Becoming Good Neighbors
On July 13 we baptized a very special young woman, and the sermon connected our own baptismal promises with the experience of the Samaritan and the wounded Israelite he found on the road.
Baptism is the moment when we give our big yes to God. In a few minutes we’ll ask Lily some questions and her answer will be “yes.” Imagine if Lily’s baptism made it onto the front page of the newspaper? Baptism is a big deal.
Baptism is an immersive experience, immersion into life with God. That’s why baptism by full immersion (which we’re not doing today) makes so much sense. The author of the book of Deuteronomy says “the word is in your mouth and in your heart”; this is part of the experience of baptism: immersed in God’s word and God’s love. Baptism is also about being immersed in a community, working together to do God’s will. It’s a “yes” to life with God everywhere and anywhere, and it’s a yes to life with neighbors right here.
Today’s Gospel, the story we often call “The Good Samaritan,” is a pointer to how we live out our baptism, a pointer to how we inherit eternal life. I understand eternal life to be life lived to the fullest in the Kingdom of God that is just within our reach here on earth, the kingdom that is always here and always not yet here.
This story is often misunderstood, or at least, mis-emphasized (if that’s a word). The phrase “Good Samaritan” has evolved to be anyone who makes an extra effort to help a stranger. To say this is the point of the story is to miss the main point.
The traveler on the road who was beaten and left for dead was likely a practicing Jew; we know that because he was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho; he would likely have been paying his respects to the temple in the Holy City and was on his way home. The priest and the Levite would have been traveling to Jerusalem to the temple, perhaps to participate or oversee the sacrifices there.
Samaritans were not enemies of Israelites but they were definitely considered “the other.” They shared ethnic and cultural identity with the Jewish people but the two groups were deeply divided. No one would have expected a Samaritan to stop and care for an Israelite wounded in the road. And yet, because this is Jesus telling the story, what happens is not what one might expect. Jesus’ hearers would not experience the story to be a reminder that mercy is not the property of one ethnic group or one religion.
The man lying half-dead, would have been shocked to find himself being ministered to by a Samaritan; sort of like if you were suffering and the only person who stopped was someone whom you disagreed with about every single thing, someone with whom you thought you had nothing in common. You might even consider them frightening. And yet, your life is in their hands.
We can be too quick to judge those who differ from us, and worse, too quick to dismiss other humans in a way that compromises everyone’s dignity.
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I always call our baptismal promises our cheat-sheet for being Christian. These promises that Lily will make in a few minutes and that we will renew call us to inclusion and to mercy toward our neighbors, all of our neighbors. When we promise to continue in the breaking of bread and in the prayers, we do not promise to only do so with those with whom we agree. When we promise to see Christ in everyone, we mean everyone. When we promise to respect the dignity of every human being, we mean every human being. When we are baptized, we are baptized into a neighborhood that spans continents, centuries, and all the things we think divide us these days.
Who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is anyone who differs from us and yet we find in our path. We have all had experiences of passing someone in need without responding. Like Jesus and the first disciples, we live in a time when the need can be overwhelming.
Connecting with those who differ from us, showing mercy to everyone, being in community with strangers...this is a tall order. But luckily, we’re all in this together, and God is with us. This is really what church is—a place to be together and support one another in our ministries in the world, in our families, in the neighborhoods where we live and work. Together, we form a support group for people living their baptism.
In our opening prayer we prayed: O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people and grant that we may know and understand what things we ought to do, and also may have the grace and power to accomplish them. Long ago someone said to me that all of the theology of the Church is in the Collects. If you read the Collects carefully, you’ll see in them that we ask for something and God gives us the grace and power to accomplish it. Sometime open up a prayer book to page 211. (Don’t do it now because we’re about to renew our baptismal covenant and that’s important!) But sometime...you will see in every Collect that God gives us the grace to do what God would have us do.
And so, Lily, as you are baptized into the Holy Trinity which in turn is the container for all that we have and all that we are, I pray that you will always feel the power of God’s love and grace, and I pray that you will always have a community that will never let you forget it.