5 Pentecost, 2025-C: The neighbor is YOU

This sermon can be watched live on our YouTube channel at 24:49.

Lectionary: Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37 (Proper 10, Track I)

En el nombre de Dios, cuyo camino es un camino de amor, vida, restauración, sanación y comunidad armoniosa… In the name of God, whose way is a way of love, life, restoration, healing, and harmonious community. Amen.

I begin today with our Psalm, which has a superscription that it was written by Asaph, a Levite and musician, appointed by David to assist with liturgy. This Psalm contains the surprising notion of a council of heaven consisting of other gods, a strange thing for a religion steadfastly devoted to there being only one God.

The word “gods” as used here did mean divine beings, but also referred to human magistrates, judges, who were socially elevated by power, prestige, and authority. It is these that God declares corrupt, saying. “How long will you judge unjustly and show favor to the wicked?” It’s important to note that ‘wicked’ means those who deserve the punishments they are imposing on the underserving.

God then issues clarification on the true responsibilities of those magistrates: “save and rescue the weak and the orphan, defend the humble and needy, and deliver them from the power of the corrupt leaders who walk in wrongdoing. They have made the whole world unstable; the foundations of the earth are shaken. They think themselves immune to the consequences of their actions, but, God says, they will fall and die like any other ruler.

Most importantly, in this psalm God reminds those in positions of power and authority: ALL of you are MY children. The psalm concludes with a plea: Arise, O God, and rule your way. Save and rescue the weak and the orphan, defend the humble and needy, and deliver them from the power of the wicked leaders. Then all the nations of the world will belong to you.

That is my prayer today.

A similar theme is played out in the OT reading. Amos is prophesying against the way the people in the northern city of Bethel are behaving. In response, the king, Jeroboam, tells Amos to leave and never return.

As Amos leaves, he shakes the dust from his feet saying, the worst things you can think of will happen to you unless you change your ways and get back in line with God’s will for all, which is what the plumbline represents. God set this plumb line, this way of living, among them, and the prophet declares that God will never again ignore the people’s errancy. The high places, including their altars, will be destroyed, the rulers will die in the violence they have precipitated, and every bad seed they planted will destroy all of you who follow their ways instead of God’s way.

At this point, we almost need a moment to catch our breath as we realize how apropos this is for our time! Thankfully, we have the letter to the Colossians, which reminds us, that Jesus has rescued us from the power of dark leaders, and in him we have redemption by the forgiveness of our sins. 

But what does this promise really mean? What is redemption by the forgiveness of our sins?

First, as familiar as this particular phrase is, it appears only in the letters that most scholars agree were not written by Paul. This letter to the church in Colossae was probably written by a student of Paul’s, maybe even by Epaphras, who founded this Christian community. It was written to encourage them to be strong in their faith in Jesus as religious leaders around them argued over whether or how to combine their Greek philosophies and Jewish rituals.

Redemption is a reclaiming. God finding us when we’ve lost our way and returning us to divine safety. Any parent who has lost a child at a store or public event knows the joy this sort of reclamation enkindles. Sometimes, the child is blissfully unaware they were even lost or in danger. The metaphor works spiritually too. 

…by the forgiveness of sin… This is key for us. As we heard in the psalm, we are all children of the Most High. God pardons all we may have done while we were lost and rejoices when we are found and reclaimed – as per Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son.

It’s a hard concept, really, because it pricks our sense of justice – usually applied to someone else’s sins. This is where our gospel story comes in and it completely obliterates our tendency to live from an “us and them” perspective

The lawyer in this story is an expert in Jewish law. His question: “’What must I do to inherit eternal life?’” is meant to challenge Jesus’ understanding and interpretation of Mosaic law.

We could spend the next three hours discussing just this question, but I have an appointment after church, so instead, let’s just look at a couple of the important points it contains:

First, I ask you: who is the subject of this question? The lawyer. He wants to know what he must do for himself. How does he inherit eternal life? It sounds like a prize or reward, doesn’t it?

So then, what is eternal life? Despite the Church’s habit of treating eternal life as an afterlife reward for good behavior, eternal life is very simply living – right now – in the presence and purpose and will of God who is eternal.

Sensing the challenge, Jesus turns the tables on the lawyer. You’re the expert. What do you say is written in the law?

The lawyer knows the answer, and even shows some familiarity with Jesus’ own interpretation of the Torah by connecting the same dots Jesus was publicly connecting: "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 [from Deuteronomy 6:5], and your neighbor as yourself. [from Leviticus 19:18]”

Right, Jesus says, do this and you will live. But the lawyer needed more. Don’t we all?

He asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

A man was traveling alone on a road known to be filled with violent thieves. He is, unsurprisingly, attacked, robbed, and left for dead.

Jesus doesn’t tell us if this man is Jewish, Samaritan, or a foreigner. Since he was stripped of his clothes, and was unconscious so he couldn’t talk, his identity category remains unknown.

Both a priest and a Levite, considered to be learned and trusted religious leaders, come along and see the man. Both go around and past the dying man, and go on their way.

Then a Samaritan man comes along, sees the dying man and is moved with pity. Jewish people in the region hated Samaritans, reviling them as unclean, mixed-blood, half-breeds who don’t worship right. Even though the Samaritans knew and kept Jewish law, they were hated by folks like this lawyer and Jesus’ other listeners.

The Samaritan tends to the man and carries him to a safe place where he pays for medical care and lodging for him, promising to return and pay more if more was needed. In this Samaritan man, pity, which is a feeling, became mercy, which is an action.

Notice what Jesus asks next. It wasn’t, was this dying man a neighbor deserving mercy? He asked, which of the three who saw him was a neighbor to him.

The lawyer replied, “the man who showed mercy.” I wonder if the lawyer’s habit of hate for Samaritans rendered him unable to even say the word “Samaritan” in his response…

Jesus said to him: Go and do likewise. Do, Jesus said. The lawyer was used to knowing, interpreting, and teaching. Jesus here tells him to act on what he knows is true: that loving neighbor as self is an action, commissioned by God.

Thus, Jesus not only obliterates the division between “us and them” for all time, for we are all children of the Most High, he also turns the focus from the suffering to us who see it.

Therefore, as we watch the endless news reals, and scroll through story after story of people suffering the consequences of corrupt leadership around the world, we remember that we are called to be a neighbor, to show mercy to anyone who is suffering, weak, alone, poor, or needy.

We remember that God tells us to do that because we have been reclaimed by God, who sought us out, took us in a divine embrace, and holds us close. This is eternal life, and it’s ours right now. We don’t have to do anything to inherit it. We have only to live it.

Let us pray our Collect again, changing the person from “they” to “we.”

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that we may know and understand what things we ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.