Deuteronomy 30: 9-14; Luke 10: 25-37
by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
July 10, 2016
The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. - Deuteronomy 30:9-14
But wanting to justify 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 went away, 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 near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He 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. 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.’
- Luke 10: 25-37
The Parable of the Good Samaritan is more than helping the one stranded on the roadside. Don’t get me wrong, helping others is always a good thing. Many of us have been personally indebted to the kindness of strangers. But Luke’s Gospel flexes some scriptural muscle. Jesus’ story moves us to reflect upon the Christian journey and our guide or compass being the Greatest Commandment: to love the Lord our God with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). If we are to truly follow Christ’s compass then it will ultimately do two things. There is no doubt the compass will lead us along life’s rocky path, testing our Christian ethics. The compass will also reveal how we find true life in the kingdom of God.
Luke sets the stage by sharing the lawyer’s motivation for asking, “And who is my neighbor?” The lawyer, an expert of Moses’ Law (the first five books of the Bible), wanted to justify himself or to declare himself guiltless. And in true Jesus fashion the lawyer’s question is answered with a parable – a story that intersects ordinary life with a hidden truth.
The road leading from Jerusalem to Jericho is a dangerous path that stretches 17 miles. It descends nearly 3,300 feet with many tricky twists and turns [1]. This winding and narrow path held many hiding places to camouflage bandits and thieves. And so a man – who could have been any one of us – was walking along the road when he fell to the hands of robbers and was left for dead. Both the priest and Levite pass by the man in the ditch. They were probably more concerned about keeping their hands clean than rolling up their sleeves to tend to one in need.
But the Samaritan stops in his tracks. The seat of his emotions is moved by compassion and he lifts up this man like his own brother in empathetic care. The Samaritan took the time to see and bind his brother’s wounds. The Samaritan made the effort to carry his brother from harm’s way to a more secure place.
The Samaritan was not who the lawyer or the disciples expected in Jesus’ story. They expected one of their own, an Israelite. It was counter-cultural and even scandalous for Jesus to name a Samaritan as the one who would point to the example of living out the Greatest Commandment. The Samaritan already knew the pain of being passed by. He was marginalized as an outcast by the people of Israel because of cultural differences. The historical division between the Israelites and the Samaritans was a long standing one. And despite these divisions, the Samaritan chose to look upon the stranger in the ditch with love and not hate. The Samaritan was a neighbor because he chose to act out of compassion and love.
The Parable of the Good Samaritan haunts me. I think about the one who was left for dead and exactly who it was that extended compassion. The last time I preached this text was three years ago (it was a completely different sermon) when the jury was making a final decision regarding the death of Trayvon Martin. It was the lectionary text that Sunday. It is the lectionary text today. And this week the nation has been in shock learning the details of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. This weekend our nation has been in shock with the shootings of the police officers in Dallas, Texas at a peaceful protest.
The black community is crying out with tears of lament, tears of compassion, tears of suffering with one another - for all these that have fallen to the hands of racial injustice. And the black community is waiting for the white community and the Church Universal to listen and learn from their experience of what it is like to be black. The black community is waiting for you and me to stand with them in solidarity, to extend compassion, and to seek hope together.
Rev. Denise Anderson is one of the newly elected Co-Moderators for the 222nd General Assembly. She is a black pastor in our predominately white denomination. This week she challenged all white Presbyterian clergy with these words: “Talk to other white people about your racism, how you were socialized, and engage with people of color.”
While I find Anderson’s words encouraging and even liberating, they also terrify me.
My first exposure to the sin of racism was as a child hearing an extended family member calling blacks by a derogative word. I am grateful my parents denounced that language but I lament that I still hear that word in my mind. Growing up I learned to treat all people with respect but throughout my life I have heard society’s narrative stereotyping people of color as not being smart enough and being suspicious. I have close black friends and neighbors who are brilliant and beyond trustworthy but when I am alone I question my safety as a black man passes me by. I have loved learning about different ethnicities and cultures since high school, but I recognize that I have this sinful racial prejudice within me and I wrestle with it.
I try to learn about the experiences of my black sisters and brothers because I will never fully know what it is like to walk in their shoes because of my white privilege. I teach my children to show respect and compassion to everyone and to appreciate human diversity. It gives me hope that my children have close friends who are of different races and nationalities. We invite these friends into our home and I hope and pray for the day when all our differences are more appreciated than feared.
