And who is my neighbor?

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10: Amos 7:1-17; Psalm 82; Collosians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

The story of the Good Samaritan is one of the most familiar of Jesus’ parables; the term “good Samaritan” has even entered the language to refer to those who help us, especially when traveling. Like all the parables, it is open to multiple readings: not only has what I see in it changed over time, but so is what I think is most important.

The story begins with a question: how do I inherit eternal life. Jesus sends the lawyer to the law. He correctly answers: “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.” Like a good lawyer, he has a follow-up question for Jesus: who is my neighbor? The parable is Jesus’ answer.

As a child in Sunday School, the message was simple: be kind to people, help them. Some years later, I learned to interpret some of the code. The priest and the Levite were leaders of the community, who knew the same law that the lawyer had cited, but failed to act. The Samaritans on the other hand, were outsiders, and generally not respected by the Israelites: it was important to the story that the person who helped was not one of the ones who might be expected to help, but the outsider.

A few years ago, I realized that Jesus made being a neighbor was not a noun but a verb, not something you were, but you did. “Who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” That being a neighbor was how I responded to the man sleeping in the doorway or the woman panhandling, as well as the nice people who actually live next door.

But today, I think the question of “who is my neighbor” is most important. This is a question that we need to ask indivially and corporately, locally and globally. It is at the center of our political divisions. Who belongs? Who is a real American? To whom do we have obligations of neighborliness? Is it just the people in our street, no matter how difficult? Or is it some broader neighborhood, or even the city of Merced? How do we-as a parish, a city, a nation-welcome and incorporate newcomers?

One way we fail as neighbors is through the policies of exclusion we support or allow in our name. Do we write zoning rules that make it harder for poorer people to live near us? Do we design school districts that keep our children with the children of “other people like us”? How often are we, deliberately or inadvertantly, like the priest and the Levite on the road?

Jesus is pretty clear here: we can’t draw lines and create barriers for who is our neighbor and what we do for them. The Samaritan tells the innkeeper to spend what was needed. You can argue today as to whether that help should come from indiduals or congregations or the state, but the help should be there. This is hard: the needs of the world are overwhelming. This is why it is useful to think about the collective as well as the individual response. We do not have to do it all, but we cannot just cross to the other side of the road and ignore those in need.

Go and do likewise, Jesus tells the lawyer. It’s hard not to imagine his sinking heart as he received these instructions. Like us, he knows what he is supposed to do. Like us, he always knew. Now he had to do it. So do we.