[Marty Miller]

Scripture: Luke 10: 25-30 The Message
Sermon: “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis
Defining “Neighbor”
25 Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”
26 He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”
27 He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
28 “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”
29 Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”
30-32 Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

From the commentary: Commentary on Luke 10:25-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary
The Story of the Righteous Neighbor
Listeners or readers in Jesus’ time or the gospel writer’s time or any century since understand that the parable shows us that our neighbor is the one we least expect to be a neighbor. The neighbor is the “other,” the one most despised or feared or not like us. Jesus shifts the question from the one the lawyer asks — who is my neighbor?–to ask what a righteous neighbor does. The lawyer does not object that Jesus’ story responds to a different question. Perhaps within Luke’s narrative, Jesus answers both questions.

How a listener enters this story affects how one experiences its meaning. If one takes the role of observer, then one most likely sees the drama at the expense of supposed legalistic priests and Levites who, like the lawyer, despised the Samaritan. A sermon that invites listeners to identify with the priest and Levite suggests they experience their own tendencies to allow categories of race or class or religion to define “otherness” rather than humanness. A sermon that invites listeners to identify with the Samaritan invites them to experience the truth the story tells, that a neighbor shows compassion to the “other.” These approaches may be effective, but an unfortunate effect, likely unintended, is to cast the Jews in the story (priest, Levite, lawyer) as “other” in Christian terms, by defining them as legalistic or racist or self-righteousness.

A few years ago, a sermon invited me to enter the story in the place of the half-dead person lying by the road. In this role, I am the recipient of life-saving compassion by an “other” rather than choosing whether or not to be a neighbor without regard to otherness. This experience of the story opened my eyes to an aspect of the narrative world of Luke I had not previously considered. Within this world, it seems a reasonable expectation Jesus would assume the lawyer hears the parable as the beaten-left-for-dead man lying by the road.

A first century audience, Jesus’ or Luke’s, would have known the Samaritan represented a despised “other.” But I think they also would have understood that the lawyer would not empathize with the priest or Levite. They represented differences within Judaism related to function, class, observance and biblical interpretation. The only character left through which to enter the story is the one who has no identity except life-threatening wounds. The lawyer understands Jesus’ point, according to the gospel narrative, that when you receive life-saving mercy, “otherness” ceases and we experience instead our common humanity. The lawyer perceives — and so do we — who your neighbor is and what it looks like to be a neighbor. Jesus’ final words, “go and do likewise” parallel the command following the lawyer’s first question, “do this and you will live.”

We discussed this some last week, but here are some things for consideration
If you were to rewrite this parable today, who would you put in the various roles?

Does the parable affect you differently if you enter ii as the wounded traveler.
If yes, how.

Various translations of verse 29 suggest
But he wanted to justify himself–NIV
Looking for a loophole,–The Message
But the man wanted to show that he knew what he was talking about–CEV
How are these the same or different, and what does it mean to Justify himself?

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