Pentecost 5C 2025

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

Take a moment, if you will, and think about the last person you expect to meet in
heaven. Or maybe it will be the person you really don’t want to meet there. Go ahead,
go with your gut, your first response.

Got it? Now think about your response when you hear Jesus tell you that this
person is your neighbor, and, to borrow the label given to today’s parable, “good.”
Luke tells us that Samaritans and Jews do not hold things in common. That is
the understatement of the year whenever it’s read. After the death of Solomon, two of
his sons set up rival kingdoms—one based in Jerusalem, called Judah, and one known
as the northern kingdom in Samaria, called Israel. The northern kingdom is the location
of Jacob’s well, and to those who live there, a central place of worship equal in
significance to the Temple in Jerusalem.

About eight centuries before the time of Jesus, prophets such as Amos, Micah,
Hosea, and the first one named Isaiah warned the northern kingdom, Israel of the error
of its ways. Those errors included neglect of the poor, mistreatment of the aliens living
there, and assorted manifestations of idolatry. Hold the writings of those prophets
alongside today’s daily news.

The Assyrian army attacked Israel and destroyed the kingdom before heading
toward Judah. Judah was spared that time, but those left in the ruins of Israel were
forced to intermarry outside their faith. So, in the eyes of the Judeans, they were not a
pure race of people according to the law of Moses. Unlike Judah after the Babylonian
exile a few centuries later, the northern kingdom was not rebuilt.

The two groups—Samaritans and Judeans, now known as Jews—became not
only rivals, but bitter enemies. I’ve been told by one rabbi that in the first century, if one
met the other on the road, they were each sworn to try to kill the other.
So, when a young lawyer meets Jesus and professes his obedience to the law, he
lays a trap for Jesus. Little does he know that Jesus knows a trap when he sees it. When
Jesus defines the word “neighbor” as a culturally sworn enemy, and, therefore, as one
whom the lawyer is commanded to love by the same law he proudly confesses to keep,
he finds himself caught in his own trap.

Consider that as you imagine another scene. You’re standing in the hot sun on a
desolate hillside when you hear the words “Father, forgive them.” You look up and see
eyes focused on someone holding a hammer, another a few extra iron spikes. Then they
move and focus on you. And me. And on that person we least expect to see in heaven
or really don’t want to meet while on earth.

Many of us live in or have lived in neighborhoods where those living around us
looked and spoke just like us. In some cases, neighborhoods were designed and
marketed as suitable for those who looked and talked alike, ensuring some that their
definition of neighbor would be comfortable and self-assuring.

Now those distinctions, those divisions might be more along lines of economic
status, as housing costs and property values are often designed to make those
differences evident to any who might otherwise hope to live nearby. Homeowners’
associations help enforce some of these distinctions, because property values are more
important in our culture than truthfully answering the question “who is my neighbor”
with the reply, “everyone Jesus died for.” Everyone is the only real answer to that
question.

So, to turn the familiar Fred Rogers question to the flip side, we might go ahead
and ask “will you be my neighbor?” At the same time we ask it, though, we must also
ask “may I be your neighbor?” And no matter what the answer is to either form of the
question, continue to show mercy, offer healing and consolation, even share the
uncertainty that new relationships bring to our lives. Listen to the stories new
neighbors have to tell, and share your own. Most of all, let the story of the merciful love
and grace of God be the foundation of it all.

The world has its fill of how to make enemies. The lawyer testing Jesus asks
“who is my neighbor.” Jesus’ response at the end of the parable tells him to go and be a
neighbor to find the answer to his own question. The Body of Christ, the followers of
the living God, exists to make neighbors so that everyone might share in the identity
Jesus offers to all. That identity? Friends.