What we already know
Inconvenient truths in a familiar parable
Luke 10:25-37
An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?"
He 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."
And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."
But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The 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.'
Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?"
He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
For the last two years, I’ve done a weeklong stint as a volunteer chaplain at the Presbyterian camp about 90 minutes down the road. Both years that I’ve served, the Bible study curriculum has included the greatest commandment: to love God and love your neighbor. I like that it’s been repeated in the two years I’ve participated, because if these kids leave camp remembering nothing else we told them about the Bible, God, Jesus, faith… I hope they remember to be guided by love of God and love of neighbor. I hope, in between friendship bracelets, canoeing, silly songs, tick checks, variety show skits, and all the other joys of camp, that guidance is what sticks with them.
Luke’s treatment of the greatest commandment, in the lectionary this week, is a little different than Matthew’s and Mark’s, and in some interesting ways. It hits the same main points but challenges us to consider what it really means. In the M- gospels, the lawyer, or expert, asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and Jesus tells him the answer. But in true modern-day lawyerly, Socratic fashion, Jesus in Luke directs the question back to the questioner: "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" Luke’s account affirms for us this isn’t a novel idea we needed Jesus specifically to tell us; the expert is in fact able to give the same answer Jesus gives in the other two synoptics. He knows the answer already. I think we know the answer, too.
Luke’s account is more notably distinguishable from that of Matthew and Mark in the parable that follows, perhaps the most famous one of them all: the Good Samaritan. This parable is an illustration of the greatest commandment, specifically as it relates to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” The lawyer is looking for some fine print on that commandment. Jesus, however, gives us the inconvenient answer.
This answer, in the form of a parable highlighting the loving kindness of a Samaritan (of all people!), is sometimes couched as a surprising one. But I do think it’s more accurately “inconvenient.” It wouldn’t be a surprise, exactly, that we are to be neighborly to the stranger under Jewish law. Over and over, the Hebrew scriptures tell us to love the stranger, sojourner, and alien. As examples:
You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (Exod. 23:9)
You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deut. 10-19)
When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Lev. 19:33-34)
And there are many, many more.
The expert knows the answer, here too. Just as we know the answer. It’s not a surprise or new knowledge. It’s just that we try to find ways around it and put our own parameters on it. It’s just that we don’t always like the implications of following it all the way through.
What Jesus is confronting us with is that it’s often hard to put this kind of love into practice. It’s one thing to say in the abstract, love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt, and another to love an actual, living, breathing strange-to-you (in whatever particular way) person. Jesus is giving us the answer we know already, just in the way we don’t want to hear. Neighbors, he tells us, are made by neighborliness, even and especially from and towards those we’d just as well not have as neighbors. We owe that treatment and love to anyone we encounter, constructed identities, allegiances, and otherness notwithstanding.
What Luke’s telling draws out for me is this element of moral dissonance, which is a reality of our life of faith. We know what our faith teaches; we just don’t always do it. We all know this story of the robbed man and the Samaritan. It is embedded into even our secular culture and laws. My campers got to hear me hammer the Greatest Commandment two years in a row. Love God with all you’ve got. Love your neighbor as yourself. They, and we, know it by heart. The dialogue with the expert, though, points to the ways we try to wriggle out of just how expansive this commandment is. We look for the loopholes. In so doing, we deny the possibility of the world as it could be. We limit the vision of the kin-dom.
It remains striking, then, when we encounter people in the world following these commandments to their fullest realization. But, thanks be to God, we do encounter this kind of love in the world, even if it is countercultural. We saw it recently in Texas. The rhetoric from national leadership and much of the populace here in the U.S. towards Mexico has not been very neighborly. The policies we enact and execute reflect that same hostile rhetoric. And yet, Mexico sent first responders to help after the catastrophic and utterly tragic floods earlier this month. Again, we know the answer to this question, “who is my neighbor?” And yet it makes headlines when our literal neighbors, globally speaking, live it out.
I see that story in the news, and I hear this familiar parable told anew. Just like when I’ve seen or personally experienced that kind of boundary-defying love before. It’s like we need a jolt to remind us that we know, and to remind us that we can show that kind of neighborly love, too.
We know the answer, already. It’s hard, and countercultural, and sometimes the “how” of it all is very complex, but we can do it, too. The Samaritan reminds us. The Mexican rescuers remind us. Jesus reminds us. May we remember, that we go and do likewise. That we, too, remind others.