Who Is My Neighbor?

Luke 10:25-37

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."

Sermon: “Who Is My Neighbor?”

“A sad, proud remnant of a once mighty community…I found myself staring at any straggling scion of this strange race with a riveted fascination, just as one would stare at a living mastodon.”

That is how Mark Twain described his encounter with my people in 1867.  At one point, there were 300,000 of us, but we had dwindled to a mere 140 by the time Mark came visiting.  But we weren’t a people going extinct, despite all evidence to the contrary.  You see, we are a people of survivors.  We are Samaritans.

Today, there are around 730 of us split between communities in the Israeli city of Holon, near Tel Aviv, and near the West Bank city of Nablus.

I know you’ve heard of us.  Your messiah Jesus told a parable about us and, shockingly, we were the good guys.  One of our own rescued a stranger beaten and abandoned on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.  Your Jesus made us an example of hospitality and compassion across all barriers.  It’s fitting that a Samaritan, instead of the priest or Levite, was the one to stop and help a stranger left behind.  You see, we are a people left behind.

When the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah split after the death of King Solomon, and Judah was taken into occupation by the Assyrians, we remained behind, making Shechem our home.  While the surviving Jews scattered into the whole world, we stayed. 

This is why some of us see ourselves as the “pure Jews.”  We are purists because we only hold to the Torah, the first five books of your Bible, and do not allow for Rabbinic interpretations alongside it like other Jews do.  Our only prophet is Moses, so we do not listen to later prophecies or oral laws.  We do not celebrate Purim or Hanukkah, bar or bat mitzvahs, either.

Our claim to purity has, to put it mildly, made our relationship with the majority of Jews in the world complicated.  They don’t much appreciate our claims to being “most” Jewish, and in fact the Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nasi long ago decreed that, though we love Torah like they do, we are in every respect, Gentile. 

Persecution has always been a part of our experience.  We were oppressed by the Romans like other Jews.  Hadrian built a pagan temple on our holy site, torched our scrolls, and forbade us to perform circumcisions. Early people of your Christian faith forcibly converted us and in the 5th century expelled us from Gerizim and built a church to Mary on the site.  Later, Muslim rulers banned us from praying or bringing the Passover sacrifice on Mt. Gerizim, a ban that lasted until 1820.

Now, if I’m painting the picture of us as helpless victims like the man on the road to Jericho in your parable, you misunderstand me.  We have contributed to violence and judgment, too.  But even with persecution heaped upon us and dealt out by us, we have survived.

Our extinction was mostly prevented by the encouragement to marry outside of our own people.  Now, we understand our purity as Jews to be about our actions and our adherence to the God’s law, and not our blood.  But we do not only survive.  We engage in the affairs of our troubled homeland because we are the most ancient religious group still there.  One of our people resides on the Palestinian Parliament, and others are recognized as Israeli citizens.  And we still work to see one another as neighbors. 

We call ourselves the Shamerim, which in Hebrew means, “Observant Ones.”  This is clear in your story, “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."

Being a neighbor for us Samaritans does not just mean surviving ourselves.  It means being observant so that those around us might survive.  That is how we know the answer to the question the expert of the Law asked your Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”  The answer is, our neighbor is anyone struggling to survive.  In our place and time, this is why we are active in reconciliation talks between Israelis and Palestinians, so that in our climate of violence, we might all survive.

But you don’t have to be a Samaritan living in the Middle East to struggle to survive.  Every human being knows this struggle in the need to make it home safely, to discover purpose in each day, to find hope that things will get better, to know a life without violence, hate or regret.

What your Jesus taught in his famous parable about us is that survival will not happen if we only stick to our own.  It took a Samaritan who would break religious and cultural customs to touch an injured stranger for him to survive.  And it took our people inviting others into our small community to survive and not go extinct as Mark Twain predicted.

We can only survive in this global neighborhood of God if we stick together.  We must risk ourselves enough to get beyond a history of being left behind or feeling superior, in order to recognize the humanity of the one we could so easily hate.  Loving our neighbor as ourselves is only achieved when we all first become Shamerim, observant ones, that recognize that we are all children of God, with the same longing to survive, and with the same obligation to seek the survival of another. 

What you may not realize from your story about the “good” Samaritan is that, when he decided not to pass by great need, but to instead stop and care for a stranger, he did not just save that stranger.  The Samaritan was saved, too: saved from religion that reached only upwards and not outwards, saved from letting politics and culture motivate more strongly than love and compassion, saved from denying humanity when it was right there in his path on that dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho. 

When we actually see and then care for our neighbors, we are all saved.  We all survive.  Do not pass your neighbor by.  For in their survival is your own, in their salvation is your own.    Or as your wise Jesus put it, “Do this and you will live.”  Amen.