Won't You Be My Neighbor?

(Scriptures: Amos 7:7-17, Psalm 30,
Colossians 1:1-14 Luke 10:25-37)

Some of you may remember or may have been told about the news accounts of the March 14, 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City. At 3:20 a.m., as Kitty Genovese was walking from the Kew Gardens train station to her apartment, a man attacked Kitty with a knife. Kitty started screaming. Lights came on in the surrounding apartments, and a voice came from an upper apartment – “leave that girl alone.” The man with the knife scurried away – but then the lights went out, everyone in the surrounding apartments went back to sleep, and the man returned and attacked Kitty again. Again, lights went up in the apartments, and the man with the knife was startled and actually drove off. But again, the lights went out, everyone went back to sleep and the man returned to Kitty’s apartment building, where he found her slumped in the hallway, and stabbed her to death. At 3:50 a.m., someone finally called the police. For half an hour, 38 of Kitty Genovese’ neighbors heard Kitty Genovese being repeatedly attacked and ultimately stabbed to death – and did virtually nothing. Police later interviewed the neighbors to ask why nobody called the police, and over and over again the police heard the words, “I didn’t want to get involved.”

Today’s Gospel reading includes one of the most familiar parables of Jesus – the parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable has become so much a part of our secular culture that there are laws, called Good Samaritan laws, to protect would-be rescuers from being held liable if their attempts to help inadvertently cause injury. As a side note, I’ll mention that in Minnesota and Vermont, the Good Samaritan laws actually require a person at the scene of an emergency to at least call 911. In any case, given that this is one of those parables that seemingly everyone has heard a million times, it’s a challenge to find anything fresh to say about it. And yet, the lawyer’s question, “And who is my neighbor?” is one with which both the church and the wider society have struggled since the beginning of time.

Today’s reading is situated in Luke’s Gospel directly after last week’s reading about Jesus’ sending the 70 out on their mission of healing and proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Jesus has just gotten done telling the 70 to rejoice, not because they were able to cast out demons, but because their names were written in heaven. These words are barely out of Jesus’ mouth, Luke tells us, when this lawyer pops up out of nowhere – where’d he come from? - and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. “Hey Jesus, how can I get my name written in heaven?” We should understand that, in Luke’s context, this “lawyer” is not an attorney – this isn’t one of the ambulance chasers whose ads you’ll see on late night TV – but one trained to interpret Torah, the law of Moses, and the oral tradition of law that had sprung up to relate the written law to current circumstances. But, like present day lawyers, these experts in the religious law were accustomed to creating ever-finer distinctions to set boundaries between what was permitted and what was prohibited. For example, to clarify the commandment to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy”, rabbinic tradition lists 39 activities that are prohibited on the Sabbath, on the grounds that they constitute “work.” And these distinctions and interpretations came about in a process of dialogue, a process of conversational give and take between rabbi and student, or between rabbis holding differing interpretations of the law.

So this teacher of the law asks Jesus a question, and Jesus answers his question with a question – what does the law say? The lawyer responded with what we have come to know as the two great commandments – You shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength – taken from the Shema in Deuteronomy, which functioned almost as a creed or statement of faith for the Jews – and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, “yep, right answer, do this and you shall live.”

But as I mentioned earlier, the interpreters of the law were not satisfied with a broad, blanket response. So the lawyer tries to make distinctions – “and who is my neighbor?” Perhaps, as in my earlier example about the 39 activities prohibited on the Sabbath, the lawyer expected Jesus to list out various classes of people who were or who were not to be considered neighbors, maybe based on distance, or ethnicity, or economic status, or other factors. And, of course, the reason for the question is not to include more people as potential neighbors, but fewer. He wasn’t looking for more people to love as himself, but fewer. The lawyer’s question was not coming from a mindset of “How can I do more?” but rather “What’s the least I can get away with?”

But Jesus tells a parable, moving the conversation in a different direction. A man was returning from Jerusalem to Jericho, on a road notorious for robbers – today we would say that the man was walking through a dangerous neighborhood. Presumably he’s Jewish; likely he was returning from worship. The man gets beaten up and robbed and left for dead. In succession a priest and a levite – characters who would have had much in common with the lawyer who asked the question – see the man and pass by on the other side. Perhaps they were concerned about becoming ritually contaminated by getting too close to the beaten man – they may have stayed far enough away that they couldn’t tell whether the man was Jew or Gentile, friend or stranger. At any event, as in the Kitty Genovese murder, they didn’t want to get involved.

And here’s where Jesus throws a curveball: To our ears, Jesus’ story starts out a lot like one of our modern day jokes – “a Catholic, a Protestant, and a Jew go into a bar…” His listeners probably expected to hear a story along the lines of “the man got robbed, the priest and the levite walked by, but an ordinary everyday Israelite came along and saved the day. Hooray for the ordinary everyday Israelite. He wins! He gets eternal life. But instead, Jesus throws a curveball – “then a Samaritan came along….”

