“Neighbors” Colchester Federated Church, July 13, 2025, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Luke 10:25-37)

This morning’s Gospel story is famous—the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  The quintessential story about loving your neighbor in Christianity.  A legal expert asks Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life.  We cannot be certain if the legal expert is asking from a place of genuine curiosity, or if he’s being hostile.  We do know that he’s trying to test Jesus.  And Jesus asks a question in response, “What is written in the Law?  How do you interpret it?”[1]  The man responds, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”[2] 

Jesus commends the legal expert for his answer.  But like many lawyer-types (we just spent a week with my sister—the Prosecutor—and all those childhood arguments she won due to her tenacity and my desire for peace are on my mind!), so the man just had to prove that he was right!  We know how that goes.  Anyway, the man asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”[3] 

Jesus does not answer his question immediately.  This is a classic response from Jesus who often responded to questions by launching into stories.  That is exactly what happens.  “Who is my neighbor?”  Well, “A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”[4]

Jesus shared the Parable of the Good Samaritan in answer to questions that were fearful in a way.  How do I gain eternal life?  And who exactly is my neighbor?  Jesus shared this parable as a reminder of how we are invited to live as his followers—loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself.  This is the central teaching of Jesus.  Love God with everything you are and everything you’ve got.  Love your neighbor.  Love yourself.  We are called to respond to fear with love.

As Christians, we have values that we must live out.  When we see someone lost and hurting, we can reach out in compassion.  We cannot compromise on treating everyone with dignity.  Because it ends up that our neighbors are everybody.  Jesus embodied compassion and taught, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”[5]  That is a core value of our Christian faith—everyone deserves respect no matter who you are, what you look like, who you love, how, where, or if you worship, or where you come from.  We are all God’s children.  We all long to be understood and truly seen.  We all have inherent dignity and worth because we all have the divine spark of God within us.  Again, we will never look into the eyes of someone that God does not love.

Here’s perhaps the biggest challenge about this parable—Samaritans were despised by the people Jesus was chatting with in our Gospel story.  Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans hated Jews.  The times back then were just as divisive as the times we live in now in some ways.  Political polarization is getting worse than it used to be in our country.  Though groups of people separating themselves from one another due to all sorts of stereotypes and inherited prejudices is unfortunately not new.  All of this to say that it matters that the Samaritan is the hero of Jesus’ story.  Not the priest who represented the highest leadership among Jews.  Not the Levite who belonged to minor clergy below the priest, but still way above the Samaritan on the social hierarchy.  The Samaritan was a foreigner who wasn’t expected to show sympathy to Jews at all.  And he was the one moved to compassion.  This is a radical story. 

The Samaritan was the hero of Jesus’ story about compassion and treating one another as we would want to be treated.  We know this story so well to the point that there are even Good Samaritan Laws on the books in some states (laws that protect bystanders who offer assistance to someone in need without fear of getting sued for an unintentional consequence of that assistance).  As a result, the radical nature of the story is sometimes lost on us.  We don’t hear this story and wonder about Samaritans (of all people) being “good” to a wounded Jewish man in the first place.  When Jesus said in the parable, “A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was” one can imagine that Jesus’ audience would have thought this man would also have walked by or worse.[6]  This parable would have been shocking to hear for Jesus’ original audience.

In the parable, the Samaritan treats the injured man with oil that would have served as a salve and wine that would have served as an antiseptic.  He gives the innkeeper two denarii to continue caring for the wounded man, the equivalent of probably two months of lodging in an inn.  The Samaritan was good, and showed compassion for someone he could have easily hated because it was socially acceptable to hate him.

The truth is that fear continues to be present in our world.  Human beings are afraid of many things.  Sometimes we are afraid of the unknown.  We are afraid of losing power.  We might be afraid of people who we believe to be different than we are.  We are afraid of being forgotten or cast aside.  Though Jesus had a lot to say about fear, and the Church still has a lot to say about fear.  Moreover, in the Church are we fearful of losing power or relevancy?  Are we afraid of change?  Are we fearful of never having enough or that we are not enough?  Are we afraid of the world or afraid of our neighbors?

New York Times columnist David French wrote about the differences one can find in churches that focus on fearing the world or loving your neighbor.  This is a helpful distinction to make.  David French identifies as an Evangelical Protestant, and grew up in the South.  His perspective on religion is often interesting to read in The Times because we come from different places in the “church world.”

When writing about the differences in American churches, French shared a helpful analysis, reflecting: “When I talk to Christians who are struggling with their faith, one of the first things I ask them is, ‘Were you raised in a fear-the-world church or a love-your-neighbor church?’  Most people instantly know what I’m talking about.  The culture of the church of fear is unmistakable.  You’re taught to view the secular world as fundamentally a threat.  Secular friends are dangerous.  Secular education is perilous.  Secular ideas are bankrupt.  And you’re always taught to prepare for the coming persecution, when ‘they’ are going to try to destroy the church.  The love-your-neighbor church is fundamentally different.  It’s so different that it can sometimes feel like a different faith entirely.  The distinction begins with the initial posture toward the world — not as a threat to be engaged, but as a community that we should love and serve.”[7]

Now I’m fairly certain that everyone present here knows that Colchester Federated Church is a love-your-neighbor church.  It is safe to say that we are not a fear-the-world church.  Our church was established in 1703, and we have been doing our best to love our neighbors here in Colchester, Connecticut ever since.  We are the church on the Green, a de facto community center, a place of hope and healing for people who we may never see in worship on a Sunday morning.  Because no matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.  This applies to all the groups who use our church building for gatherings from Monday—Saturday too.  The community that exists well beyond the walls of this historic sanctuary is our community to love and serve in Jesus’ name.  The story of the Good Samaritan helps us remember this invitation.  We can take to heart Jesus’ words that end this parable, “Go and do likewise.”[8]  Go out to love and serve your neighbors.  Because to believe is to care, and to care is to do.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.  

[1] Luke 10:26, CEB.
[2] Luke 10:27.
[3] Luke 10:29.
[4] Luke 10:30.
[5] Matthew 25:40.
[6] Luke 10:33.
[7] David French, “Were You Raised in a Church That Fears the World or Loves Its Neighbors?” in The New York Times, April 20, 2025.
[8] Luke 10:37.

Photo by Elaine Casap on Unsplash