Luke 10:30-35
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out some money and gave it to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’”
There is a question asked that prompts Jesus to tell this story in Luke’s gospel: “Who is my neighbor?” The same question in a slightly different form is asked at the end of the story: “Which of these men was the victim’s neighbor.”
This may well be one of the best-known of Jesus’ many parables. Although in Jesus’ day the religious cleanliness laws might legitimately have provided an excuse for the priest and the Levite to walk on past the beaten and battered man, our culture today would find their actions to be morally unacceptable and so there is no mystery for us. Besides which, we, as a whole, hold no cultural animosity against Samaritans, as did the Jews of the time so it is easy for us to get the “correct” answer right off the bat.
If you have spent any time studying mythology or folklore you have probably noticed that certain themes show up in multiple cultures – the same stories pop up in different locations, in different centuries and languages. Some themes just seem to be universal.
Earlier this week my husband sent me a link to a story he’d seen on an internet news feed. It was an update of a story that originally happened in 1996. As I read this update I realized I remembered the original that appeared nearly thirty years ago and I realized this would be the easiest sermon I've ever composed. Some of you may remember it, too.
This was a time of particularly tense relations between people of color and the Ku Klux Klan. One day, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Klan was putting on one of their public marches to show how big and tough they were and then another group of counter-protestors also showed up.
An 18 year-old black teenager, Keisha Thomas, was there to show her support for the counter protestors. Things began to get rough when the yelling turned into shoving and then sticks and bats were being used to beat people down. One Klan member got cut off from his group and was being shoved hard by the counter-protestors who were enraged by the man’s Nazi tattoos. He ended up knocked down and found himself the one being kicked and punched instead of being the hard-man himself.
Even though the man was there with no intention but harm for people like Keisha, she didn’t even hesitate before jumping in and throwing her own body across the man on the ground, shouting at the other protestors to stop attacking him, while receiving punches and kicks herself as she protected him. I remember seeing the photograph of her using her own body to save this despicable man. She let compassion guide her actions and possibly saved his life.
Who did Keisha Thomas see as her neighbor that day? Whose neighbor was she? Her sympathies were surely with the counter-protestors yet her Christian teaching and her basic decency sent her to defend the Klansman. It’s a story at least 2000 years old, and who knows how many times the same story has been told in how many countries, each time with a different cast of characters.
There will always be those who want to strut and be tough, thinking they’re better than others, for no other reason than the color of their skin, or the country they’re from, but there will also always be those who have chosen love and compassion, just as with the despised Samaritan of Jesus’s story or the teenaged Keisha Thomas.
Since this news story was a follow-up to the original story, written 10 or so years earlier, one of the questions that was asked was what had Keisha Thomas done with her life in those intervening years?
Well, it seems she's done everything from volunteering after 9/11 to distributing food to Hurricane Katrina victims. She also walked from Selma, Alabama to Washington D.C. for voting rights with the NAACP, and volunteered at a hospital in Haiti.
I don't recall seeing if the Klansman actually repented of his actions that long ago day, but he was quoted as saying he was very grateful to the young woman who saved him -- and the best part of all came when the man's two children -- young adults by this time -- said that they were repulsed by their father's actions and absolutely did not share his Klan-shaped opinions.
Keisha Thomas, like so many others, has heard the voice of Jesus telling her to care for her neighbors – and she apparently is quite clear that her neighbors are any and all of God’s children.
I like to think that if Jesus were here with us today, he might be telling the parable of the Klansman and Keisha Thomas, instead of the one about a kindly Samaritan man. After all, it’s all the same story of loving your neighbor as yourself.
This may well be one of the best-known of Jesus’ many parables. Although in Jesus’ day the religious cleanliness laws might legitimately have provided an excuse for the priest and the Levite to walk on past the beaten and battered man, our culture today would find their actions to be morally unacceptable and so there is no mystery for us. Besides which, we, as a whole, hold no cultural animosity against Samaritans, as did the Jews of the time so it is easy for us to get the “correct” answer right off the bat.
If you have spent any time studying mythology or folklore you have probably noticed that certain themes show up in multiple cultures – the same stories pop up in different locations, in different centuries and languages. Some themes just seem to be universal.
Earlier this week my husband sent me a link to a story he’d seen on an internet news feed. It was an update of a story that originally happened in 1996. As I read this update I realized I remembered the original that appeared nearly thirty years ago and I realized this would be the easiest sermon I've ever composed. Some of you may remember it, too.
This was a time of particularly tense relations between people of color and the Ku Klux Klan. One day, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Klan was putting on one of their public marches to show how big and tough they were and then another group of counter-protestors also showed up.
An 18 year-old black teenager, Keisha Thomas, was there to show her support for the counter protestors. Things began to get rough when the yelling turned into shoving and then sticks and bats were being used to beat people down. One Klan member got cut off from his group and was being shoved hard by the counter-protestors who were enraged by the man’s Nazi tattoos. He ended up knocked down and found himself the one being kicked and punched instead of being the hard-man himself.
Even though the man was there with no intention but harm for people like Keisha, she didn’t even hesitate before jumping in and throwing her own body across the man on the ground, shouting at the other protestors to stop attacking him, while receiving punches and kicks herself as she protected him. I remember seeing the photograph of her using her own body to save this despicable man. She let compassion guide her actions and possibly saved his life.
Who did Keisha Thomas see as her neighbor that day? Whose neighbor was she? Her sympathies were surely with the counter-protestors yet her Christian teaching and her basic decency sent her to defend the Klansman. It’s a story at least 2000 years old, and who knows how many times the same story has been told in how many countries, each time with a different cast of characters.
There will always be those who want to strut and be tough, thinking they’re better than others, for no other reason than the color of their skin, or the country they’re from, but there will also always be those who have chosen love and compassion, just as with the despised Samaritan of Jesus’s story or the teenaged Keisha Thomas.
Since this news story was a follow-up to the original story, written 10 or so years earlier, one of the questions that was asked was what had Keisha Thomas done with her life in those intervening years?
Well, it seems she's done everything from volunteering after 9/11 to distributing food to Hurricane Katrina victims. She also walked from Selma, Alabama to Washington D.C. for voting rights with the NAACP, and volunteered at a hospital in Haiti.
I don't recall seeing if the Klansman actually repented of his actions that long ago day, but he was quoted as saying he was very grateful to the young woman who saved him -- and the best part of all came when the man's two children -- young adults by this time -- said that they were repulsed by their father's actions and absolutely did not share his Klan-shaped opinions.
Keisha Thomas, like so many others, has heard the voice of Jesus telling her to care for her neighbors – and she apparently is quite clear that her neighbors are any and all of God’s children.
I like to think that if Jesus were here with us today, he might be telling the parable of the Klansman and Keisha Thomas, instead of the one about a kindly Samaritan man. After all, it’s all the same story of loving your neighbor as yourself.
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