The Greatest Commandment to love God and to love neighbor as self closes the distance between our hurts and differences because compassion is that powerful. God completely embodied the word “compassion” in drawing near to us in the person of Jesus Christ by suffering alongside us, by suffering for us, and ultimately dying for us. Therefore God’s command to love seeks to break down the walls of hostility that stem from places of our misunderstanding, sin, and judgment.
Compassion moves us to love like God does. It makes room in our hearts to feel one another’s hurts and to love the image of God in others. God’s love is a compass that guides us to approach our fallen sisters or brothers of color because their hurt does indeed affect us. God’s love urges us to resist passing by and resist being silent and to humbly do better. The Greatest Commandment is God’s heartbeat that pulses with a divine will for love and reconciliation. When we follow the direction of this compass to love God and to love neighbor as self, then you and I will live.
Do this and you and I will live because we will experience God’s gift of life which is to see our shared common humanity in one another. Do this and you will live because striving to see Christ in one another is what it looks like to have an active life in the kingdom of God.
The text from Deuteronomy says, “Surely this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it far away…The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (Deuteronomy 30: 11,14).
Surely to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor is not too hard because Jesus Christ embodies God’s ultimate desire and way of life for us. The Spirit is always ready and present to guide us in Jesus’ teaching which is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
And yet...and yet when Jesus asks the lawyer, “Who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robber?” the lawyer cannot even utter the word, “Samaritan.” Did you catch that in reading the text? The lawyer can only find words to say “The one - that other one - who showed mercy.”
If we are honest I think we can see - and I know we should see - a bit of ourselves in the lawyer’s response. I know this text convicts me personally. The lawyer creates a thin space for us to see our own biases and prejudices and sin even as we hope to do better and be more Christ like. We do not want to hear this but God's Word convicts us.
Luke’s text moves us to a place of humble confession. We cannot use our faith to justify ourselves as guiltless for we all have difficulties living out God’s love. We all have difficulties loving our neighbor who has a different ethnicity or even religion than ours. Despite the challenging condition of human sin to live by the Rule of Love, we must do better. Unity takes a lot of intentionality, reflection, and grace.
There is still much to be done in our specific community, in our country, and in our world in this ministry of reconciliation. Racial and religious reconciliation are hard to talk about. However, reconciliation is the heartbeat of God’s will and it is the pulse of the gospel. As Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, “God has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us because in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).
June 22, 2016 the 222nd General Assembly voted to adopt the Belhar Confession into part of our constitution, the Book of Confessions. Our creeds and confessions affirm what we believe about God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. They are also like snapshots of the greater Reformed church family in specific periods of history naming what the Church Universal is called to do in response to God’s Word.
Belhar was written in 1986 as the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa lifted her voice in the choir of the Church Universal. Belhar confesses the Church’s purpose to be an agent of God’s reconciliation in order to fully live into God’s kingdom through Jesus Christ. The sin of apartheid threatened the integrity of the gospel and the Church by causing great racial injustice in South Africa.
As Reformed Christians we identify with the hard realities of racial injustice within our own American history. We continue to seek a posture of humility and a resolve for justice as the body of Christ to bring healing and unity for all. The Belhar Confession moves through three articles and we will affirm our faith with a portion of it this morning. Listen to these opening words of the first two articles in light of our biblical texts today:
We believe in the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who gathers, protects
and cares for the church through Word and Spirit. This, God has done since the
beginning of the world and will do to the end.
We believe in one holy, universal Christian church, the communion of saints
called from the entire human family.
We believe
• that Christ's work of reconciliation is made manifest in the church as the
community of believers who have been reconciled with God and with one
another;
• that unity is, therefore, both a gift and an obligation for the church of Jesus
Christ; that through the working of God's Spirit it is a binding force, yet
simultaneously a reality which must be earnestly pursued and sought: one
which the people of God must continually be built up to attain.
I pray we would go out today seeking a posture of humility and compassion to be a neighbor like the Samaritan, to bear God’s message of reconciliation, and to build up one another so that we might attain it.
I pray we will risk the time and effort to reflect on the hard conversation of race by considering our own difficult journeys, by reaching across the aisles in our church to share our stories with each other in humility, and by crossing the streets in our community to speak to our neighbors of color with love.
When faith seeks understanding it makes a way forward to stand in the strength of compassion. For if we do this then we will live.
May it be so. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sources Referenced:
Artwork, "The Good Samaritan," by He Qi (2001)
[1] The New Interpreter's Bible Commentary, "Volume VIII: Luke, John" (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015), p. 189.
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