The Rev. Dr. Kenneth H. Saunders III
St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN
July 10, 2022
Deuteronomy 30:9-14Psalm 25:1-9
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37
Back in the spring, during the season of Lent, in our Christian formation class, we studied together Stephanie Spellers' book, Radical Welcome: Embracing God, the Other, and the Spirit of Transformation. As Stephanie says, when we hear the words, radical welcome, to easy to initially think of the friendly way we receive people at the door or the quality of our snacks during the social minute following the service, but in her book, that bears the name Radical Welcome, she encourages the reader to stretch beyond… to push beyond the usual way we would think of inclusive welcome and go a bit deeper.
Stephanie defines Radical Welcome the way I think a church should look at it… She says that Radical Welcome is a "spiritual practice; it is an attitude of welcome that combines a clear awareness of power and patterns of inclusion and exclusion." It's an awareness and acceptance of who you are, your acceptance of others, and the spiritual transformation resulting from the encounter.
Radical welcome goes beyond diversity and guides us to inclusion… I want to share a quote from Verna Myers, the cultural activist, "Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance…."
For some information on how Jesus taught Radical Welcome, we can turn to our Gospel reading for today. As familiar as it may seem, the lesson from Luke's gospel says something very profound about who we are and how we should be in relation to the other… of how we should all be agents of radical welcome.
The lawyer questioning Jesus about eternal life made a distinct choice to frame his question this way, trying to trick Jesus… The lawyer asked him a question directly related to the Mosaic law (of which he was considered an expert!). Jesus, as he so often does, answers the question with a question saying, "what is written in the law? What do you read there?" As if they may be two different things… and the lawyer… who is the resident expert in the law, responds with what we know now as a summary of the law… "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."
According to Jewish law, the lawyer knew that he was responsible for loving those like him and those who are not like him but who live in close proximity to him, although they are not part of his people, the "children of Israel" as he defines the term. With his answer, the lawyer backstrokes a bit, knowing that Jesus had outsmarted him, and then he tries to "justify" himself by asking Jesus to define neighbor.
Then Jesus, as he does though-out his ministry, chooses to use a parable story to explain things… We know the parable well, probably because it is one of the first parables that we ever learned as a child in Sunday School… It's called the parable of the Good Samaritan…
The Good Samaritan… it's sort of an oxymoron to call it "good Samaritan" because Samaritans in Jewish society were not considered anything close to good. There was extreme tension between the Samaritans and the Jews. The Samaritans were most definitely the "other" – or the outsider.
Jesus presents his parable story, but Luke doesn't explain to the reader why some of the characters involved did what they did. Maybe it's because the folks Jesus was talking to already understood the roles of the characters involved and their predicaments.
But today, we are out of context, and if we don't understand who these characters are, it makes us start to stereotype the characters and become judgmental. And then, we create the story, causing it to play out the way we want it to rather than focus on what it teaches us.
The noted biblical scholar, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine (who is also a devout Jew), says that the parable of the good Samaritan has come to mean whatever we want it to mean. As a society, we have co-opted the name for hospitals and do-good agencies. And we have people and politicians associating it with anything or anyone that does good for another.
Dr. Levine says this action is inevitable and tells us that texts should always take on new meaning as they are encountered by new readers from new cultural contexts. However, she also cautions that texts have their own original context and intent. Like Stephanie Spellers said, in order to understand how a message will transform us, we need to have a clear awareness of power in relation to the actions and patterns that exist. We need to step back a second and take a look… We need to examine the scene more closely and look at the context. Looking at the context of the parable this way allows us to gain a deeper understanding of why the characters in this pericope from Luke and the characters in Jesus' parable stand out the way they do.
The traveler on the road to Jericho in the parable is stripped of his clothing, beaten, and he is left for dead in a ditch. He has not only been robbed of his possessions but also of his dignity and health, and he is left barely alive. Luke describes him as having "wounds."
We need to remember that this parable was told in response to the lawyer asking about how he gains eternal life — so, initially Jesus insinuates that the lawyer should probably be more worried about those left half-dead in a ditch than about himself.
But still, half-dead is still alive. Those listening to the story who identify with the robbed man can only hope that someone will soon come and rescue him. And because they identify with him, their question — and now our question becomes: "Who will help me?"
