Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from Luke 10:25-37

Proclaimed on July 15, 2004

The other day I came across a story that reminded me of my childhood. I am a child of the 50’s and the 60’s. During this time many transitions were taking place. Most noticeably was the time we spent in our bathrooms. As a culture we began to see a lot of soap & shampoo commercials on those newfangled TVs, which encouraged us to escalate the amount of time we spent on our personal hygiene, as well as with our hairstyles. I remember especially how this evolved with my older sister as the time she spent in the rest room each morning went from a few minutes to up to an hour. What I remember most, however, is how it drove my parents crazy, always drawing from them some sort of sarcasm. Those long hours in the bathroom, however, paid off for my sister for she eventually ended up being the homecoming queen.

This is where the story I found comes in. It is about a young lady, who perhaps is a lot like my older sister. She had just walked out of the bathroom, after having arranged and sprayed her hair into a huge “bubble”--the style of those times. At that point she was met by her father, who asked in the same sarcastic voice I remember, “What have you done to your hair?” To which she responded with pride, “Why I’ve just teased it!” “Teased it!” he exclaimed, “Looks more like you’ve driven it insane!”

In some ways this story is very much like Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan. We have heard it so often and become so familiar with it that we might think of it as a mere tease. But to its original audience it had more the response of the girl’s father; it was viewed as insanity. Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan occurred in a conversation with a religious lawyer who had just given Jesus a brilliant answer regarding how to sum up the 613 laws of Judaism. Quite succinctly he said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus commended him for his answer.

However, this lawyer was not after commendations. What he wanted was to trip Jesus up! Not getting the desired results he made another attempt when he asked, “Yes, but Jesus, who is my neighbor?” During that time this was a serious question that received a lot of attention. What was the legal definition of a “neighbor”? In essence, “Who are we required to love?” Some rabbis defined “neighbor” in narrow terms, such as anyone who lived within two miles, while others broadened it. The most liberal among them believed that anyone who was a fellow Jew qualified as a neighbor--sort of an ethnic exclusiveness. Indeed, some even went so far as to say that it was illegal to help a Gentile woman at her sorest time of need--the time of childbirth--for such help could only serve to bring another Gentile into the world!

But Jesus answered his opponent, not like a lawyer reciting legalistic definitions of the Law, but rather with a very simple story. The story focused around a very well-traveled, but an equally dangerous highway, between Jericho and Jerusalem. Now Jericho was a lush oasis in a desert located near the deepest point in the earth's crust, around which was built a city of plush homes. It was a very wealthy community, with very exclusive residents, most of them being Temple clergy. They didn't have to live in Jerusalem, because there were so many Temple priests that each one could only work in the Temple one week out of the year. Now the road up to Jerusalem was only 14 miles long, but it was very steep, narrow, and full of rocky ravines on each side. It was a haven for robbers and thieves who often killed their victims. The road was nicknamed the "Bloody Way!" Therefore, in order to be safe, people often traveled in caravans. Only a fool would attempt to travel this road alone! The same is true even to this day. Now along this road two fools traveled separately and alone; the first was a priest and the second was like a deacon. They came upon the beaten body of a victim, a poor lay person if you will, who perhaps was also foolish enough to travel alone. Now these clergy had a very good reason for not stopping. If the man were dead, than his corpse would make them ritually unclean. As a result of the Law, they would forfeit their only week that year to assist with the sacrifices in the Temple. Out of love for God they had to walk on by. But there was more to it than that, for these clergy were also very practical people. To stop would have also put their lives at risk. Groups of bandits were in the habit of using decoys. While one acted as a wounded person, others hiding along the road would jump out onto any unsuspecting helpers. But in this story a third man walked by whom Jesus called a "Samaritan."

Now Samaritans and Jews deeply hated one another. Samaritans were racial half-breeds whose religion was half Jewish and half pagan. Now it was the Jewish fall into paganism that had originally brought about their exile in Babylon, so they had reason to fear the Samaritans. This fear forbid them to allow the Samaritans to assist them in rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, much less to worship with them, when the Jews had returned from Babylon. So the Samaritans built a temple of their own in Shechem, which competed with the Temple in Jerusalem that was eventually destroyed by the Jews.

