July 14 -- Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace and peace from Jesus the Christ, who loves us and calls us to love our neighbors. Amen.

I want to start with the idea of the Parable of the Good Muslim.  I’ve imagined this before in sermons on this very familiar text, where I invited folks to compare the Samaritan for the people listening to Jesus to a Muslim for us listening to this parable today.  The Parable of the Good Muslim.

I don’t think that’s fair or honest now.  Maybe for some of us, Islam does not make our blood boil.  Muslims certainly get a bad rep in the larger culture still, but maybe you don’t actually hate Muslims.  I don’t.  Maybe you, have friends or family members or co-workers who are Muslims.  The individual Muslims I’ve known have been awesome — funny, faithful, friendly, forgiving.  That’s not the attitude to have when listening to Jesus’ story.  “Hey, the Samaritans I’ve known have been great.”  No one in Jesus‘ audience would have said that.

So the way to really get at the story fairly and honestly today, the way to put yourself into Jesus‘ audience today, one commentator has suggested, is to ask the question, “What person would you rather die in the ditch than be rescued by?”

Jesus was trying to elicit groans from his hearers.  Maybe the Muslim example does work for you, but if you remember, Jesus and his disciples have just been rejected themselves by Samaritans.  (I haven’t ever received personally an unwelcome, rejecting word or gesture from a Muslim I’ve known.)  Jesus and his disciples had just been rejected…by Samaritans.  It was chapter 9: “They did not receive Jesus because he had his face set for Jerusalem.” And it angered his disciples James and John so much that they wanted to punish those Samaritans with a violent revenge.  But Jesus rebuked his disciples and just kept moving on peacefully.

So — that is to say — Jesus is not just picking some person out there that some people despise, but others are actually friends with so can’t relate.  Jesus is using a personal — and in his case a collective — example that is going to elicit audible groans.   

(He was also, btw, doing a twist on a punchline:  See, the trio is supposed to be a priest, a Levi, and a scribe.  [Probably a scribe listening.]  So everyone’s expecting the scribe to be the one to stop — almost an “I know, I know a priest doesn’t, a Levi doesn’t, but the scribe does.”  He’s the example and that’s how we should be.  But Jesus twists the punchline.)  

Jesus is really catching the people off guard and scandalizing them with an offensive example at the same time.  There would have been audible gasps in that crowd.  What’s so bad about Samaritans?  (GS law, lunch group) But Samaritans were the Jews in the Northern Kingdom who were not taken into Babylonian captivity, who didn’t experience the exile, who didn’t know what real suffering means, and what it means to remain a faithful Jew all those years.  The Judean Jews thought the Samaritan Jews were polluted by the other cultures that had come into the territory while they were gone in captivity.  

In other words, we’re talking about family that’s deeply estranged here.  They’re all descendants of Abraham and Sarah, but are now seeing themselves as arch-enemy siblings.  

Who is that for you?  Who would you rather die in a ditch than see that person coming to help you?  [pause]

Maybe, like in the story here, that’s a member of your own family.  Maybe die-rather-than-being-rescued-by-that-one is a little hyperbolic (as story tellers tend to be), but you get the idea, don’t you? 

I think it’s no coincidence that the very next story is about a family conflict.  Here it is again:  constantly in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches something...and then we see it played out.  First he tells a story and then a real life example.  The very next real-life event after the famous Good Samaritan story (next week’s text), is the two sisters Mary and Martha.  [paraphrase]

Now, I can’t quite imagine that they (and particularly Martha) were so at odds with each other that they’d rather die than be rescued by the other.  But there is definitely some deep resentment on Martha’s part (at least), right?  Almost like the Judean Jew toward the Samaritan Jew resentment: “She doesn’t know what it means to work and suffer,” Martha is complaining to Jesus.

And that’s were we can really touch down into this text.  (Who are you complaining to Jesus about?)  First an extreme lesson, and then a tangible, down-in-our-guts, incarnated example.  

The whole Gospel of Luke is about Jesus ushering in a society with mercy, including and climaxing with Jesus’ work on the cross and the resurrection.  All mercy.  He’s always over and against hard heartedness, bitterness, resentment, anger, fear.  It’s one story/event after the next about Jesus ushering in mercy.  

And these two episodes today are no exception.  The Samaritan shows mercy.  (But did you notice the man, when Jesus asks, “Now which of these three was the neighbor?” couldn’t even say the word?  He couldn’t even say ‘Samaritan’.  He just said, “The one who showed mercy.”)

Anyway, the Good Samaritan is a story about mercy, and not just of the hated Samaritan’s mercy, but calling us the hearers to mercy...to giving a second look to those we deem enemies, even and especially those opponents who are closest and most visceral to us.  And just to drive it home, it’s followed by a real-life example:  A sister.  A brother.  A parent.  A child.  A former best friend.  A  next door neighbor.  A co-worker.  A church member.  We’re talking not about some big enemy “out there”, but about a family member, a real person who makes your stomach turn, who makes you tense up, or keeps you awake at night.  How about giving that one a second look.  Who do you need to give a second look to, who is that person in your life — you’ve been so backed up with anger, fear, resentment, bitterness toward?  That’s your neighbor.

That’s where our new journey begins, friends in Christ.  With a groan.  And a challenge.  And a call to honesty…and mercy.  Christ calls us always to mercy, peace and grace.  

Christ offers us that mercy, peace and grace, even if we have wronged those around us in some way — those locally and immediately, like our sisters or brothers or neighbors...and those broadly, indirectly and globally.  Even if, even though we have fallen short.  This amazing grace and mercy is for us too.

And Christ walks with us as we continue to seek new ways of extending that grace and mercy to all those we meet here and out on our roads.  Thanks be to God, that we don’t do this hard work of Christian love alone.  We do it together, and Christ is right there with in our midst.  AMEN.