“Will You Be My
Neighbor?”
Sermon delivered on
Scriptural Basis: Colossians
1:1-14, Luke 10:25-37
This is a special day in my life, and in the life of this
congregation. In a few minutes, a
commission from the Presbytery of Detroit will install me as your pastor. For the last six months, we’ve essentially
been living together. Getting to know
one another better, learning each others’ styles, our likes and dislikes, what
matters most to each of us. More than
dating, but less than a marriage. Today,
we get married. And just as with a
marriage between a man and a woman, our relationship will change in very subtle
yet substantial ways. For better or
worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health ‘til death us do
part. Or perhaps more accurately in this
case, ‘til enough of you get tired of me to convince the Session to invite me
to leave... In all seriousness, the
length of our time together is quite entirely in God’s hands, so let’s not
worry about that for now. I’d rather
explore relationships, yours and mine, ours with those around us, and most
importantly ours with Jesus Christ. With
apologies to the sainted Reverend Fred Rogers, will you be my neighbor?
I think it’s pretty well known that Fred Rogers, of Mr.
Rogers’ Neighborhood fame, was a Presbyterian minister with a unique calling to
ministering over the airwaves to the youngest amongst us. And contrary to what you might have seen on
the Internet, he wasn’t a Navy Seal or Marine sniper before entering Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary. While I’m just a
bit too old to have watched many episodes of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, I saw
enough of them and certainly have read enough about Reverend Rogers to develop
a deep appreciation for what he was up to. Reverend Rogers actually hated television for what he saw it doing to
children and wanted to make use of this enormously powerful communications
medium to make a positive difference in young lives by spreading a message of
gentleness, kindness and neighborly behavior. Exactly the same message that today’s gospel lesson contains.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is arguably the
best-known of Jesus’ parables, and most certainly the one that has most
effectively worked its way into popular culture. A Good Samaritan is one who stops to lend a
hand to a stranger by the side of the road or out on the water. If you’re an RVer, you know of the
international organization known as the Good Sam Club, a group dedicated to
helping fellow RVer’s who run into trouble in their travels. Yet it’s ironic that the original Good Sam
would have been utterly despised by the injured man he stopped to help. Samaritans and Jews in Jesus’ time had a
deep-seated hatred for one another based on disagreements over the proper
worship of the God of Abraham whom both peoples followed. They each had their own Scriptures, temple
and practices but couldn’t find a way to acknowledge that they both worshipped
the same God. Almost sounds like some of
the inter-religious and inter-denominational battles that are being fought
today, doesn’t it? If you substitute
“Muslim” for “Samaritan” in the text, or maybe “Baptist” or “Catholic” for
“Samaritan,” well, I think you get the idea. The Samaritan traveler really doesn’t belong on the road between
Jesus weaves a whole lot into this parable. The “wrong” kind of person, in the “wrong”
place does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, while members of
this poor soul’s own community pass him by. This must have thrown his interlocutor for a loop. Think of how the lawyer, who may well have
been a scribe since the Greek word for lawyer also can be translated as scribe
or scholar of the Scriptures, an expert in the interpretation of Mosaic Law, must
have been struggling to come up with some response to Jesus after he asks “who
is my neighbor?” and Jesus tells this story. Both the priest and the Levite, powerful images of the religious elite
in Jerusalem, most certainly well-versed in the law which requires extending
hospitality and kindness to strangers cross to the other side of the road to
avoid the beaten man. You could argue
that they assumed that the man was dead, and to touch a dead body would have
rendered them ritually unclean, but what of the higher obligation to arrange for
the burial of the body? And we know from
Jesus’ own words that the man wasn’t dead! A hated enemy fulfills the law, and indeed changes the law into an
embodiment of the gospel of Jesus Christ by loving the injured man as he loves
himself by having pity on him. You can
almost see the lawyer staring at his feet and muttering his chagrined reply –
“the one who showed him mercy” was the neighbor. The one who extended kindness, and through
that act the one who is saved.
In the passage from the Letter to the Colossians, which
may or may not have been written by the Apostle Paul, we get another sense of
what it means to be a neighbor – prayer for others. Constant prayer “asking that you may be
filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and
understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to
him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of
God.” Family, friends, neighbors should
pray for one another, and not just as an intellectual exercise but with our
hearts as well, which is something I’m not sure we’re all that comfortable
with. Justo Gonzalez, a church historian
and United Methodist pastor once explained the difference between Methodists
and Presbyterians this way: when he was facing surgery, his Methodist friends
said “we’re praying for you.” His
Presbyterian friends said “we’re thinking about you.” Now this may well have been antics with
semantics, I often say to someone that I’m thinking of them when in fact I’m
praying for them but don’t know how they might receive that, but the point is I
think well taken. We Presbyterians are
sometimes hesitant to make the much more intimate declaration that we’re
praying for our neighbor.
I’m sure you’ve all heard this parable countless times,
and know that the “standard” answer to the question “who is my neighbor” is
“everybody is my neighbor!” which is absolutely right in terms of who should be
shown kindness and mercy, to whom we should extend hospitality and who we
should pray for. But please don’t forget
that your neighbor is also your husband or wife, your children, your parents
and even your pastor. And I won’t forget
that all of you in this congregation are my neighbors.
In a
very few minutes from now, I will be formally installed as your pastor. We’re getting married, and what God has
brought together let no man or woman put asunder. Our relationship is changing. But we’re still going to be neighbors,
friends if you prefer that word. We’re
still going to love each other, support each other in all that we do. We’ll still laugh together, cry together,
disagree on some points and agree on others. We’ll work for the common good in our church and in the larger community
outside our doors. As neighbors should,
we’ll bind each others wounds and care for one another when the going gets
tough, and we won’t be limiting our definition of neighbor to the folks in the
house next door or across the street, or only to fellow Presbyterians and other
like-minded church people. I’m your
pastor, but I’m also your neighbor. Will
you be my neighbor?
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
