Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27He answered, “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.” 28And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
For those of you who have ever seen Shark Tank, you might know Kevin O’Leary. Shark Tank is a tv show where people present their business idea or product, and a panel of judges decides if they will invest in their business. Well, Kevin O’Leary is one of those judges, because he is seen as an extremely savvy and successful business entrepreneur.
Well, last year, Kevin O’Leary was interviewed and asked, “What degree gives you the highest chance of success in a career?” And he said, “Three years ago, I would have said, #1 – Engineering, #2 – Engineering, #3 – Engineering. But I have changed my mind in the past two years.” He went on to say, that since the pandemic hit, the number one demand he has for his companies and businesses, are story-tellers. People who can take the concept of the business and tell a story. “So, if you’re a graduate from the arts,” O’Leary says, “or a writer, or photographer, or editor, or videographer, three years ago, I would have hired you for nothing as a starving artist, but now all of a sudden, I’m paying you $150,000, (to be a story-teller).”
Three years ago – engineering.
Today – story-tellers.
And I have a real mixed reaction to that. On one level – I think it is really cool and powerful. How important story-telling seems to becoming.
Stories invite us in to wonder and mystery, and they can name our fears and our longings and touch our hearts and give us hope in ways that facts and data never can.
Seeing the power of stories isn’t new. Some of us might listen to The Moth Radio Hour, which has been creating story-telling events for 25 years. Or those of us who were kids in the 90s, we grew up with the cable channel VH1 and their show Storytellers, where bands and musicians would perform their music live and tell the stories about them.
This isn’t a new thing – the value and emphasis on storytelling seems to be rising up and becoming really important.
Which is also part of my mixed feelings about it – anytime something gets popular and mainstreamed, it can easily get snatched up and corrupted and commercialized. I mean, that’s what Kevin O’Leary is talking about – why is he paying you $150,000 to tell a story? To sell the world something and gain a profit. I saw an article this week titled, “How to leverage story-telling to increase your customers.” Suddenly stories are used not to move our hearts and souls, but to move our bank accounts and our status. Once people catch on, suddenly everyone wants a slice and everyone and everything is story-telling. And suddenly, story-tellers and their stories start to lose their power.
I think that’s what has happened with our gospel reading today. Jesus was a story teller before it was cool and profitable. He spoke in stories and parables that invite us into wonder and mystery, that name our fears and longings and give us hope. And sometimes his stories get misused and misunderstood in a way that loses its power.
Amy-Jill Levine, a Jesus and Jewish scholar, says that Jesus’ parables are more than restatements of common knowledge. Parables are there to prompt us “to see the world in a different way, to challenge, and at times to indict…we might be better off thinking less about what (parables) “mean” and more about what they can “do”…remind, provoke, refine, confront, disturb….”[1]
Take today’s parable – the so-called Parable of the Good Samaritan. Anyone heard this one before? Perhaps one of the most well-known parables in all of history.
Too often, this parable is boiled down to the moral of the story – be nice like the Good Samaritan was nice. When we hear the phrase “Good Samaritan”, we think of someone who has gone out of their way to help someone else. Someone who has extended a helping hand, either in an ordinary or an extraordinary way. We hear this story and think of all the times we’ve been the priest or the Levite, having walked right by the person in need of help. Or all the times, out of annoyance, we’ve rejected the simple offer to round up our total at Family Fare to the monthly charitable cause. We feel bad and then commit ourselves to not being the priest or the Levite, but instead to be the good Samaritan for a change.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with that message. To inspire us all to be kind and help out when we can. It’s just something we kind of already know. It implies a false story we’ve heard too often. Kind people go to heaven, so be kind. But, there is just so much more to the story. And it’s a better story.
The story actually begins before the parable. When Jesus is in conversation with a lawyer who is trying to test him. The lawyer asks Jesus a question: what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And the way the question is asked in the Greek implies a sort check-list approach. What’s the one thing I must do to inherit eternal life? It’s as if inheriting eternal life is like getting your wisdom teeth out – once it’s done, it’s done. But the question also implies that eternal life is a sort of product one can purchase or win with right behavior.
But Jesus isn’t hooked by this trick question. Instead, like a rabbi, he responds to the question with a question. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
“Simple,” the lawyer says, “Love God and love your neighbor.”
“Yep, nailed it.” Jesus says. “Do this and you will live.”
Do this and you will…live. Not, “Do this and you will inherit internal life.” Not, “Do this and you will…be seen favorably by those around you and have a really good reputation?
Do this…” Jesus says,”…and you will live.”
This lawyer is concerned about living beyond this life, but Jesus is concerned about this lawyer living in this life. It’s as if this lawyer isn’t fully alive. “Yes,” Jesus says, “Love God and love your neighbor and you will live. You’re not fully alive right now – you’re half-dead. You’re focused on the wrong things. But do this…and you will live.”
Exposing and almost betraying his not-fully-aliveness, the lawyer frustratingly asks a narrowing and limiting question, “Okay, sure, love God and love neighbor…but who’s my neighbor?”
Which isn’t a bad question if it didn’t so obviously imply the real question – who isn’t my neighbor. Who can I overlook, and still…you know…live?
Who is my neighbor, Jesus? Narrow the field for me, so I can check it off and be done with it. Well, as Jesus knows so well, sometimes the way to get through to someone is to quit telling them things, and start showing them. So, he tells him a story.
And Jesus is a good story-teller.
There once was a person who walked down the infamous and well-known and dangerous road to Jericho. It is there that they were beaten and robbed and left alone, half-dead. This was a wounded anybody in need. Jesus’ listeners would have had no problem identifying with the person in the ditch. They knew the truth and the trouble of a wounded life. The question is: does the lawyer? Can the lawyer see himself as the somebody who is not fully alive yet and in need of others?
