7 Pentecost, Year C

"THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN"
A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, July 11, 2010
Proper 10: Deuteronomy 30:9–14; Psalm 25:3–9; Colossians 1:1–14; Luke 10:25–37


Last week, we recreated an historic service much as it might have been at Christ Church, Philadelphia, in the days following the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

This week, let’s open up our consideration of the very familiar Parable of the Good Samaritan with a story from the end of the Revolutionary War, that of the surrender ceremony at Yorktown, Virginia, in October, 1781.

On that occasion, and in accordance with the practices of the time, the defeated British Army marched past the victorious American and French armies. Their fife and drum corps band played a tune called “The World Turned Upside Down”.

I think the reason for the choice of this tune to march by is probably obvious: From the British point-of-view, how could they be marching past the Americans and the French, in surrender? After all, wasn’t Great Britain the pre-eminent military power of the world? How could it be that they lost? Isn’t that the world turned upside down? It most likely was, for them.

The world turned upside down….that’s the story of the Good Samaritan in a nutshell…

How could a hated Samaritan be the hero of Jesus’ story? How could a Samaritan be the one who did the “right thing” in helping the beaten, half-dead man who lay by the side of the road?

For Jesus’ Jewish listeners of 2,000 years ago, this was the world turned upside down.

Let’s look at the reasons why Jesus’ story is the world turned upside down.

We should begin by looking at the world from the Jewish perspective of 2,000 years ago, particularly as it applied to the Samaritans….

The hatred between the two groups stretched back centuries. In part, it was based on the racial impurity of the Samaritans, who were descendents of the peoples of the Northern Kingdom of Israel when it was overrun by the Assyrians in 722 BC. These remaining people intermarried with others who’d been settled there by the Assyrians. Thus, they were not full-blooded descendents of Abraham.

In addition, the Samaritans had a different holy site, called Mt. Gerazim, where they worshipped. They did not regard the Temple in Jerusalem as the place where people ought to pray (see Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan women in John, chapter four, for some background on this aspect of the dispute between the two groups).

Finally, the Samaritans had a version of the Law of Moses which differed from the Jewish version. No doubt, the Jews regarded the Samaritan version of the first five books of the Old Testament as being corrupt, as well.

So it is that Jesus outlines a vivid tale for His listeners. Many of them might have been familiar with the terrain and the route that the road followed from Jerusalem down to Jericho. (If you go to the Holy Land today, you can still see some of the road cuts that made for perfect hiding places for bands of thieves.) The route stretched some 17 miles between the two cities, and it descended about 3,000 feet as travelers made their way east from Jerusalem.

For all the might of the Roman Empire, it couldn’t guarantee the safety of all of the travelers along that route. There simply weren’t enough soldiers to be everywhere at every time.

Jesus describes the actions of the first two travelers, ones that Jesus’ listeners would have assumed would have been the heroes of the story, in very glaring and disappointing terms. Jesus says that the priest, the first one on the scene, passes by the injured man on the other side of the road. Likewise, the second traveler, a Levite, does the same.

So, the two clergy flunk the test, don’t they? (Not a very flattering picture of clergy, is it?)

Then, the third traveler, a Samaritan, comes on the scene, but he is the hero of the story. He takes the injured man, binds up his wounds, sets him on his own donkey, and takes him to an inn for care and recovery. Not only that, the Samaritan promises to return to check on the man on his way back.

At this point, we ought to pause for a moment, and analyze what Jesus is saying.

We should analyze Jesus’ parable from the standpoint of who is clean and who is unclean. That is the say, this is a matter of ritual or ceremonial cleanliness or uncleanness.

The matter of who’s ceremonially clean lies behind much of the interactions between Jesus and his opponents.

Put another way, this matter of cleanliness or uncleanness can be put another way: It’s a matter of who’s in and who’s out.

Now, as we return to the parable, we can see that if the priest or the Levite had touched the man, who, presumably, is not only beaten, but is bloodied from his encounter with the bandits, then the priest and the Levite would have become ceremonially unclean as a result of touching the man’s blood.

This is an aspect of the story which might seem strange to us today.

But in biblical times, blood, and contact with blood, was a serious matter.

Contact with blood made one ceremonially unclean.

So, perhaps we could imagine that the priest and the Levite are on their way to some very important ceremony, and that there just wasn’t time for them to get “cleaned up” after having touched the injured man.

Surely, the ceremony is much more important than helping the beaten man, isn’t it?

One gets the impression from reading the four gospels that such a point-of-view must have been very common in Jesus’ day.

That attitude must’ve driven our Lord up a wall!

Now, as to the matter of being unclean, we should look at the Samaritan.

The Samaritan is ritually unclean, and, moreover, can never become clean, for he cannot change his DNA to become fully Jewish!

In addition, the Samaritan is an outcast on another account: He is in Jewish territory.

So, in a very real and important sense, the Samaritan is in the same condition as the beaten man, for both are unclean, both are outsiders.

Ever notice that it’s often those who have the least to lose who are doing the most to help others?

That’s the case here….the Samaritan risks his own welfare by stopping to help the beaten man. For, what if the robbers who beat the first man also took advantage of the Samaritan man’s focus on helping this other guy to beat him, also?

Moreover, when the Samaritan got to the inn, it might have been very possible that the innkeeper had a sign out front which said “No Samaritans allowed.” (Kind of reminds one of the tragic signs that used to dot business establishments in our own country which barred certain ethnic groups from patronizing some businesses, doesn’t it?) Talk about being an outsider!

Well, what’s the point of Jesus’ story?

As I reflect on that question, the following thoughts come to mind:

1. There are no outsiders in the kingdom of God: Barriers of race, class, culture and type all come crashing down with the arrival of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The early Church lived this out in its worship life together….for when the Church met in people’s homes for worship, a noble man or woman often sat next to a slave, and the two called each other “brother and sister in Christ”. To the stratified Roman culture, this was a scandal, and this unity in Christ was often the cause of persecution of the Church, for such a classless view of human relations was a threat to the status quo which existed in the ancient world.

2. Everyone is my neighbor: Jesus’ point seems to be that no person can be regarded as an object to be scorned, or to be used, for that matter. Isn’t it interesting that the man who posed the question as to who was his neighbor cannot bring himself to say that it was the Samaritan who was the beaten man’s neighbor. Instead, he says, “The one who showed him mercy” is his neighbor. The questioner isn’t fully in accord with Jesus’ teaching quite yet, is he? Jesus is willing to name the Samaritan for the goodness and mercy shown, but Jesus’ questioner can’t quite bring himself – at least not yet – to naming him in the same way.

3. Possessions can be a hindrance: The two men who should have helped the beaten man, who would have been expected to help the beaten man, didn’t. Perhaps that’s because they had much to lose by doing so. Prestige, position and authority were possessions that the priest and the Levite each had. Perhaps that prevented them from doing the “right thing”. Similarly, our positions, our prestige, our pride, or our earthly possessions can stop us from doing “the right thing”. We might place a higher value on all of those things, than on someone else’s welfare. We risk passing by “on the other side”, if we do.

Jesus’ words ring out, leaping off the pages of Holy Scripture, just as they did 2,000 years ago. He tells us, as He told them, “Go and do likewise.”

AMEN.