Seventh Sunday after Pentecost – Year C (Luke 10: 25-37)

Most contemporary preaching on the Parable of the Good Samaritan focuses on the need for a more expansive definition of neighbor. Depending on the context, we have been challenged to include people of color, GLBT folks, people with HIV/AIDs, or some other ostracized group de jour in our understanding of who the neighbor is. I suspect in the current political climate, illegal immigrants will feature prominently in this Sunday’s homilies. This is not a bad thing. As a member of one of these groups, I have directly benefited from the fact that many more Christians now consider me a neighbor to be loved than did twenty years ago. Still, I can’t help but think that even with this ever expanding view of neighbor we are still doing what Luke tells us the lawyer was doing, seeking to justify ourselves.

Now that most of us have got the neighbor thing down, what really needs expanding is not our definition of who we need to love but our understanding of what it means to love. I find myself struggling with the following questions. Perhaps you do to.

1. I am happy to help feed the hungry, but do I have to eat with them?

2. I contribute money to the local homeless shelter, but what about that extra bedroom in my house?

3. I want to give money to the person who is obviously down on their luck, but don’t want to enable the alcoholic or drug addict. What do I do?

4. What does so called “tough love” have to do with God’s love?

5. How can we love our country’s enemies and still maintain security?

Like the lawyer in the story, I want Jesus to answer my questions in such a way that I feel justified. Unfortunately, there is no evidence in the parable (or anywhere else in the Gospels, for that matter) that Jesus is going to opt for the easy answers that soothe my conscience and allow me to sleep at night.

All most of us can do is recognize the fact that we cannot, in fact, justify ourselves. Our love is too small. Our efforts are too halfhearted. We are utterly dependent on God’s mercy even as we pray for the grace of expanded hearts.