The story goes on – along comes a priest down that Jericho Road. A highly regarded person, whose life is committed to that which is holy and sacred and right. We can expect good things from him. He knew what he was called to do. But he went in the other direction, crossing the road away from the man.
Along comes a Levite – another kind of priest. Same situation. Highly regarded. Deals with the holy stuff. We can expect good things, right? But he crosses the road too.
We often get distracted by the priest and the Levite. We want to make excuses for them – like saying that they were just following Jewish purity law and remaining clean for their temple duties- but that’s usually because we just want to make excuses for ourselves. According to Amy-Jill Levine, there is nothing in Jewish law preventing them. In fact, Jewish law would require them to help this person. They should have and could have stopped. But they didn’t. And I bet they thought about that man and that moment all day.
But the story isn’t about the priest and the Levite. It’s about the third person. Jesus is a good story-teller. He knows the rule of three, where the first two examples set the hearer up for the third. And everyone would know the third. The Priest, the Levite, and the Israelite. That was the well-known Jewish trio that goes together. It’s like Father, Son, and….Holy Spirit. Larry, Curly, and….Moe. Harry, Hermione, and….Ron.
But that’s not what happens. Jesus is a good story-teller and he delivers a surprise no one saw coming. A priest walks on by, a Levite walks on by. But…a Samaritan… the mortal enemy of the Jewish people, who was traveling came near to the wounded one, and when he saw him, he had compassion. A word attributed to Jesus – Jesus’ compassion – earlier in Luke.
A Samaritan. A despised and offensive stranger, from whom this wounded man might have crossed the road himself just to avoid receiving his help.
Think of a Russian soldier stopping to help a wounded Ukrainian; think of the prisoner helping a struggling guard; think of the last person you would ever want help from…coming to you.
The priest walks by, the Levite walks by…
…but a Samaritan – Jesus says to the lawyer – came near the man; saw him,
had compassion; went to him; bandaged his wounds; put him on his own animal,
brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Why a Samaritan? Why the enemy?
Because it changes the story we thought we knew. And if the story we think we know is ever to be changed, if the cycle of violence and division is ever to be broken, if the breaches between us is ever to be repaired, will it not always begin by the hated one reaching out– a stranger turning into a friend – an enemy becoming a neighbor.
“Which one of these three, do you think was a neighbor to the man in the ditch?” Jesus asked the lawyer, gently.
The Samaritan changes the story we thought we knew. And notice how Jesus changed the story the lawyer thought he knew. The lawyer thought he needed no one but himself. The lawyer wanted to know who was his neighbor. Who counted enough to deserve his help. In the lawyer’s mind, neighbor equaled needy person blessed by his presence.
But Jesus changes that story. “Oh no, sweet heart,” Jesus says, “You don’t get to sit in that chair. Not right now.”
In Jesus’ mind, in this parable, neighbor equals the person who blesses you with their generosity, compassion, and kindness, their changing of the story. Someone you needed more than you ever knew, and knowing God, someone who just might be the last person on earth you’d think.
“Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asked. “The Samaritan,” Jesus says, “the one who helped you…the one who broke the cycle and changed your story.”
That’s the brilliance of Mister Roger’s infamous song – Won’t you be my neighbor? Whether he meant it this way or not, Mister Rogers put himself not in the shoes of the good Samaritan, but in the heartache and the need of the man in the ditch.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?
Won’t you please?
Won’t you please?
Please, won’t you be my neighbor?
Love your neighbor as yourself, we usually hear that as a call to care for others. But what if it is a call to see and to make holy your need for others? That it’s okay to be wounded and to need a neighbor.
If you have ever been in need and someone shows up – you know the abundant, unbounded, bursting love you have for that neighbor. Love your neighbor. Thank God for your neighbor. Because you need your neighbor. I know that isn’t always easy. But how else will the cycle of violence and our wounding ways come to an end, without an unexpected neighbor who changes the story?
The lawyer wants to know and to limit who his neighbor was. But Jesus is saying, “Until you have been on the road to Jericho – the road of pain and struggle, the road of wounds and worries – and admit your need of another, you will never know who your neighbor is. And you will never fully live.
The lawyer was looking for a story where he could be the hero. Where he could help a neighbor in order to gain eternal life. Instead Jesus told him a story where the neighbor is the one who helps him, who changes the story, and as a result, he lives. Lives more abundantly than he’d ever known. Because the world was not what he originally thought. A dangerous road contained compassionate enemies. Enemies who became neighbors. What else is possible in the kingdom of God?
Dear people of God, thanks to the greatest story teller of all time – Jesus – we have a story to tell. It’s a story of God and God’s people.
It’s not a story that will sell more product or raise your profit margins. It is not a story that will get more followers on twitter or clicks on your website.
But it’s a better story. Because it is a story that brings life. It raises our half-alive wounded selves from the ditch so that we will live. A story that boldly proclaims, we belong to God and we belong to each other.
Part of the joy and celebration of baptism today isn’t that Frances and Demian need a church and now they have one. It’s the church needs Frances and Demian. We need them to be a fuller picture of the body of Christ in the world. And here they are.
They belong to God forever and we belong to them and each other. We have a better story to tell.
Now, we don’t do this a lot because it makes us nervous. And it feels sort of silly but sometimes, sometimes it is the silly and unexpected things that stay with us. But I invite you to turn to a neighbor. And as I often say to my kids – look each other in the eyes… and repeat after me.
“Neighbor – oh neighbor – I need you. More than I know.”
Now turn to another neighbor. Repeat after me.
“Neighbor – oh neighbor – I need you. More than I know.”
You have given the right answer. Do this and we will live.
Amen.
[1] Amy-Jill Levine, Stories By Jesus, Introduction.
Untying the Cerebral Knot 