20 Pentecost/Year C
Alternative lectionary: BE Campaign: LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR – week 4
October 23, 2022
Ruth 1:1-8; Psalm 133; 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a; Luke 10:25-37
(As a reminder): For the month of October, we are joining other Episcopal and Methodist Churches nationwide, in using an alternative lectionary as part of the BE Campaign…TO BE JUST, TO BE KIND, and TO BE HUMBLE…It’s based on the teaching of the prophet Micah, who, in a time not unlike our own in 700 BCE, asked the question: “What does the Lord require of us, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God?”
As we gather today on this fourth (out of five) week series, we are exploring how all of this comes together this week with what it might mean and look like to Love Your Neighbor …in a time of so much division, uncertainty and anxiety in our world…
I wonder if you noticed anything new about what it means to “LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR” in listening to today’s reading from Luke and reflecting back on the sermon themes from the past few weeks: To Be JUST, to BE KIND, to BE HUMBLE…
It is such a familiar parable… I think most of us believe we understand this story pretty well…and can see ourselves identifying with the different persons in the stories at different times in our lives…
The Episcopal Church teaches that we believe the scriptures are the living Word of God…so if we approach the reading and hearing of scriptures with open eyes, ears, hearts and minds, the spirit is always nudging us and asking us to consider what New Good news is being offered to us in the hearing of the scriptures today – in this time, and place in our lives…
What jumped out at you today in hearing this familiar parable of the Good Samaritan?
Something in pretty much every sentence jumped out at me today...but if I had to just offer up a few words…I would mention…love, God, heart, soul, strength, mind, neighbor, moved with pity, cared for, showed mercy…go and do likewise…
Let me read this scripture passage again from Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Children of God storybook bible…This chapter of Luke is entitled The Good Neighbor:
Jesus said, “All you need to remember is to love God and your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”
But who is my neighbor? a teacher asked.
Jesus told a story to explain.
“One day, a Jewish man was robbed and wounded and left lying in the road. A little while later, a priest walked by, but pretended he didn’t see the injured man. Soon, another man came by. He worked at the temple, but he didn’t stop either. At last, a Samaritan came down the road. His people were enemies of the Jews. But the Samaritan stopped! He got off his donkey and walked beside him to the nearest inn. He put him to bed and took care of him.
Now, asked Jesus, “which of these people was a good neighbor?”
“The Samaritan,” replied the teacher.
“That’s right,” said Jesus. “You are all part of the same family – God’s family. God wants you to be like him, loving and kind to everyone – even your enemies.”
What questions are coming up this time for you after hearing it a second time? What do you think Jesus (the Gospel) is saying to you and asking you to consider?
What does it mean to Love God and your neighbor as much as you love yourself? Are you wondering, who is my neighbor? Are you wondering why someone who rob and wound a Jewish man, and leave him lying on the side of the road for dead? Are you wondering why the priest and other temple leader didn’t stop to help? Are you wondering – how it is – that a Samaritan, whose people were known as enemies of the Jews, was the one who stopped to help and offer care for the injured man…are you wondering how you could be a good neighbor…especially to those who aren’t on your friends’ list, or in your usual circle of care and concern?
We’ve heard this parable of the “Good” Samaritan: the Good Neighbor, the Just Neighbor, the Kind Neighbor, the Humble Neighbor, numerous times over the years…and even those without any particular church affiliation, or in other faith traditions – are pretty familiar with this teaching story, too…
I think we understand what is written in the “law”… “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.”
I think we know who our neighbor is…there’s plenty of posters out there on facebook that remind us of that:
And as Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has often included in his messages to the whole church:
I think we know and understand all of this…
That’s why we are here….to love God, and our neighbors...all of them…
Yet our challenge is always to figure out how to move beyond just knowing all the right words, saying all the right words, and claiming to understand the meaning of all Jesus’ parables and teachings…because as Paul reminds us in today’s reading from 1st Corinthians … If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
LOVE, God’s love, made known to us in the life and teachings of Jesus…can make all the difference in the world…for us and our neighbors…
This way of love asks us to take the next step out in faith, with God and with one another, to Love our Neighbors, as Jesus has loved us and taught us, to Love our Neighbors, with our hearts and our hands and our feet…not by just sitting comfortably with all the right words and understanding of what the teachings are all about, and with those we already call friends - but to reach out with a loving heart and a helping hand across the divide, to invite others to help you and join you in reaching out and caring for others in your midst…and to cease with the judgment of who is worthy or not to be loved and cared for and treated with respect and dignity…
This is no easy task…to love our neighbors as Jesus has shown us…to love our neighbors, as we love ourselves…but when we strive to follow Jesus in this way of love…our acts of love built upon a foundation of justice, kindness and humbleness, can transform the lives of every one of us…
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…Love never ends…
God’s love never ends …for us and for all our neighbors…
When you go home today…find another translation of today’s familiar gospel reading about the Good Samaritan……read it for the 3rd time, sit with it, pray with it…and ask yourself this question, to help you discern what’s next for you…
What is Jesus, (the Gospel) calling you to do in this time and in this place, as you are being sent out into the world to LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR?
Rev Julie Platson, St Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church, Sitka, AK
Closing prayer/hymn: The Gift of Love (RENEW #155)
Words by Hal Hopso
"The Gift of Love" Recording by Saint Peter's Episcopal Church, Essex Fells, NJ
Though I may speak with bravest fire,
And have the gift to all inspire,
And have not love; my words are vain,
As sounding brass, and hopeless gain.
Though I may give all I possess,
And striving so my love profess,
But not be given by love within,
The profit soon turns strangely thin.
Come, Spirit come, our hearts control.
Our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed.
By this we worship, and are freed.