but the message is clear. Our calling is clear. It is clear who our neighbors are. May we have the courage to be moved with pity, to have mercy, to take time out of from our own journeys to care for the broken and the broken-hearted, to tend to the wounds of God’s people in need and throw our lot in with them, for they are our neighbors and we must love them as we love ourselves. Alleluia and Amen.