excerpt from "New Neighbors"
But this Samaritan man does what the priest and the Levite did not – he stops. This is the shock value that Jesus adds to this parable for his listeners. And not only does the Samaritan (whom many of the listeners would have held in contempt) stop but he tends to the man at the side of the road, takes him to an inn where he can be nursed back to health and then pays for it.
The lawyer asked the question: "Who is my neighbor?" The parable Jesus tells does not answer the question. Following the parable, Jesus asks a new question: "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" (v.36). Jesus' question is challenging, but it is not even in line with the question asked by the lawyer. The question is no longer who my neighbor is, but who acted as a neighbor to another in need. Neighbor is no longer about classification, but about specific action.
Jesus has again taken a seemingly innocent question and taught us that our actions – how we treat others is the main point. It doesn’t matter if we respond to the person who lives next door – or around the block – or on the other side of the state or the other side of the world – our actions and the fact that we DO respond to those in need, those that have been marginalized by society, those that others choose to ignore is what we need to remember from this most familiar of parables. We, with the help of God, need to stop going around the needy.
Bernard Brandon Scott has written these beautiful words about those boundaries we draw around ourselves: "Not just individuals have to cross the line," he says, "but communities have to cross the line. Yet the crossing of that line always begins with the first Samaritan whose heart is moved by a Jew. Such people are initiating a new world for all of us." It seems to me that Scott is saying that every act of kindness, random or otherwise, toward an individual brother or sister is a starting point and an inspiration for wholesale kindness and compassion, woven into the fabric of our communities, our institutions, our world, reminding us of who we all are as beloved children of God. We kick-start this kindness especially when we act in times and circumstances that are both costly and full of risk.
And who is our neighbor? Everyone. And who is not our neighbor? No one. That means each of us is called to be a neighbor to each other – our actions –how we treat each other in kindness and mercy and love is the main point of the parable and the reason we remember the phrase “the Good Samaritan”. As Jesus himself urges us – “ go and do the same.”
Pastor Lorah Houser Jankord 
July 11, 2010
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