Let's look at the priest and the Levite. Some scholars have stereotyped them, giving them an excuse, saying that they needed to remain pure – and maintain their religious purity according to mosaic law – so they pass by on the other side of the road to avoid any contact with the naked, bleeding body.
We need to stop making excuses for these guys. But we must be careful of stereotypes and not let them get in the way. Jews are required by law (as the lawyer points out) to love neighbors and strangers. Because the law (Torah) demands that the man in the ditch be cared for.
But, these men made a conscious choice NOT to stop and offer the man assistance. They don't even go near him. Maybe they were scared themselves. Perhaps they thought it was a trap – Maybe they felt that they would get jumped and robbed too. After all, the trade route between Jericho and Jerusalem was known to be rough.
Then we have the element of storytelling in the parable and what Dr. Levine calls the rule of three… when a Priest and Levite are mentioned in a Jewish story, the third is always expected to be an Israelite. But Jesus is telling the story, and even as a jew, Jesus never tells the story the way one would expect it. So, Instead of an Israelite, who would be expected by those gathered there, the person who stops to help is a Samaritan. The person who makes the decision to go near the man and offer assistance is the very person who is the other – the outsider to Jewish culture…
In modern story terms, to use a star wars reference, this would be like going from Luke and Has S to someone like Darth Vader. Inserting the Samaritan into the story, Jesus knew he would create a quandary for the lawyer. The Samaritans didn't have any standing in Jewish society. They were despised by the Jews, and they were considered unclean. They were mixed up with their false beliefs and pagan practices.
This particular Samaritan was presented as traveling back and forth on the road; from Jerusalem to Jericho, he carried oil, wine, and what seemed to be some considerable funds. Some scholars suggest that he might be a merchant or trader of goods. Which makes the parable very complex. A trader of goods at that time was a despised profession because they were thought to have gotten rich at the expense of others. So he has two strikes against him already… But this Samaritan trader decides to stop…
He decides to stop and help the poor man injured, bleeding, and lying there on the road, Using the wares he carries with him (his livelihood)… He cleans, anoints, and dresses the man's wounds and then goes above and beyond the call of duty, loads him on his donkey, and takes him to a nearby inn.
So we have Jesus' telling his parable this morning to a group of listeners who understand the story's characters. They also realize the predicament Jesus presents to the lawyer as he serves up the unexpected.
Although we may have learned this story as a child, we may not have thought about it this way. On the surface, the story seems pretty simple, and it seems Jesus gives the lawyer a clear answer. In the parable, he puts care for a fellow human being ahead of personal fear and prejudice…
Therefore Jesus explains the true sense of the law – And what it means "to love your neighbor" without worrying about who your neighbor is. He may have not called it radical welcome, but I personally feel like this is how Jesus explains Radical Welcome.
It might make us angry today that the priest and the Levite characters in the story ignore the injured man, but Jesus understood the folks he was talking to. He had the outsider in the story show mercy and compassion. Mercy and compassion for the man he dared to come near – a man injured on the road after being robbed.
He knew that the folks would wonder why a priest or Levite would decide to pass by on the other side of the road. But Jesus knew his context. He knew that the group he was talking to would-be "outraged" because he used the Samaritan in the story to show mercy to the man. And because he used the Samaritan to be the one who became the neighbor, Jesus established a new standard by which to act.
In our lives, in our journey as followers of Jesus, we are often faced with the question of who our neighbor is, and we are continually challenged to offer our neighbor an attitude of Radical Welcome – To love them as we would love ourselves.
If we have the attitude of radical welcome in our hearts, and if we love everyone who is "the other" to us without condition, then we are doing precisely what Jesus wants us to do! We are not only inviting them to the party… But we are asking them to dance.
As we go forth from this place, I pray we can take some of the transforming teachings from this very brief yet complex parable by Jesus. From it, we can understand what Radical Welcome means to Jesus – that we not only welcome but care for and love ALL – that we're radical.
We shouldn't jump to conclusions about someone because of stereotypes and then judge them because they act or dress a certain way, but we should strive to engage them and understand and try to get to know them and learn from them.
Just because someone is different doesn't make them bad. We need to let go of our convictions and understandings and do what Jesus teaches us so that we can be a loving, nurturing, healing, and reconciling presence in the broken world around us.
