Whitegate, Little Budworth, Trinity 7, Proper 10, 14/7/2013
‘Who is my neighbour?’ - it’s a question we think we know the answer to, until we let the gospel open our minds to a new view of the world.
‘Who is my neighbour?’ - comes in a conversation between Jesus and a lawyer, an odd conversation in which each question the lawyer asks appears suspiciously to have something else behind it, and each answer Jesus gives seems equally obtuse, but is ultimately mind-blowingly revealing.
The first question the lawyer asks is a very odd one indeed: ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’
It’s an odd question when you think about how inheritance works. Inheritance is given, it’s a gift you receive, it’s not something you can usually do anything about at all. An inheritance is usually determined by the giver, not the receiver. [1] ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ is a question perhaps only a lawyer would ask - someone who feels uniquely equipped and inclined to manipulate things to ensure that he gets the inheritance he wants.
‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Is also a question which has been preached misleadingly, over the years, based on the popular assumption that this is another way of asking, ‘What must I do to get to heaven?’ In those sermons the answer, of course, is, ‘do good things in the here and now and you’ll secure your place in the afterlife’. But this goes against the view of the world held by Jesus, the lawyer, Luke and everyone else involved in the telling of this tale. Those people believed that time was divided up in two ways, between the ‘present age’ and the ‘age to come.’
Many ancient Jews believed that the ‘age to come’ would arrive one day to bring God’s justice, peace, and healing to the world as it groaned and toiled within the ‘present age.’ St Paul speaks of Jesus giving himself for our sins ‘to rescue us from the present evil age.’ In other words, Jesus has inaugurated, ushered in, the ‘age to come.’ But there is no sense that this ‘age to come’ is ‘eternal’ in the sense of being outside space, time, and matter. Far from it. ... For [the ancient Jews], God’s great future purpose was not to rescue people out of the world, but to rescue the world itself, people included, from its present state of corruption and decay. [2]
So at the heart of the exchange between the lawyer and Jesus isn’t an academic theory, a theoretical discussion about a hard-to-grasp future existence, about achieving a perfect afterlife. It’s about how God wants to rescue us from ourselves in the here and now.
And in the here and now, are people like the Good Samaritan. Preachers like this story because it so readily suggests to us examples from this day and age. Who are the Good Samaritans today?
On the building site, when a rogue piece of scaffolding fell to the ground and impaled itself in Danny Collins’s left leg, his closest mates, his drinking pals, Dean and Billy disappeared from the scene - and it was one of the Polish lads, Alexy, who came to the rescue, made Danny comfortable, called for emergency medical help. Dean later apologised for his weak stomach - it was his fear of blood and gore which caused him to flee, he said, sheepishly. Billy said it was because the accident happened at the end of the working day and he had to go and pick up the kids from their after-school club. After the ambulance took Danny away Alexy just went back quietly to his group of Polish friends, who usually kept themselves to themselves on the building site because Danny, Dean, Billy and the other English lads treated them with suspicion.
In our world of interracial suspicion perhaps the most surprising thing about this story is that a Polish builder on an English job could be portrayed as ‘good’. Certainly the most surprising thing at the time Jesus told the story of The Good Samaritan is that a Samaritan could be portrayed as ‘good’.
For as you will have heard in numerous sermons on this subject before, Samaritans and Jews did not get on. So much so that a Jew making their way from Galilee to Jerusalem would prefer to take the long route, risking the ascent up the rocky mountain road from Jericho, a road notorious for robbers and brigands, rather than take the easier route through the heart of Samaria. [3] And if you’ve been following the gospel readings over the past few Sundays you’ll recall other situations which Luke highlights to point up the mutual antagonism between Samaria and Israel - if you can’t recall them I encourage you to thumb back through chapters 9 and 10.
The Good Samaritan - it’s as ironic as someone in the crowd at Old Trafford talking about The Good Scouser. It’s as incendiary as a present-day politician talking about The Good Muslim Cleric.
So what is Jesus saying in this parable? To the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ Jesus is saying that my neighbour is not necessarily the one who lives next door to me, the one who comes from the same social group as me. My neighbour is not necessarily my friend. My neighbour is just as likely to be someone I’d least expect it to be, someone I’d normally have nothing to do with; someone I might usually go out of my way to avoid. Quite simply my neighbour is anyone who has compassion on me, anyone who shows me mercy.
And to the question, ‘What am I to do to inherit eternal life?’, in other words, ‘What am I to do to help God rescue me from myself in the here-and-now?’, the answer is quite simply that I’m to love like that Samaritan loved.
I’m to love the person who I may be inclined to criticise, condemn, revile, and as my heart goes out to them I find God rescuing me from myself.
I’m to love like a Samaritan loves a Jew - sacrificially. [4]
I’m to love the person who I don’t know or shy away from, the person who makes life hard for me, and as my heart goes out to them I find my peace, I find my salvation.
I’m to love like a put-upon Pole loves a jack-the-lad Brit - generously.
God’s great purpose is not to rescue people out of the world, but to rescue the world itself, people included, from its present state of corruption and decay. [5]
And so, rejoice! - for you and me, together, are members of that rescue team.
And now, rejoice again! - for every time your heart goes out to another, you find yourself being rescued.
Notes
[1] I’m grateful as always to Paul Neuchterlein’s Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary website, in this case his notes on Proper 10C, section 9, quoting Brian Stoffregen ...
[2] ... and here, Neuchterlein’s notes on Proper 10C, section 1, quoting James Alison and N.T. Wright...
[3] ... and here, Neuchterlein’s notes on Proper 10C, section 10, geographical notes ...
[4] See further, Neuchterlein’s notes on Proper 10C, sections 5, 6, 7, on Luke’s astonishing use of splagchnizomai, for compassion, in regard to the Samaritan’s sacrificial act.
[5] N. T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, pp. 44-45, quoted in Neuchterlein, Proper 10C, section 1
Comments