The Sunday school version of the story of the good Samaritan in Luke 10 simply admonishes us to be like the Samaritan and show love to our neighbor but leaves the question, “Who is my neighbor?” unanswered. The Sunday school version misses the main point of the story.
Samaritans and Jews had a long-standing feud — not much different than the feud between many Jews and Palestinians today. Jesus makes a Samaritan, someone who had different beliefs and practices from the Jews (his own people) the hero in the story, while the two Jewish clergy who passed by are the insensitive, uncaring ones who failed to love. How do you think that story went over with Jesus’ fellow Jews, especially the religious gatekeepers?
To get the sense of it today, we might retell it by making the one who shows mercy a Muslim (the parable of the good Muslim) and the two who pass by a Christian pastor and a priest.
So who is my neighbor? Well, everyone is my neighbor. The drug addict on the street where my grandkids play, as well as the Chinese family across the way who keep chickens and when the wind blows a certain way — oh, my.
Who is your neighbor? The guy next door who keeps cutting and throwing his grass on your side of the yard, the belligerent co-worker who thinks of no one but himself, the racist down the street who has a Confederate flag flying in his driveway, the fundamentalist Christian who thinks you are going to hell because you go the church where that liberal, so-called Baptist pastor preaches all those heresies. And yes, sisters and brothers, we are called to love them as we love ourselves.
You say, “But I don’t want to love them.” Hey, I don’t either. But then Jesus asks us, “Do you want to live? Do you want to share in my life, my passion, in what I am about and doing in the world? Do you want to experience and share in the eternal life of God? If you do, then love them. Learn how to love them.”
If our Christianity is not encouraging us and teaching us how to do that, then we might as well be atheists. I will take a kind atheist over a hateful Christian any day.
I find it very helpful to note that the initial question by the scribe in Luke’s version of this account is: “What must I do to inherit eternal life? He assumes what so many Christians assume, namely, that eternal life is something in the future, a reward for believing the right things (Jesus is God, substitutionary atonement, etc.), confessing the right things (Jesus is Lord, etc.), or practicing the right things (being baptized, participating in the church’s traditions, etc.). Or maybe we cut through all of that and think of eternal life as a reward simply for being a good and kind person. We are still off the mark.
Eternal life is more of a kind or quality of life than quantity of life. It is now before it is later. Eternal life is God’s life that indwells all of us and that we experience and express right now when we love others as we love ourselves. By the way, that’s how we love God; namely, by loving others. Jesus told the scribe: Do this (love God by loving your neighbor) and you will live (not just in the future, but right now). Jesus didn’t say, believe this or confess this. Jesus said do this. Jesus said, Love. Love is the key to life, all of life, God’s life.
How have so many Christians missed this? I missed it for quite a few years. But when you think about it, it’s not hard to figure out why we have gotten so far afield. This loving stuff gets messy. It’s just so much easier to make faith a matter of believing doctrines and engaging in certain religious practices isn’t it? Loving others is hard work.
Anyone who has been married or been with a partner in life for a considerable period of time knows this. There are times my wife has to bear through my craziness and sometimes I have to bear through hers. I like to tell young couples planning to marry, or I say when officiating their ceremony, that marriage is never just a 50/50 proposition. Sometimes when your spouse is having a tough time you have to give more and vice versa. Some days it’s more like 80/20.
Jesus said, “Do this and you shall live.” That’s the gospel of Jesus.