Sermon for 5th Sunday after Pentecost
It’s Always the Lawyers
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
I read a lot of sermons as I prepare to share mine with you. And, every once in a while, I find a sermon that is so good, so close to what is on my heart and mind that week that I have to share it with you, with my own edits and additions, of course. This is that sort of sermon, thanks to the Rev. Amy Butler, former pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City.
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It is always the lawyers, isn’t it? In today’s gospel lesson from Luke we find that it’s a lawyer who is stirring up trouble for Jesus. Again.
Try to imagine the scene. Jesus, at this point in the story a popular, dynamic young rabbi, Jesus is teaching the Torah, religious law, to the rapt attention of increasingly large crowds of people. A lawyer in the crowd asked Jesus to offer a rabbinical opinion about religious law, to help him distill the law in the detailed and intricate way that lawyers like to do.
An interplay like this one was a common occurrence in the society of Jesus’ day: this is how the powerful, elite, professional, educated folks interacted with each other, a sort of unwritten societal standard not unlike any big city party when, upon meeting someone for the first time you immediately know to ask, “Well, what do you do?”
The lawyer was certainly interested in Jesus; Jesus had been generating a lot of buzz all over the countryside. Some of the things he was saying and doing were edgy, strange, different. The lawyer wanted to engage him in a sort of intellectual swordplay, where they’d spar with each other over questions of merit and importance. It was an exercise in finding your place in the grand order of things; trying to figure out who this Jesus guy was and whether he was really rising in the ranks of Jerusalem power brokers like many suspected and, if so, to make sure they knew each other.
So, this is how the scene unfolds, two educated Jewish men, playing the professional games we all play. You know how it goes when you are at a professional meeting – you look at name tags, ask about hometowns, ask, “What do you do?” All part of the professional games we feel we have to play.
The lawyer testing Jesus was just doing what educated men of that day did, you know, professional posturing. But he had a surprise in store for him, because Jesus was not your average young rabbi. Jesus regularly and consistently took generally accepted assumptions about power and influence and turned them upside down leaving all the folks who thought they understood puzzled, scratching their heads in confusion.
What’s notable today is that our gospel lesson comes from what is, perhaps, the most familiar and popular chapter in Luke’s gospel, where Jesus tells the most famous parable of all, the Parable of the Good Samaritan. You know the story.
A lawyer challenges Jesus, asking for exact instructions about how he might attain eternal life. True to form, Jesus answers the lawyer’s question with a question of his own. The lawyer, of course, already knows the answer. So, the lawyer shows Jesus he knows the answer: the way to attain eternal life—to win in the end—is to follow the two most important commandments, love God and love your neighbor.
Okay then.
But you know lawyers. This one follows up with another question. He wants to spar some more with Jesus, to test him and see if he’s really got the chops to make it in upwardly mobile Jerusalem society: “And who is my neighbor?”
And so, as he typically did, Jesus tells a story. You know this story as well as I do; here’s the way we often hear it told:
There was a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was a particularly treacherous stretch of land, a road you should never travel alone because of bands of robbers who regularly attacked travelers. Such had happened to this man, who was beaten severely, robbed of everything he owned, and left by the side of the road to die.
Along the road came a priest, who was traveling the same way. The priest was really important in society; part of the very elite class of temple staff. The lawyer listening to Jesus would have known that this guy was a power broker; really important; elaborate-motorcade-making-me-late-to-an-appointment kind of important. The priest saw the hurt man, crossed the road to the other side, and passed by without stopping to help.
Next came a Levite. Levites were also part of temple leadership. Levites assisted the priests in the work of the temple and were born into their calling. Maybe the Levite wouldn’t have had a whole motorcade, but he fell into the power hierarchy somewhere near the top; you’d notice him in a restaurant, in other words. And so, Jesus tells us, the Levite also sees the hurt man, crosses over to the other side of the road, and passes on by. He wasn’t quite as important as the priest, but I always assumed that he was in a hurry—he had things to attend to at the temple and so he didn’t stop. Just too preoccupied and self-involved.
Then comes a Samaritan man along the road. Well, the lawyer listening to Jesus could immediately understand the contrast here. While a priest was as high as you could go in Jewish society, a Samaritan was on the opposite end of that spectrum.
By the time Jesus and the lawyer were doing their little intellectual sparring, Jews and Samaritans had hated each other for over a thousand years. When King Solomon died the monarchy broke into two factions: the ten tribes of the North rebelled and founded a capital in the city of Samaria. The two southern tribes made their capital in Jerusalem. There was long-held ethnic hostility and political and religious rivalry between Jews and Samaritans. So, when Jesus said “Samaritan” the lawyer immediately knew where that man fell in the ranks of power.
And you know what happened next. The Samaritan stopped and helped the wounded man; bandaged him and took him to safety; provided for him until he was fully healed.
The Samaritan was the good guy.
