Love Your Neighbor
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
July 13, 2025
Pastor Josh Evans
St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, NY
In nearly seven years of ordained ministry,
you might be shocked to learn – as I was –
that I have, apparently, never preached on this parable before.
This parable of the so-called “Good Samaritan,”
as our Bibles often title it –
even though he is never actually called “good” in the parable itself.
(But you all know how I feel about those pesky made-up titles
in our English Bible translations by now.)
This parable –
so well-known in contemporary culture
that we’ve named hospitals and other helping organizations,
and even laws and legal protections,
after its title character.
This parable –
so ingrained in our minds
from our earliest memories in Sunday School –
with its deceptively simple lesson,
whittled down to a morality story:
Be like the “Good Samaritan.”
Don’t be like the priest or the Levite.
Be a “good” person.
Do the “right” thing.
***
It’s difficult to reclaim the original scandal of this parable –
how it would have sounded to Jesus’ original hearers –
mostly Jews –
to hear a story about two of their own –
a priest and a Levite –
who should know the law and do the right thing,
only to be met with a…Samaritan –
so divided as they were
by religious beliefs and practices
and ethnic and cultural identity.
As one of my favorite biblical scholars, Debie Thomas,
who is looooong overdue for a Pastor Josh Sermon Shout-out, summarizes:
“By the time Jesus told this story in first century Palestine, the enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans was ancient, entrenched, and bitter. The two groups disagreed about everything that mattered: how to honor God, how to interpret the Scriptures, and how and where to worship. They practiced their faith in separate temples, read different versions of the Torah, and avoided social contact with each other whenever possible. Truth be told, they hated each other’s guts.” [1]
Imagine, if you will, a few 21st-century comparisons:
A progressive socialist Democrat is robbed,
and a far-right MAGA Republican saves their life.
Or a white police officer is robbed,
and a black teenager saves his life.
Or an ICE agent is robbed,
and an undocumented immigrant saves her life.
Suddenly, the differences become a lot more real
and sound a lot more shocking – scandalous even – don’t they?
I don’t offer these examples –
to shock for the sake of shocking.
I also don’t mean to gloss over these differences,
particularly when such differences,
now more than ever,
are costing people their lives
and perpetuating acts of violence.
But these stark examples do remind us
that the divisions and enmity between these two groups named in the parable
were real and tangible and embodied,
each fully convinced the “other” was wrong.
They hated each other’s guts –
and would have had no reason to stop to help the “other.”
They might have even secretly delighted
at their misfortune,
passing by on the other side.
It is into this enmity that Jesus speaks a challenging word –
moving from the theoretical commandment on the page –
“Love your neighbor as yourself” –
to a real-life, flesh-and-blood example.
“Who is my neighbor?”
the legal expert asks,
probably more hoping for an answer to the question he actually wanted to ask:
“Who is NOT my neighbor?” –
aka, “Where can I draw the line?”
And Jesus tells him a story –
a story that dismantles the very idea of boundaries,
that erases every line
and topplies every wall we seek to build
between “us” and “them.”
Jesus tells a story
that invites us to imagine a different way –
again from Debie Thomas:
“to consider the possibility that a person might add up to more than the sum of her political, racial, cultural, and economic identities…to put aside the history [we know], and the prejudices [we nurse]…to [ask us] to leave room for divine and world-altering surprises.” [2]
To leave room for surprises,
to leave room for grace –
to remember God’s knack for working in and through outsiders –
which shouldn’t really be so surprising,
seeing as how our scriptures are filled with story after story
reminding us of God’s unending concern
for those with whom the world is not concerned,
and those who have been cast aside,
no matter who they are,
no matter what they look like,
no matter where they’re from,
no matter what they believe.
Even Samaritans.
Even… [fill in the blank].
Even… whomever you’re thinking of right now.
And notice the detail given to the care this “good” Samaritan provides:
“When he saw [the man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead], he was moved with compassion [gut-wrenching, visceral empathy]. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’”
(Luke 10:33-35)
The Samaritan’s response takes up as much space in the story
as the attack itself and the response (or lack thereof)
of the first two passers-by put together.
And the goodness of the Samaritan doesn’t end with just his care alone,
but he asks the innkeeper to continue to look after him.
In this story, mercy begets mercy.
“Who is my neighbor?”
the legal expert asks –
except Jesus doesn’t really answer the question,
at least not outright.
The answer Jesus gives
flips the question on its head –
less concerned with the “who”
and more concerned with the “how.”
Your neighbor is the one who is moved to gut-wrenching compassion,
who takes notice of the one who has been beat up and left for dead,
who binds up their wounds,
who takes responsibility for their care,
and who ensures their ongoing wellbeing –
without any regard to their social, ethnic, or religious identity or background.
And so the parable ends as it began –
with a question, redirected back to the one who asked the first:
“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor
to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
To which the legal expert,
who still can’t even bring himself to mutter the word “Samaritan,”
has to admit,
“The one who showed him mercy.”
***
It’s a lot easier said than done –
this mercy thing –
a far cry from a simple Sunday School morality lesson.
Perhaps captured best by the popular internet meme
depicting Jesus teaching the crowds:
“Love your neighbor,” he says,
to which someone in the crowd responds,
“But what if they’re [fill in the blank]?”
The variations are many, but Jesus’ response is always the same:
“Did I stutter?”
We would love for Jesus to stutter,
to give us an asterisk,
to set some sort of limits in his answer to the question:
“Who is my neighbor?”
Instead, what we get is a Jesus who doubles down,
teaching us less about who is a neighbor,
and more about how to be a neighbor. [3]
Love your neighbor.
Just like this.
Go and do likewise.
Love your neighbor –
extravagantly.
Love your neighbor –
no exceptions.
[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2276-afflicting-the-comfortable
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-15-3/commentary-on-luke-1025-37-6