Now this “Samaritan” in Jesus’ story, not only stopped and risked his life for the fallen fool in the road, but he bandaged him up, got him to a hospital and paid for his hospitalization! Then Jesus asked the lawyer, "Who was the neighbor?" And the lawyer embarrassingly said, "The Samaritan."

Now part of the insanity in this story was not just about “defilement of holy things” versus “being a neighbor,” but also that Jesus may have been revealing some very radical things about his own person and work. In another Gospel (Jn. 8:48), we find Jesus being smeared by another group of lawyers who referred to him as a "Samaritan" who was demon-possessed! This indicates that the word “Samaritan” may have been used as a common insult against Jesus, wherein he was being labeled as a “heretic.” Now, would it not be ironic that the Samaritan in Jesus’ story was really a reference about himself? After all, Jews and Samaritans hated each another so much, that they would travel several miles out of their way to avoid going through one another’s territory. This would have certainly been true of the Samaritan in Jesus’ story, for it is very unlikely that any Samaritan would have been on this road, especially alone!

So what if the man in this story was really not a real Samaritan. What if he were a person of questionable repute, which qualified him for some name-calling. What if he was simply just a radical priest, a priest willing to risk his ritual cleanliness, even his very life, in order to possibly save another’s life! What if this story about the Samaritan was really about Jesus, the Great High Priest, who was even now going to Jerusalem on this road, and in this last week, would offer himself as a sacrifice to save fallen and foolish humanity? If so, Jesus has the lawyer to admitting that in this case the "Samaritan" or the “heretic” was really a "swell guy!" If this story of the Good Samaritan was really about Jesus, then it was not just a simple tease. To those who heard it, it was downright insane!

Today we too are being challenged to make this story ours. For many of us who grew up in the church during the “50’s & “60’s”, the faith we were taught seemed very much like that of the lawyer facing Jesus. We were taught to blindly conform to what seemed a rigid religion. Often we heard our parents say, “What will the neighbors think?” rather than ask what would be best. From this many of us rebelled, and perhaps rightly so, but only to fall into greater sins of our own.

According to Susan Page in her book entitled, Now That I’m Married, Why Isn’t Everything Perfect? we became programmed into a pseudo-self-sufficiency. This programming came out of “the Human Potential Movement,” where authors such as Fritz Perls wrote, “I am not in this world to meet your needs.” Or the Feminist Movement where Gloria Steinem wrote, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Or the Recovery Movement where Melodie Beattie wrote, “We are not here to mind other people’s business.” Many of us who grew up in the “50’s” and “60’s, ended up in the “70’s” believing ourselves to be great reformers, but instead we ended up with what became known as the “Me Decade.” This has resulted in making us, both men and women, overly self-sufficient to the exclusion of others. But in so doing, we have become much like the various “fools” on the road from Jericho; going it alone, instead of traveling with others, not so much in conformity and dependency, but in a spirit of a practical interdependency.

The story of the Good Samaritan is not about “legalists” who worry about what the neighbors might not think, nor is about “reformers” caught up in their own personal agendas. Indeed, to paraphrase Pope John Paul II, “What the Church needs is not more “legalists” or “reformers,” but rather more “saints.” A “saint” is not one who worries neither about “what the neighbors will think” nor about “what’s in it for me?” A “saint” is one who carries within the Spirit of Christ, who, while on his or her mission to Jerusalem, is willing to risk violating religious sensibilities, yes, even willing to go beyond our “me’s” in order to touch the life of another even as we would hope they would do the same for us. The story of the Good Samaritan is about Jesus. As a story it is not just a simple “tease.” It is a story, should we make it our own, that will cause us and others to question our sanity. Through it Jesus defined his mission to us and challenges each of us in turn to make his story our own story.