A Samaritan! – yuck! Jews and Samaritans weren’t on speaking terms in those days. We’re not exactly clear on why they were at odds – the Samaritans were descendents of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, who had intermarried with their Assyrian conquerors, and were considered not fully Jewish. They also disagreed on where to worship – Jews of course worshiped in Jerusalem, while Samaritans considered Mt Gerazim to be their holy of holies. In any case, the lawyer questioning Jesus would almost certainly have put the Samaritan into a box called “not my neighbor.” But instead, the Samaritan went above and beyond in caring for the man who had fallen among robbers – the Jewish man, who initially probably feared even more harm to come from the Samaritan he saw approaching. And then Jesus concludes the parable by asking his questioner – which of the three, do you think, was neighbor to the man who had fallen among thieves. The man made the obvious response – “the one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

“And who is my neighbor?” Interesting question. Especially here in Bridesburg, with our banners on every lightpole proclaiming us “a family-first community” – which would seem to imply that we take care of our own first - so we're good neighbors to each other - and for anyone else, the line forms to the right. Bridesburg is a neighborhood which traditionally has had very clear ideas about who was – or more importantly, who wasn’t – a neighbor.

“And who is our neighbor?” The hostilities between Jew and Samaritan have faded into history. How might Jesus have told this story in more modern times? How would Jesus tell this parable in Bridesburg? Perhaps Jesus would have said that someone who lived in Bridesburg and worked for SEPTA, took a short cut through Kensington on the way home, and got mugged. As the man was lying on the sidewalk, bleeding out on the pavement, pastors from two of our local congregations happened to drive by, but they didn’t stop. But then along came - an undocumented immigrant with only a few words of broken English – or someone returning from services at the local mosque, still dressed in robe and head covering – and stopped, and helped the person, driving him to the ER and calling the police so they could take a report.

To cite Irish statesman Edmund Burke’s words from 1795 – “the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men – or women – to do nothing.” If Jesus had told this parable in Nazi Germany – perhaps it would have been a German assaulted on the road, and a Jew on his way home from synagogue who would have helped him. It may be simplistic to say, but many of the genocides of the past century – Hitler’s murder of millions of Jews in Germany, for example – were able to happen, at least in part, because ordinary citizens did not want to get involved, because ordinary citizens answered the question “who is my neighbor” by saying, “Not Jews” Or on a much smaller scale, almost certainly Kitty Genovese’ life could have been spared on that March evening 46 years ago, had only one or two people been willing to claim Kitty Genovese as a neighbor.

Our readings from Psalm 30 and from Amos tie into this theme of caring for neighbor. Psalm 30 speaks of giving justice to the weak and the orphan, to maintain the right of the lowly and destitute. Although it isn’t as obvious in this week’s reading, much of Amos’ prophetic work consisted of speaking against the social and economic injustices of his day. We’ll hear more about this in coming weeks. Our denomination, the United Church of Christ, is often criticized for the emphasis we put on social justice – but working for justice is how we live out the parable of the Good Samaritan, how we act as neighbors to those who are far away. It’s not an extra, not optional, but basic to the Gospel message. It’s not possible to know every person on the planet by name – only God can do that, and I can barely keep track of the names of the people I’ve met in Bridesburg – but by advocating for social justice we show love to our neighbors who are far away, who we don’t and can’t know individually, but who are nonetheless precious in God’s sight. We may not individually be able to camp out on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem and rescue individual travelers, but, metaphorically, we can advocate for improved safety on the road, so that the robbers aren’t allowed to prey on travelers. Or to elaborate on what we already do in Bridesburg, we have a food cupboard to help the needy. That’s charity, and that’s an incredibly important way to be a neighbor. Justice – creating a society where nobody goes hungry – is another way to be a neighbor. Or to use a well-worn metaphor, charity is pulling drowning people out of the river; justice is trying to stop people from falling in to begin with. It’s not a choice of “either-or” - both are needed.

You may remember the children’s TV show “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.” His jingle “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood” ended with the words “won’t you be my neighbor.” When the words are coming from a nice middle-aged man in a sweater and sneakers – a man who happened to be a Presbyterian minister, as it happens Fred Rogers was – it’s easy to say ‘yes’. But what if the request “won’t you be my neighbor” are coming from – say, somebody like a Kitty Genovese being attacked just a few doors away from where you live? Or an undocumented immigrant who speaks only a few words of broken English? Or someone of a different faith, or race? Or the gay couple living at the end of the block? Or someone with a physical or mental handicap or who suffers from mental illness? The words of Scripture quoted by the lawyer and affirmed by Jesus did not say, “Like your neighbor,” but rather “Love your neighbor.” “Love your neighbor” – even when your neighbor makes you uncomfortable; even when your neighbor is hard to like.

I’m not making an argument for an attitude of “anything goes.” I want to be very clear: from where I stand, all people are welcome here at Emanuel. All behavior is not. Exactly for the purpose of creating a sanctuary - safe space - for our neighbors who may be different, if someone behaves in this house of worship in a manner that is verbally or physically abusive or disrespectful of others, that person will rapidly be shown the door. For abusive people, while we are still called to be neighbors, our neighborliness may have to come from a distance, in the form of praying for a change of heart. But beyond those extremes, my prayer is that we at Emanuel can live out Jesus’ words by listening for the call, “won’t you be my neighbor?” – in whatever form it comes – and when we hear, to respond in love, as God has first loved us. Amen.
**********
At Emanuel United Church of Christ, we love when our neighbors visit. Please join us at 10 a.m. for worship. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org