July 14, 2013 | 4:00 p.m.

And Who Is My Neighbor?

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 40
Luke 10:25–37

While tracking the news this week and preparing to preach, there was something impossible for me to ignore: the lead story in the news, about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, and the appointed scripture lesson for this week, the parable of the Good Samaritan, share something in common. Both are stories that begin with a violent encounter between two strangers on the side of the road. I’m sure there are plenty of ways that comparing these stories could be dangerous or unhelpful, but I think if the Bible is to be helpful to us, we must ask what it has to say about the world today. So I am going to make some comments about the Martin-Zimmerman situation, but first I want to talk about the Bible story and get to the heart of what I think it’s about; and I’m going to be moving toward one thing that shapes both stories and applies to lots of other things in our lives. These are stories about how we respond to fear.

Plenty of people who don’t know anything about the Bible still have an idea what it means to refer to someone as a good samaritan—a good samaritan is a helper. On a basic level, that’s what this story is about—followers of Jesus should help people who are in trouble.

That’s a good lesson, but knowing the rest of the story is important and deepens the challenge that is presented within it, for this story is also about fear. As the story goes, a man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falls among robbers. It’s not a far-fetched story. In the ancient world, roads leading from one town to another were dangerous for individual travelers; independent travel was unwise. But for whatever reason, this man finds himself alone along a dangerous road, and a couple of criminals sneak up on him, take his stuff, beat him up, and disappear. The first couple of people who come along choose to walk on by—they observe that this isn’t a safe place to be; the robbers could still be close by; and so they leave. The third man who comes by finally stops to help, regardless of the risk or the cost.

It is not by accident that the man who stops to help is a Samaritan. The assumption is that the victim in the story is a Jew, and Jews and Samaritans were of different backgrounds and beliefs and didn’t talk to one another. So when the first two, the priest and the Levite, both Jews, walk on by, but the Samaritan stops to help, there is supposed to be a certain amount of shock value. The two people you would assume would be friends to the man walk on by, but the bad guy stops to help. A modern adaptation of the story would feature something like a victim of the 9/11 attacks being helped by a member of Al Queda or the Taliban. Clearly, the challenge to religious people here is that Jesus says whatever time and energy we put into believing all the right doctrines or agreeing on articles of faith means little if we do not help a person in need, regardless of who they are.

Those are the basics of the story. Followers of Jesus are the ones who stop to help.

The deeper layer of this story comes in the conversation that frames it. A lawyer, a man trained in the Jewish law, comes to Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Let me say at this point that preachers have known for a long time that most people in the modern world are not very preoccupied with the question of eternal life. We’d like to know, but it doesn’t keep most of us up at night. However, in the ancient world, this was the essential question of faith. Life in those days was simpler but harder; it was also much shorter, and people wanted to know what was next.

So let’s insert a different question: what is the thing that keeps you up at night worrying? A relationship? A job or the lack of one? An illness or a disease? Problems with money? All of those things in life, big and small that cause us to be afraid, to feel unsafe. What if the lawyer were to have come to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what must I do to be safe and secure in this world?” Essentially that’s what the man is asking. And Jesus knows that because he responds to the lawyer by telling a story about several people who are not safe.

“A man went down on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves.” The story begins with a man who is on a journey that is unsafe. As the man lie in the ditch, along come three other men, each on a journey of his own. A simplistic reading of the story implies that we should follow the example of the Samaritan because he does the right thing, while the priest and the Levite do the wrong thing. That ignores the fact that all three of them are on a journey, on a dangerous road, and each one, coming upon the unexpected man in the ditch, must make a decision about how to react in a situation that presents some risk. “Will I help? I could get hurt myself?” As I mentioned before, it is not an accident that the man who helps is a Samaritan. This was a man who was culturally different than him, potentially, even his enemy. And still, he decides to show the man kindness. He has even more reason to be afraid than the other two. There is nothing left to chance in this story: even the man in the ditch has reason to be afraid because he is offered help by someone he might assume is his enemy. Everyone in this story is afraid.

Time to jump back to the other story. Whatever your feelings about the Zimmerman verdict that was passed down last night, whatever the facts of that encounter fifteen months ago may be, an unfortunate reality hangs over the entire story: one way or another, two people met on a road, and fear ruled the day. Now, at the end of the Zimmerman court case, the problem continues. People across our nation are wondering what happens next, for race relations, for gun laws, for the families of these two individuals. For all of us, this unfortunate and fearful encounter will shape what it means to walk down a street and feel that you are safe. Just like before, but possibly with renewed anxiety, we will all walk down roads and wonder what there is to be afraid of.

The far-reaching implications of that one encounter on the street fifteen months ago brings a rather sharp focus to the story of the Good Samaritan. This is not just a story about one man lying in a ditch and another guy who was nice to him. This story reminds us that it matters a great deal if we condition ourselves to respond to the people we meet as strangers to be feared or as neighbors. There is so much potential for things to go terribly wrong when we act out of fear, so it is vital for people of faith to resist the temptation to fear the other person and instead to train ourselves to approach others, particularly those who are different from us, with openness and trust.

When we consider the far-reaching implications of the way we approach one another, whether in fear or in trust, we see that there are many applications for this story. Every day you and I make decisions about how we will approach strangers on the street but also people we know: our coworkers, friends, siblings, parents, or children, a spouse or a significant other. The decision to approach any other human being in fear and defense or in openness and willingness to help can shape everything that follows in our whole lives and the lives of others around you. And that truth is framed for us in this profound story that begins with an encounter between a Samaritan and a man in need on the road. It’s also why Jesus seems to be constantly counseling us: do not act as if the stranger does not matter; the stranger could even be me. That’s why Jesus says, “Whenever you have done something to any of my children, you have done it to me.”

Remembering that, I leave you today without answers, but with questions, framed in a poem by Kenneth Carveley.

When I come in the guise
of the needy, the helpless,
the cold and the hungry,
the stranger, the lonely,
will you look away?

What will you do?
What will you say?

When I come close to home
in the need of your neighbor,
at times inconvenient,
in places and faces
that mask and conceal me . . .

What will you do?
What will you say?

Amen.