A farm boy accidentally overturned his wagonload of wheat on the road. The farmer who lived nearby came to investigate. “Hey, Willis,” he called out, “forget your troubles for a while and come and have dinner with us. Then I’ll help you overturn the wagon.” “That’s very nice of you,” Willis answered, “but I don’t think Dad would like me to.” “Aw, come on, son!” the farmer insisted. “Well, okay,” the boy finally agreed, “but Dad won’t like it.”
After a hearty dinner, Willis thanked the host. “I feel a lot better now, but I know Dad’s going to be real upset.” “Don’t be silly!” said the neighbor. “By the way, where is he?” “Under the wagon,” replied Willis.
Do you think that maybe Willis’ dad felt stuck on the road? Have you ever felt stuck on the road?
Several weeks ago I was in the district office. Barbara, the district superintendent’s secretary was talking about how she was stuck on the road, not stuck on the road, and then stuck on the road again. It was right after the “Safe-Clear” program had started in Houston. Barbara had a flat tire on her way home from work the night before, in the pouring down rain. She had tried to call her husband for help, with no luck. She did get through to AAA. They were sending help but it might take a little while. Then, she thinks that she might be in luck when a wrecker pulled up. Help might be there quicker than she thought. They tell her that they are going to tow her car off the freeway. She thinks that she won’t be stuck on the road any more because she didn’t have a credit card with her. Then she learns that they are just going to tow her off the freeway, and no further, and they are going to bill her for even that far. And, no, they won’t help her change her flat tire either. Barbara found herself, while not stuck on the freeway, still stuck on the road.
II As I think about it, we have become a society that is less than neighborly. There are way too many of us who are unwilling to help others. All that is necessary is to watch the evening news and we can quickly see that there are plenty of people around who will just sit and watch while others around them suffer. By no means should we ever believe that everyone is that way. All we have to do is to look around this room to see evidence that such is not the case.
Still, we live in a world that lacks the neighborly qualities of old. How many in our society don’t even know their next-door neighbor. I will confess that often in my life I have been one. I might know who my neighbor was by face, when I saw them, but I didn’t even know their name, their children’s names, or what they did for a living. Truly I knew nothing about them except where they lived.
A friend of mine says he knows what the cause of the problem. One day we were talking over lunch and he said, “Air conditioning.” That one took me by surprise. I asked him to explain. He said before there was air conditioning in most every home, we used to spend more time outside. Spending more time outside led to more conversations over the fence or moving from one porch to another. We didn’t want to be in the heat so we spent time outside talking to each other. I think he might have a point, but I am not ready to give up air conditioning.
That did, however, get me to start thinking. It also caused me to take a look at a broader picture than that. We aren’t neighborly because we have isolated ourselves partly because of air condition but more by technology as a whole. We isolate ourselves in front of the television. I sit and email on computer. We talk to friends on the telephone all over the country, really all over the world like we used to talk to our neighbor next door. Then there are headphones and video games, instant messaging and text messaging. All of which brought us in and put us in a cocoon of sorts. “Well preacher, what is so wrong with using the telephone or email or instant messaging or text messaging? You use email, I know, I have gotten at least one from you.” And, that would be true. Still, when we use our communication devices, we can’t shake a hand, we can’t see into each other’s eyes, we can’t lean on a shovel in the garden, talking over the peas, or in a home kitchen, smelling the coffee brewing, and we don’t know, we can’t hear, the warmth of pleasantly shared silence. We can’t do that unless we visit, in person. There’s just something about being with each other, about taking the time to talk, eye to eye, face to face, that makes such a God-graced difference in community unity.
The adverse is what is all too true. Way too many of us isolate ourselves in our homes and know little if anything that happens in the lives of people around us.
Then, to complicate matters further, when the world comes crashing down in our neighborhoods we are taken by surprise and wonder how something like this could have happened “in such a nice neighborhood.” What we have seen is a decline in our ability, no our desire to be neighbors. It would seem that that decline may just be in direct proportion to the growing “me-ism” and I think also be in parallel to the declining faith that is so evident in our society.
III In many ways we have moved from being social creatures to being isolated, solitary creatures. That is not the way that God intended us to be. God intended that we be together. God intended that we look out for each other. God intended that we care for and help one another. And, as a society, we are falling far short.
It seems to me that we have to find ways of being neighbors again to those around us. I want to share with you something that I read several days ago that I think has this idea at heart.
On Deer Isle, off the coast of Maine it is still expected that neighbors give the time necessary whenever an unexpected visitor drops by a home, or stops to talk at the post office, or visits in the aisles of The Galley grocer.
