Theological Truth: Loving our neighbor is more than an entry requirement for heaven. It’s a way of life (of living) that leads to eternal and abundant life—now and forever.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
While in seminary, an aging friend, who had recently returned to church and was particularly concerned with getting his spiritual affairs in order, asked me this question, “If I break the speed limit, am I committing a sin?” He meant it as a serious question and wanted a definitive answer, but more importantly, it also revealed his deep concern about his salvation and where he would go when he died. His understanding of eternal life had a lot to do with debits and credits. Would his good deeds outnumber his sins? Would his account balance upon death be sufficiently high to garner a green light at the gate of heaven?
I suppose we all have this notion of “sin management” lodged somewhere in our understanding of life after death and entry into God’s heavenly kingdom. If I’ve been good enough, God will have to let me in, right? If I keep all the commandments, my room in heaven is reserved, surely? Under these conditions for entry, no wonder there’s a hypervigilance about the law, about definitions, about interpretation. Naturally there evolves a search for loopholes. Of course we tend to minimize the requirements in order to maximize our likelihood of fulfilling them. We are all in search of loopholes and limits.
It’s the lawyer in Luke’s story that brings this perspective to light. He asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s all about him. He wants to know the entry requirements so that he can meet them. He’s done his homework. When Jesus asks him what the Bible says, he has the correct answer: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind and strength; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “Yep. Do this and you shall live.”
But he’s not satisfied. He’s synthesized these two foundational teachings from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, but he hasn’t internalized them. He sees them as things to do rather than a way to live, so he needs details. He is willing to do what’s required, but not necessarily more. He wants to know where he can draw the line…and hopefully it’s in a place that’s not too uncomfortable or too demanding or too costly. When he asks, “Who is my neighbor,” he seems to be thinking geographically and proximately. Maybe he meant, “Where is my neighbor? Next door? The whole block? The whole town?” Where can I draw the boundary of my love?
You know the rest of the story. Jesus turns the question around and turns things upside down. Rather than answering his question, “Who or where is my neighbor,” Jesus calls us to be neighbors wherever we are, whoever we encounter, whenever we come across someone in need, despite our differences, without regard to our own self-interests. Love of neighbor—which is part and parcel to our love of God—is a way of seeing and being. It’s the way of life that leads to life—life beyond and bigger than ourselves and our unenlightened self-interest, a way of loving beyond loopholes and limits.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. has a wonderful outlook on this parable. He notes that when the priest and the Levite, who would have been expected to be the heroes of the story, see the beaten man in the ditch, their response is driven by the question, “What will happen to me if I stop to help this man.” Whereas the Samaritan (and there was no such thing as a “good” Samaritan to the original audience) acts out of a different question. He asks, “What will happen to this person if I don’t stop to help him?” Neighbor love is about our shared responsibility for one another. It’s about love and mercy, not obligation.
The lawyer had been trying to break out a Sharpie to define the limits and highlight the loopholes of his love-obligation. Instead, Jesus takes a bulldozer to the boundaries establishing our concept of neighbors. He eradicates the limits of law and replaces them with the way of love, compassion, and mercy. “Which of these,” Jesus asks, “was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
“The one who showed him mercy.”
Neighbor love is a state of the heart, not a ticket to heaven. A way of life that leads to eternal, abundant life.
Regardless of our understanding of what opens the way to heaven, we all look for limits and loopholes in this way of love and mercy that Jesus calls us to. It may show up in our financial generosity. Is the tithe to be calculated before or after taxes? It can surface in our personal relationships. How many times am I supposed to forgive my brother or sister? Seven? Seventy-seven? Seventy times seventy? It may manifest in our views on social justice issues. Why should I try to see things from “their” perspective? Why can’t they just get themselves out of that ditch?
The truth is, practicing Jesus’ way of loving our neighbor isn’t easy for any of us. Richard Rohr says, “Forgiveness, healing, and justice are the clear evidence of…a shared life.” They are signs of unlimited neighbor love. But he goes on to say, “When we do not see this happening, religion is ‘all in the head.’ Peacemaking, forgiveness, and reconciliation are not some kind of ticket to heaven later. They are the price of peoplehood—the signature of heaven—now.”
The neighbor-love that Jesus envisions—a shared life of love and mercy without limits or loopholes—brings the kingdom of God near and now. Given how broken and divided we are as a people, as a nation, and as a world, we need it more than ever. Seeing our neighbor, being a good neighbor, guided by love and mercy, can turn our current nightmare into the dream God intended.
Joan Chittister’s experience in monastic living opened her eyes to the importance of neighbor-love based on shared responsibility. She writes, “Community is the only antidote we have to an individualism that is fast approaching the heights of the pathological and the sinful in this world (Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, p. 41). Jesus opened the lawyer’s eyes to this way of being a neighbor—loving without limits or loopholes. This kind of mercy is the way to heaven because it is the way of heaven. Chittister goes on to say, “In the Far East there is a traditional image of the difference between heaven and hell. In hell…people have chopsticks one yard long so they cannot possibly reach their mouths. In heaven, the chopsticks are also one yard long—but, in heaven, the people feed one another” (p. 41-42).
Shared responsibility. Neighbor to neighbor. Seeing one another. Feeding one another. Showing mercy to one another. Go and do likewise. Do this, and we will all truly live.
— Fr. AJ Heine, Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, Year C, July 10, 2022
Readings: Amos 7:1-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37
