July 10, 2022 Discipleship 4 St. Andrew Church Rev. Anne McAnelly
First Lesson: Amos 7:7-17
7 This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,
“See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will spare them no longer; 9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. 11 For thus Amos has said,
‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’ ”
12 And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there, 13 but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”
14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, 15 and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’
16 “Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ 17 Therefore thus says the Lord: Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.”
Second Lesson: Luke 10:25-37
25 An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29 But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 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.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Did you know that you can buy lists of your neighbors? Really, services will give you names and addresses of people in a geographic area, even tell you when new people move into the neighborhood. This is used for marketing to monetize those within a certain proximity. The lawyer in the gospel lesson might have wanted this list to help clarify who his neighbor is? But of course, Jesus tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan to expand his understanding of neighbor. As we continue to explore what it means to be a disciple; we recall we do not follow the crowd, we do not use excuses, and we depend on Jesus for empowered discipleship. Now let’s see what neighbor has to do with discipleship. READ
The lawyer wanted to inherit eternal life. Some might say that is the reward for good discipleship. He recites the Shema the heart of the Jewish law, to love God with heart, mind and soul. He adds what Jesus added, to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). Then in true lawyer fashion he asks, “Who is my neighbor?” This is a great question. One I think we like to answer in limited terms. The fewer people on our neighbor list, means the fewer people we have to love. We might think, my neighbor is like me, shares my beliefs, is easy to get along with. But that is not what Jesus is saying. If it were then the Rabbi and the Levite would have been the ones to help the injured man. They were the people within the circle of good Jewish company. But they failed miserably. Instead, a Samaritan shows compassion and cares for the injured man. We know that Jews do not like Samaritans, but it might help to know why. Samaritans have Jewish ancestry but mixed with other tribes when they were left behind when the region was captured. So some think of them as half-breeds who worship multiple gods. So imagine how shocking it would have been to hear that the leaders of your group, passed by on the other side and were not being neighborly, while this less than person who you avoid interacting with is the one to shows mercy.
Let’s explore this within three areas. How not to be a neighbor? Who is your neighbor? And are you being a good neighbor?
Some of you remember the Seinfeld show. In its final episode Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer receive a one-year sentence for failing to help someone who was being robbed. Wondering around a quaint town in Massachusetts, they witness a carjacking.
Being New Yorkers and the kind of people they are they make fun of the guy who is being robbed. Kramer films the incident as a curiosity. They never lift a hand, never shout out, they could care less. The robber speeds off with the car and the police arrive late on the scene. The poor victim stands dazed in the street and Jerry turns to his friends and suggest they go get something to eat. As they walk off the officer stops them and says, “Alright, hold it right there.”
Jerry: Wha’?
Officer: You’re under arrest.
Jerry: Under arrest, What for?
Officer: Article 223 dash 7 of the Lakeland county penal code.
Elaine: What, we didn’t do anything.
Officer: That’s exactly right. The law requires you to help or assist anyone
in danger as long at its reasonable to do so.
George: I never heard of that.
Officer: It’s new, its called the Good Samaritan Law, Let’s go.
The series ends with them serving their time. The critics hated it. It was pretty bad but there was a redeeming quality to that last episode. For nine years Seinfeld’s characters used, ridiculed, and made fun of everyone they met. The four of them were the Priest and the Levites of our modern world. We climb the ladder of success and FedEx gives you the world on time. This is our attitude. Stopping to help someone crimps our style and requires too much of our time. The story of the Good Samaritan underscores our apathy. It reminds us how unwilling we are to stop. Stop what we are doing and help someone who is in need (Sermons.com, Brett Blair). That’s how not to be a neighbor.
So who is my neighbor? We hope our neighbors are people who look like us, think like us and have similar values. We are ok with being neighborly to them because they are part of our group. But for Jesus our neighbor is EVERYONE, not simply the ones we like. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “I get neighbors who cancel my vote, burn trash in their yard, and shoot guns so close to my house that I have to wear an orange vest when I walk to the mailbox” (Holy Envy, p. 194). I love her humor. Are we supposed to be neighborly them? Neighborly to our polar opposite? Yes. Jesus is asking the lawyer, and us, to treat not just his friends, not just the people in his town, and folks stranded on the road as neighbors, but to treat the very people he despises, or dislikes, or makes fun of, or even hates as neighbors. In a word: Love your enemies. Then we read in Amos of a plumbline in the heart of Israel, a gage for what is true and straight. If you hang the plumb line from the highest part of any wall, it will invariably show the straight path because gravity doesn’t lie. The straight path here is to see Christ in every person, and every person as your neighbor. One commentator writes, “Amos is one of the earliest recorded prophets, and his indictment of Israel is simple: The community is not functioning right. It’s breaking down. It’s not working the way it is supposed to. It’s not working the way that God made it to. Sound familiar?” (Rev. Dr. Baron Mullis).
So as our country feels more broken and divided, Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself is vital! The fact that it is a Samaritan who is teaching neighborliness reminds us of this. The Samaritan is part of the wider Israel, the restoration of fullness of Israel. Embracing a Samaritan is like embracing the people on the other side of the political divide. We need to have our nation restored to a country of the UNITED States of America! Treating people we vehemently disagree with as neighbors, is a good place to start.
We know how to not to be a neighbor. We know Jesus sees everyone as our neighbor without prejudice. So now let’s look at what kind of neighbor you are? Jesus asks the lawyer which one of the three men who encountered the beaten man was a neighbor? His answer, “The one who showed him mercy.” Showing compassion, mercy, is how we are good neighbors. Seeing their authentic humanity instead of the ways we might fear them, or dislike them, is the place to start. I found it helpful to note that the word compassion is used three times in Luke and the other two times were by Jesus and the father of the Prodigal, both as agents of God. Jesus is inviting us into showing compassion because this is how God acts in the world. One commentator writes, “In other words, “showing compassion” in the Lukan narrative is a divine prerogative and a divine action. Here is our first clue in the text of Luke itself that the Good Samaritan, when he shows compassion on the man in the ditch, is functioning figuratively as God’s agent” (Working Preacher, Mikael Parsons). It is inspiring to be asked to join in compassion and comforting to know it might be beyond my reach. Yet the very call to act with compassion in the world is foundational in how we live as disciples of Jesus Christ. How we function not just looking out for our own self-interest but offering concern for those we encounter on the road of life. Discipleship rids us of apathy, it motivates seeing all people as children of God and as our neighbors and inspires offering compassion to those who are in need. Amen.
