Today in church, the main passage the sermon was based on was the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37, all Bible passages quoted are from the NIV). The title of the sermon was "Free to Love Your Neighbor", of course based on the question, "And who is my neighbor?" To which Jesus responds with the parable and then ends with the question, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
But it struck me as I heard the gospel reading, and then listened to the sermon, that Jesus has done it again - he's turned our understanding of things upside down and inside out. For this parable is not just about loving our neighbor, but it is also about loving our enemies.
You see, the man who was waylaid by robbers was a Jewish man. The ones who people of the time would have considered his neighbors (the priest and the Levite - fellow Jews) were the ones who acted in very un-neighborly ways; the ones who, practically dripping disdain and fear, carefully walked by on the other side of the road, as far away as they could get.
Yet the one who acted with neighborly love and compassion was for all intents and purposes, culturally, an enemy. Samaritans were, as our rector pointed out this morning, half-breeds - not quite Jewish and not quite Gentile. They were scorned, forced to remove themselves geographically from the main Jewish population, avoided, feared and hated. Certainly he was the one who should have been expected to walk by on the other side of the road, probably with a certain degree of righteous glee that such ill fortune had befallen one of those who opressed him.
But somehow his experiences developed in him a deep compassion, enough that he went to one of his enemies who had been wounded and left to die (someone his own compatriots had refused to help) and gently washed and bound his wounds, took him to a place where he could recuperate and heal, and - to top it all off - paid for his stay at the inn, promising to return and pay for whatever other expenses might be incurred during his stay.
Matthew 5:43-44 says, "You have heard it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Here in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus shows us exactly what it means to love your enemy. Perhaps his point is that it's useless to ask who your neighbor is. Anybody at all can be your neighbor. We make a person our neighbor, and become neighbors ourselves, when we choose to love them. Even if they are our enemy. Even if we have every right to hate them because they have persecuted us. This is the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven - where we are free to love our neighbor, and free to make neighbors of our enemies by forgiving and loving them.
But it struck me as I heard the gospel reading, and then listened to the sermon, that Jesus has done it again - he's turned our understanding of things upside down and inside out. For this parable is not just about loving our neighbor, but it is also about loving our enemies.
You see, the man who was waylaid by robbers was a Jewish man. The ones who people of the time would have considered his neighbors (the priest and the Levite - fellow Jews) were the ones who acted in very un-neighborly ways; the ones who, practically dripping disdain and fear, carefully walked by on the other side of the road, as far away as they could get.
Yet the one who acted with neighborly love and compassion was for all intents and purposes, culturally, an enemy. Samaritans were, as our rector pointed out this morning, half-breeds - not quite Jewish and not quite Gentile. They were scorned, forced to remove themselves geographically from the main Jewish population, avoided, feared and hated. Certainly he was the one who should have been expected to walk by on the other side of the road, probably with a certain degree of righteous glee that such ill fortune had befallen one of those who opressed him.
But somehow his experiences developed in him a deep compassion, enough that he went to one of his enemies who had been wounded and left to die (someone his own compatriots had refused to help) and gently washed and bound his wounds, took him to a place where he could recuperate and heal, and - to top it all off - paid for his stay at the inn, promising to return and pay for whatever other expenses might be incurred during his stay.
Matthew 5:43-44 says, "You have heard it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Here in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus shows us exactly what it means to love your enemy. Perhaps his point is that it's useless to ask who your neighbor is. Anybody at all can be your neighbor. We make a person our neighbor, and become neighbors ourselves, when we choose to love them. Even if they are our enemy. Even if we have every right to hate them because they have persecuted us. This is the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven - where we are free to love our neighbor, and free to make neighbors of our enemies by forgiving and loving them.
(The painting is "The Good Samaritan", by Giovanni Battista Langetti.)
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