I'm very pleased to say our placement student from Ridley Hall, Jody Stowell, has consented to guest post her sermon on this blog. If you want to read more of her work have a look at her blog, Radical Evangelical.
Amos7.7-17
Luke 10.25-37
So this morning we have our two texts, one from the prophet Amos and the other, a rather better known text from Luke, the Good Samaritan. It may seem at first glance that one has little to do with the other. The God of Amos is declaring anger towards God’s people, the Israelites: that God will no more be present with them and that Israel are to be sold into exile.
And then we have our Good Samaritan passage. Which is nice, isn’t it? This teacher, trying to discover what God wants him to do, is told to be neighbourly. And we like neighbourliness don’t we? Neighbourliness is good, it draws us together and it makes our communities work well and harmoniously together. Doesn’t it? Does it?
Did you ever wonder why Jesus tells this story this way round? He doesn’t actually entirely answer the question that is being asked. It’s kind of a way of Jesus, to not quite answer the question, but to create new ones.
Because, Jesus has just told this man to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ and the man asks Jesus ‘so, who is my neighbour?’..... ‘who’s this neighbour, that I’ve got to be neighbourly to?’
You’ve probably heard before that it was a bit unexpected that it was the Samaritan who stopped. And that’s putting it mildly. Samaritans were not generally thought to be ‘good sorts’, in fact they were considered to be the lowest of the low, by the Jews. Impure trash.
But actually, in the story, it isn’t the Samaritan who Jesus wants the Jew to be neighbourly to. It’s the other way around. Jesus requires the Jew to accept the neighbourliness of the Samaritan.
As a Jew, you wouldn’t want a Samaritan touching you, let alone dressing your wounds and paying for you, I mean, how embarrassing, does this guy have no pride?
What do you think? Do you think that the Samaritan’s actions would lead to a more harmonious community for the Jew who had been helped out?
What do you think it did for him in his community, to be helped out by the ‘trash’ who lived over the road? The Samaritans are dirty, wicked people. Jews should die rather than accept the help of this piece of filth.
The man asks ‘who is my neighbour’ and the answer will cause him great discomfort.
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Now, let’s just park that for a minute and have a little look at the Amos passage.
God is seriously ticked off with his people, isn’t he?
Why on earth would God want to sell them? It all seems a bit dramatic doesn’t it? What was it that they had done so wrong?
Amos tells us:
Hear this you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practise deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’ 8v4-6
and
I hate and despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 5v21-24
God is the God of justice for the poor and the oppressed and the outcast. They are the ones who do the worst because of those who cheat, those who fiddle the weights of the grain to give short measures or who don’t leave the last dregs of the wheat for the poor to pick up.
And, Amos says, it’s God’s people who have been the cheats! – they are meant to be the bringers of God’s justice to the earth, God’s shalom, but they are the cheats. And God says ‘no’... ‘My people are to be neighbourly’.
Neighbourly is one of those words that gets lost a bit, it can seem a bit mild. But actually it is a strong word, to live together with those around you, to accept them and who they are, even if they are sometimes very different from you. To give them, not just the fair things that they deserve, but an extra portion of whatever you have. This is true neighbourliness.
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So we return to our teacher, who gets much more than I think he bargained for, when he asks Jesus ‘who is my neighbour?’
The teacher knows his history, he knows that God’s people are to be ‘neighbourly’. This is the call of God’s people from the beginning, to welcome the widow and orphan and the foreigner. Throughout the whole of God’s story with his people, God has been known as the God of the widow and the orphan and the foreigner, those who are the underclass and the underdog in our society. This teacher knows that it is God’s people who are to be ‘neighbourly’.
So when Jesus introduces the one who is being neighbourly in this story as the Samaritan. He is not only saying, ‘hey these guys who you hate, they are your neighbour, be nice to them’, it’s actually much more radical than that. He is saying, ‘these guys who you hate, they can be my people’. They are welcomed in, they are not the excluded anymore and anyone who reaches out to those in need, anyone who is neighbourly, in the radically compassionate definition of that word, defines themselves as belonging to God.
And those who don’t reach out to those in need, says our passage in Amos, have no right to expect God to be present with them. Whether they think they are God’s people or not.
God’s people are those who are neighbourly.
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So as we step out into this week and we look around us to see where God is at work in our communities, may he open our eyes and hearts to those who need God’s all embracing love and may he give us the courage and strength we need to be those who bring that love and neighbourliness to those around us. May we be God’s people in this place.
