Proper 10 July 11, 2004

Deuteronomy 30:9-14

Psalm 25:1-9

Colossians 1:1-14

Luke 10:25-37

We might summarize both the law and gospel in the readings for this Sunday in the words attributed to Moses in Deuteronomy. The law may be this: "the Lord will again take delight in prospering you ... because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (v. 10). Moses is proclaiming the promised goodness that will come to the people as a result of their heeding the call to obey YHWH's commands. The gospel may be this: "the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart" (v. 14). No longer should the people think that their obedience is directed toward something foreign. The prosperity they enjoy--the fruits of work, of the body, of the animals, and of soil--is itself emblematic of the immediacy of the word.

Each of the lectionary readings emphasizes these images of turning in two directions simultaneously: outwardly, toward the holiness that is not synonymous with themselves, and also inwardly, where the word dwells. Two seemingly opposing ways to look at the human-divine relationship come together. The primary image is the proximity of the word of the Lord.

The story of the merciful Samaritan is a good place to examine nearness, for it deals with asking the right question in order to understand faithfulness. Notice the questions asked of Jesus by the lawyer to set up Jesus' telling his tale. First, the lawyer asks a question about what is beyond life here on earth. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" (v. 25) He sees an object out there--eternal life--which he desires to own like any other prize. Eternal life becomes a thing to acquire, a goal, a project. The lawyer transforms truth, in fact, into an abstraction, desiring to keep a personal distance from the object he has in his sights. Never mind today; I want to focus on tomorrow.

The lawyer's second question is equally distancing: "And who is my neighbor?" (v. 29) Perhaps it would be too easy or too crass for him to just assume that the neighbor is everyone and anyone encountered on the street outside his house or place of work or in his home or far across the ocean. No assumptions, however, are permitted by this man. He is used to asking questions that help him avoid error. It is best to pin down exactly who deserves his attention, because then he will not waste time and energy spending it on someone who, it may turn out, is not really a neighbor anyway and can earn him no measure of eternal life. The lawyer asks Jesus to define a noun.

I say it this way because Jesus' answer is a question that demonstrates a verb. His answer is to tell a story about neglect of need compared with the actions of one who saw a need and responded with neighborliness. At the end of his story, Jesus essentially asks the lawyer, What is it to be a neighbor to the one in need?

Jesus has not answered the question asked, which was: Tell me the parameters of this thing called "neighbor." Instead, Jesus invites the questioner to consider his own actions with regard to other people. Loving the Lord and the neighbor is not an abstraction but an action, not about nouns but about verbs. Jesus directs the abstract gaze of his questioner toward life itself, toward nearness, toward the people next door or down the block or in the same community. In the Greek, ho plasion is the noun "neighbor"; plasios is the adverb "near."

The lawyer in Luke 10 is reminiscent of a Charles Dickens character, Mrs. Jellyby, in Bleak House. She is so involved with foreign missions, worrying about the welfare of those on the other side of the world, that she shamefully neglects her own children. Bringing her to mind in this context is not to denigrate the work of those whose missional emphases pull nearer to us our neighbors across the Earth. That work is vital for continually reminding the church of our oneness with and nearness to all people. But we are called to ask ourselves whether, like Mrs. Jellyby, we are ready with passionate concern and time to give on behalf of abstract concepts or groups of persons we don't know because it is easier to care about what is not immediately at hand than about the people at our doorsteps. Zealous Christians may sometimes find it more tempting, for example, to care about stem cells or zygotes than for the people with whom we are daily in contact. Jesus' answer to the lawyer is to care about those who are already living near at hand, presently in need for want of livelihood or justice, rather than to fret over who or what might come to be.

The letter to the Colossians is Paul's answer to the same question the lawyer asked Jesus regarding eternal life. The Colossians seem to be grappling with certain spiritual practices that they have been told are required for fullness of life "in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority" (Col 2:10). Among these practices are observances of certain seasons (2:16), physical denial, abasements, and "worship of angels, dwelling on visions" (2:1, 23). We might see these all, frankly, as abstractions on the same distracting magnitude as that sought by the lawyer in Luke 10. Paul cautions the Colossians against pointless (and superstitious) self-indulgent practices that focus more on the self than on the Holy One and the commands to love the neighbor.