A Sermon on the Good Samaritan

Just then a lawyer 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 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 NRSV

 I found it difficult to resist putting two sermons on this Gospel passage in the same volume.

Shortly before he died last March, Pope Francis had a rather interesting exchange of ideas with Vice-President J.D. Vance.  The vice-president, like me, is a convert to Catholicism.  Unlike me, the vice-president was not theologically trained prior to his conversion.  I believe it is easy for persons in any Christian tradition to pontificate (pardon the pun) on things which they are not skilled enough to correctly opine upon.

Vance was speaking about the Catholic principle of ordo amoris, the order of love.  He said the order of love was like moving out from the center of a concentric circle, starting with family and friends and then moving to those geographically near you and finally, what love is left over goes to those farthest from you.

The pope was nonplussed about this.  Francis’ reply was that if you want to understand ordo amoris, look at the Good Samaritan.

The whole point of Jesus’ telling this story is to answer a question.  When speaking of the two great commandments, to love God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, Jesus is asked “And who is my neighbor?”

Now I have preached before that we are the man left on the road to die and Jesus is the Good Samaritan who comes along and finds us and nurtures and cares for us and brings us back to health.  I do believe that is an appropriate interpretation of the parable.

But there are other ways to look at it.  One of the areas where I believe this story can be helpful is as a confessing church bears witness in response to the apostasy known as Christian nationalism. 

Jesus gives us these two great commandments:

First, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind.

Second, love your neighbor as yourself.

In telling the story, Jesus chooses a character most Jews of his time would have found cringeworthy, as the person who brings God’s grace and love to the person in need.  I think that is something we need to ponder.

The neighbor is the one unlike us!

The misguided idea of ordo amoris which Vance offered misses the point and I believe that is why Francis pointed us toward the Good Samaritan as the way to understand how God orders love.  I believe if Jesus would tell this story in 21^st century  America, it would sound very different from how Luke records it for us here.

The Samaritan would be a woman. The Samaritan would be a person of color. The Samaritan would be trans. The Samaritan would be gay or lesbian or bisexual. The Samaritan would be an immigrant, probably an undocumented immigrant. The Samaritan would be an addict. The Samaritan would be someone who is living with someone but is not married to them. The Samaritan would be disabled. The Samaritan would be on welfare. The Samaritan would have a bunch of tattoos and piercings. Maybe the Samaritan would be in a motorcycle club. The Samaritan would not be a Christian. It would take those kinds of descriptions for the story to have the impact on American hearers that the Samaritan had at the time Jesus told the story.

Instead of seeing love as beginning at the center of the circle, what happens if we see it as beginning at the periphery and luring us to the center?  I think of how Jesus spoke of the king who sent his servants to the highways and byways to bring people to the Feast.  What if, coming from the center, God’s love reaches all the way to the farthest point and draws people along as that love moves back to the center. In Psalm 139, the Psalmist speaks of God’s hand finding us even if we settle at the farthest end of the sea.

Quaker writers like Douglas Steere and Thomas Kelly speak of living life from the center.  That center is the place where the human encounters the divine.  That is the place where God finds us and draws us into intimate communion with the holy.  It is also the place where we find our commission to go into all the world.  Kelly spoke of how God takes love of the world out of us and then hurls love for the world into our hearts.  We are in many ways the bread God casts upon the waters.  It will return to God again.

But here is an important piece, God is trying to bring everyone along.  We do not always cooperate.  I am not confident in the idea of universal salvation for the simple reason that God is love, and love gives people freedom to make choices, and love respects those choices, even when doing so is painful.  I think at best we need to be agnostic about universal salvation because I do not think it makes sense that God would not overpower or coerce us into faith in this life, but will do so in eternity.  If someone would choose not to be with God, I cannot imagine God overriding that choice.

Nonetheless, God is trying to bring everyone along.  That means the Samaritan, the one God uses to reach me, to reach you as well, may be the one most unlike us.  God’s love starts on the periphery and draws us to the center.