Choosing Sides

The Rev. Alissa Newton

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

text: Luke 10:25-37

In our gospel this morning a lawyer asks Jesus a question. In context, this means that a person of privilege who has expertise in religious law, Torah, asks Jesus a question. The question is, basically this: what must I do to get through this life free, safe, and blessed? And the lawyer isn’t satisfied with the usual answer – love God, and love your neighbor, and love yourself. So Jesus tells him a story. And this story is not about freedom, or safety, or blessing. In response to a question about how to get through life safely, Jesus tells a story about a horrible and violent thing and about what happens in the aftermath of that horrible, violent thing.

A man is traveling in a between-place, the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. He is robbed, stripped, and left for dead on the side of the road. This thing that has happened to him is visible – everyone who is passing by on this road can see him. And in the aftermath of this individual’s tragedy, most people look away, move away. It’s not that weird, is it? He looks dead, and he represents a horrible thing. He is just a traveler, like all the others. If we come to close to him, we must come close to the reality that we could also be robbed, stripped, and left for dead on the side of the road. This is terrifying. This is fear.

So what happens in the aftermath of the horrible thing is that some people stay away, and one person comes near. A Samaritan is moved by a feeling that is not fear. The Samaritan pities the traveler and cares for him.

There is a lot in this parable that would have been shocking to its first listeners. Jesus sets it up so that the reader, at first, identifies with the man who is robbed. So we, who hear this story, first we are to imagine ourselves robbed, stripped, and bleeding at the side of the road. We are supposed to feel despair as the priest walks by and moves away, and again with the Levite. And if this weren’t shocking enough, the one who does come close to us as we lay on the side of the road, is someone we don’t want to see. Samaritans were not good, in the mind of the average Jewish person. They were unclean, poor, dirty, and wrong. They lived on the other side of a religious difference that made them anathema to the Jews, and vice versa. And remember, Jesus is talking to a lawyer, someone who makes his living from correctly interpreting the religious law. The pity of the Samaritan is humiliating to us, as we lay on the side of the road.

What would you do, if the last person you wanted to come near to you, did? What would you do if you couldn’t move away, if you were pinned to the ground, naked and wounded and bleeding and left for dead? Can you imagine that person, the person who represents the things you hate, can you imagine her or him caring for you, washing your wounds, transporting you to safety, making sure that you are cared for and well? It is disturbing . And finally, the final twist in Jesus' shocking story, is that Jesus looks at the lawyer, the man who makes his living being opposed to Samaritans and proving them wrong, and tells him to be like one. "Go and do likewise," Jesus says. It is almost as if Jesus does not care about the lines that have been drawn between Jews and Samaritans. It is almost as if those are not the lines that Jesus cares about, the sides that Jesus is choosing between. The Samaritan does choose a side – and Jesus wants his listeners, who were all Jewish, to choose the same side; the side of love, and care, and mercy, and justice.

So here we are. And this week, we have witnessed horrible, violent things. We have seen a black man shot to death in his car for having a broken tail-light and a legal weapon, and another held down and riddled with bullets at point blank range. We have seen five police officers shot to death for serving and protecting the peaceful protest of those men's deaths. We are broken, and stripped naked, and gasping for breath on the side of the road in this in-between place where we have been left, after the demons of fear and racism and division and poverty and despair have had their way with us.

So here is what our gospel says to us today, in the aftermath of this. First, it says that we need to be careful when we choose sides. The challenge before us is not to choose between black and white, between black and blue, or between people and people. Those are not the sides. The question before us is not who is right, or whose hurt is more important, or who deserves to be mourned more. The choice we have to make is between fear and love, between despair and mercy, between moving away and coming near.The question of our gospel is, can we cross the road and care for whoever is hurting there?

Think for a moment – you probably have a lot of feelings, and opinions about the horrible, violent things that have happened to us this week. I know I do. You probably lean one way or the other. The question of our faith this morning is this: can you come close to the pain and woundedness of whoever you don't agree with, this week? If your anger is toward the police, if the thing you fear the most is a world where police kill people of color in disproportionate numbers, if your heart breaks for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and the thing you fear is losing the black lives who matter to you, in this horrible, violent way – can you come close to the woundedness of the other side, today? Can you show mercy to the police, imagine the world of fear and pain they are going through, pray for them, hope for them, put real work and investment into understanding and helping and caring and fighting for justice for them?

And if your anger is toward those who protest the police? If the thing you fear most is a world where those who protect us are in even more danger, if your heart breaks for the wives and children and fellow officers of the police in Dallas, and for police everywhere who try their best to serve and protect, if the thing you fear is losing the people you love who serve, or the safety they work so hard to provide for us – can you come close to the woundedness of the other side, today? Can you listen to the communities of color whose lived experience of law enforcement is different than yours? Can you show mercy to the black mothers who see other women's sons killed in front of cameras, can you imagine the world of fear and pain they are going through, pray for them, hope for them, put real work and investment into understanding and helping, and fighting for justice, for them?

This is the choice our gospel puts in front of us today. Do we move away, or do we come close? If the task sounds impossible to you, I implore you to remember who is giving it to us. This is a story about coming near to pain, told by a God who came near to us. Jesus, God made human, the one who came close to both our living and our dying. Jesus, whose desire to be close to those who were abused and outcast got him killed, by law enforcement no less. Jesus who would be stripped, and beaten, and hung on a cross to die in front of everyone. He is the one who gives us this parable, who challenges us give up fear and choose love. We are not going to get through this life safe. But if we can cross the road, come close to the pain of others, fight for justice for everyone, then we will be on God's side, and we won't just be blessed, but we will be part of God's blessing, poured out for the naked, bleeding, beaten world in front of us. God's love, poured out for us all.