It’s part of the island’s charm, but it’s also necessary for anyone to survive there. Social visiting is how island news travels. It’s faster by mouth than it is by the island’s weekly newspaper. Visiting is how islanders find out whose house has burned down, or whose boat sunk during the storm the night before ; and it’s how islanders always find out a way that they can help. In places like that — where it’s hard to get to and even harder to get off — neighbors must always help neighbors.
Even the non-church-goers of the island believe it’s their Christian duty to give help to others, as you would have them give help unto you. They believe in helping a neighbor. And, for these islanders it doesn’t matter if it’s your enemy that is in trouble. You go and you help anyway. So, there’s often a fund-raiser potluck for the child with cancer, or a church chowder supper for the mission project in Belize, or an island-wide house-raising party for the family whose home burned down yet they do not have enough insurance to rebuild. It also doesn’t matter if you’re a native islander of 13 generations, or a newcomer or even a stranger. Everybody pitches in and everybody visits.
IV I think that maybe that is what Jesus is talking about in our lesson this morning. A lawyer, trying to test Jesus asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus in turn answers a question with a question. He asks, “What does the law say?”
The lawyer responds with what we today have come to know as the greatest commandment. “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 you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
When the man says this Jesus responds by telling him that he has given the correct answer. If he does this he will live.
The man then gives a curious response. Most of us would probably have some kind of awareness as to who our neighbor might be, but this man asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus gives his answer by telling a parable.
This is the story that we have come to know as “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.” A man, a Jew is attacked on the road that one used to travel from Jerusalem to Jericho. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a dangerous one during Biblical times. It was filled with hazards, both natural and human. The historian Josephus said that the road was desolate and rocky and travelers often carried weapons to protect themselves from robbers. Even today when one travels the now paved road that covers the seventeen miles from Jerusalem to Jericho, it is a winding meandering road that has steep descents into deep gorges. In that short distance the altitude drops from 2,500 feet above sea level in Jerusalem to approximately 800 feet below sea level at Jericho.
In the story the traveler is beaten and robbed and left for dead. He is, quite literally, stuck on the road. As he lies there, near death, two people, two of his countrymen, one a priest and one a Levite pass by, neither can be a neighbor and stop and help.
Granted, the temple priests were ritually pure and were not permitted to touch a dead body, which is what the priest might be thinking about the man lying in the road. Touching the close-to-dead man would have ruined his day by making him ritually impure, thereby preventing him from going about his very important business for God.
The Levite, on the same journey as the priest, goes in close, viewing the wounded man almost face to face, but he, too, walks on.
We know that the robbed and wounded man was Jewish. So was the priest. The same could be said of the Levite. This means they were of the same community. It’s like when an American travels in Kazakhstan and meets another American in trouble. It shouldn’t matter if he’s from Montana Florida or anywhere in between, or that you’ve never met before. What matters is you’re both Americans and the other person desperately needs your help.
But you refuse to give aid. Later you learn that a Shiite Muslim, discovering this American’s plight, opens his heart and his wallet to take care of the emergency.
The priest and the Levite both have the chance to do what is right, what needs to be done — but they don’t. Their misunderstanding of what’s important, of what matters, actually gets in the way of their compassion, their humanity and their faith. They fail to act. They fail to see. They fail to feel. They don’t just turn the other cheek; they turn their backs on the suffering of another.
The Samaritan, however, one hated by the Jews not only stops, he helps. He shows Samaritan behavior that we know should be Christian behavior. The Samaritan does a lot. He uses his own olive oil, the petroleum of his day as an ointment. He used his wine as an antiseptic. He risked his back to load the beaten man in his donkey. He pays two days’ wages and offers more, whatever the cost, on his return. All this for a man stuck on the road, he doesn’t even know; for a man who was, until that moment, not his neighbor.
V Being a neighbor in a postmodern culture that stresses anonymity over community, reserve over compassion, me-ism over other-ism, challenges our commitment. It might mean crossing social lines, or cultural divides. It might mean figuring out who is our neighbor by simply sharing 15 minutes across the hedge, or lending a hand to a stranger, or talking at the bus stop to the face you see every day and never acknowledge, or making eye contact on the sidewalk, or in the hallway, or even stopping to save a life.
Imagine what can happen in our church and community if we learn to know our neighbors’ faces and lives, and begin to connect like Samaritans who take the time to help. Imagine what can happen in our world if we start to re-enact this classic story about somebody from outside the neighborhood, from the wrong neighborhood, who willingly drops by and lends assistance.
Imagine that we begin to behave like neighbors. That’s what Jesus is talking about, really. That’s what he is telling us to do. Although we often say we are willing to help, like good Christians should, we rarely drop by and do anything. Although we often see the need, far too often we don’t make the effort to get off our donkeys, lift up fallen persons, and escort them to safety.
The victims of our world — and there are many — would like us to drop by and stop by so they don’t continue to be stuck on the road. Anything less is to fail at our mission.