And the way we’ve always heard this story interpreted is this: the lawyer asked, “who is my neighbor?” The lawyer wants to know what he has to do, who he has to help.
And the answer we have always heard from this story is that the hurt man on the side of the road is our neighbor, of course. We should always go out of our way to help anybody who needs help, no matter who they are. The Samaritan demonstrates this.
And this of course is a good way to interpret this parable, one that I am sure Jesus would have taught had he been the kind of teacher whose main objective was to leave us with a nice morality tale that makes us feel guilty when the guy at the stop light with the sign that says “hungry” is standing there and we pretend like we don’t see him while hoping the light will change.
But let’s look again.
It is always tricky to hear a beloved and oft-told passage of scripture; we assume we know what it means. But we should always be sure to listen again, carefully, because we do not want to mistake familiarity for understanding.
There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Bad idea to travel all alone and you know what happened. You can just imagine him lying broken and bleeding on the side of the road.
Along comes a priest, who sees the man and crosses the road to the other side, then hurries along.
Well, of course he does. He’s a priest; he has people waiting for him at the temple. His presence and service are indispensable there, and to touch someone hurt and bleeding would mean he was unclean and unable to perform his work. He couldn’t stop; his obligations to God meant he had to pass on by and hope the man got some help soon. Same with the Levite. Holy, powerful, pulled by the obligations of his position and power. He couldn’t stop either.
I don’t think it’s fair to label the priest and the Levite shady, power hungry and selfish people. They passed on by, but they may very well have passed on by regretful that their obligations at the temple prevented them from stopping.
Regardless, it was the Samaritan, the one of the three who was decidedly “unholy,” with no power in society to speak of. For whatever reason this Samaritan had the time and the impetus to stop and help. And he did.
Jesus asks the lawyer: three men, two powerful and holy; one an outsider. Who’s the neighbor?
The lawyer has to admit - it’s the Samaritan.
But that wasn’t the question. The lawyer had asked: who is my neighbor? Jesus’ story in answer challenged: who is being a neighbor? And this is exactly how Jesus turns this parable on its head, showing us a different expression of power.
In answer to the lawyer’s question Jesus did not take out a paper and pencil and make a list: the homeless guy on the street corner, the person with the flat tire, the checker at WalMart, the college student with nowhere to stay. Jesus did not make such a list and give it to the lawyer so that he could check them off one by one and meet the legal requirements for heaven.
No, Jesus does not answer the lawyer’s question at all. Instead, Jesus asks a different question: are you ready to BE a neighbor?
As he often does, Jesus completely reframes the conversation.
The lawyer standing there that day wants to have a scholarly conversation with a young, up and coming rabbi. This young lawyer wants to debate religion and rules.
But Jesus’ story about powerful and holy people doing what they thought was right alongside a societal outcast who actually did what was right sends an upside down message to the powerful lawyer in search of his next step up the social ladder: Do you think you’re powerful because you follow the rules?
If you do, you’re headed down the wrong path.
True power comes from a faith that animates our lives and transforms our hearts; it’s not about who you are on the power grid of human life. It’s about the power of sacrificial love that knows that outward trappings of power mean very little; it’s inner transformation that results in radical actions of love that seem to all the respectable people…well…a little strange.
True power doesn’t come from your professional label, your societal position, your “power” in the world. The young lawyer thought he, a powerful guy, was having a theoretical discussion with a powerful rabbi, where they could come to some understanding about the rules. But Jesus changed the question and described a world in which the people who looked powerful on the outside were actually distracted by outward expectations and human constructs while the pitiful societal outcast was the real powerhouse.
Who is my neighbor? Could I have a list? No, says Jesus, that is not important.
How do I be a neighbor? Now that’s a better question.
I wonder how this scene might play out here in the big and powerful city of Los Angeles? Well, being LA, it probably would have happened at a pool party, don’t you think?
Think of such a party.
You arrive at the party and quickly notice Jesus, standing and teaching near the bar, surrounded by people drawn into the charismatic manner in which he’s speaking. So, you sidle up to the bar and order a drink, then kind of push your way through the crowd. You see a few friends and associates, pass out a couple business cards, until you get into his line of sight.
Wow, this guy really is compelling.
And then Jesus looks your way and, surprise, Jesus starts talking to you! The conversation begins with the typical question, of course, “What do YOU do?” and it progresses from there. You can tell: this guy is really smart; he seems to have a unique take on the pressing political and social issues of our day.
Wanting to be sure you make a good impression and just in case you need him as a contact in the future, you toss out a question like: “Hey Jesus, what do you think we need to do to address the immigration crisis in our nation?”
You get ready to listen intently to his answer; you even stick your hand in your pocket and press the voice recorder on your iPhone, so you are sure to remember what Jesus says.
Jesus pauses for a minute, maybe he swirls his drink, and then replies: “A mother and her two young children fled violence in Honduras and, after a very long and difficult trip, mostly on foot, entered the USA without proper paperwork …”
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, July 13-14, 2019
