There was a lawyer who,
To disconcert Jesus,
Stood up and said to him,
Master,
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
He said to him,
What is written in the law?
What do you read there?
He replied,
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart,
With all your soul,
With all your strength,
And with all your mind,
And your neighbour as yourself.
You have answered right,
Said Jesus.
Do this and life is yours.
But the man was anxious to justify himself and said to Jesus,
And who is my neighbour?
Jesus replied,
A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of brigands.
They took all he had,
Beat him,
And then made off,
Leaving him half dead.
Now a priest happened to be travelling down the same road,
But when he saw the man he passed by on the other side.
In the same way,
A Levite who came to the place saw him and passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan traveller who came upon him was moved with compassion when he saw him.
He went up and bandaged his wounds,
Pouring oil and wine on them.
He then lifted him on to his own mount,
Carried him to the inn and looked after him.
Next day he took out two dinarii and handed them to the innkeeper.
Look after him,
He said,
And on my way back I will make good any extra expense you have.
Which of these three do you think proved himself a neighbour to the man who fell into the brigands' hands?
The one who took pity on him,
He replied.
Jesus said to him,
Go and do the same yourself.
The Gospel of the Lord.
This is such an important message,
Especially I think for us as the white-rope monks of Saint Benedict,
Recognizing that we are all neighbours.
Love God,
Love each other.
Those are the two commandments that Jesus gave us.
Love God,
Love each other as ourselves.
And it could have opened up a conundrum if Jesus had not spoken these words that Saint Luke had gathered in his Gospel.
Who is my neighbour?
Because we connect oftentimes electronically,
It is easy to forget that the other side of where we are sitting or standing,
The source of all these little letters that we see returning to us in response to what we send and what we put out there is actually a human being.
It is so easy then to forget that I am working with my neighbour.
Technology has opened up this opportunity for us to become global neighbours,
Global family,
Just like Christ intended it to be,
That we are all part of this one family.
And here he clearly says to the lawyer,
Now remember lawyer in this instance is not how we understand lawyers these days anymore.
A lawyer in that time was somebody who knew the Jewish law.
So they were very,
Very well versed in the laws of Moses.
And then it's open to interpretation,
Love God and love your neighbour.
I think it is so easy then when we connect with people,
Especially in the last two,
What it's almost three years,
That we have become so dissociated with each other.
We have meetings online,
We do everything online.
And here we see Luke 10 verse 25 to 37 saying that we are all neighbours and that we need to help each other.
Now it is also very,
Very well known that the Samaritans were not really recognised as proper Jews.
At some stage they fell out of favour with the other tribes and they were scoffed.
We read,
I think it was last week,
Where the Samaritans didn't want Jesus in their town because Jesus was going to Jerusalem.
So there was a lot of friction between the communities.
Does that ring true?
On a global scale,
How much friction is there between communities,
Between countries,
Between ethnic groups,
Between people of different religious beliefs,
Between people who have different views on the world?
And how often does that not spill over into violence?
But yet a big lesson for me here is that we should not judge somebody because of where they are.
We should not judge somebody because of the country that they were born in.
How silly is that?
If we look at the war in the Ukraine at the moment,
How stupid is that?
Blood is the same colour,
Yes.
We are all human,
We are all beings and we forget that.
Why do we forget it?
Because of our ego.
Now the ego is a good thing,
It's not something that we oftentimes hear,
Is it?
The ego is there to keep us alive,
But we have become so caught up in listening only to the ego that we forget that we are much more than the ego.
The ego is there to keep the body alive.
The ego is not there to connect us to God and we forget that because the ego almost goes into a hyperdrive or overdrive and it stops us from really connecting and seeing that God is and recognising that God is in all.
God is all.
So when the Samaritan helped the traveller,
It was God helping God.
The Samaritan teaches us to be kind,
To be compassionate and God is within us all.
The Samaritan teaches us to maybe stop looking at a person through the eyes of judgment or to become aware,
Let's say that rather,
We become aware of the fact that we are looking through the eyes of judgment,
Through the filters of judgment because that is what the ego does and that's what it will always do and it's good and we need to honour it for that.
But then we have the choice,
Okay,
I have judged you according to my criteria,
According to my filters,
Am I going to wipe that judgment and to recognise that God is in you too?
Just as God is in me when I look into the mirror,
God is inside of me as well.
So I think the lesson again and over and over is that we should look and recognise that we are all part of the divine and that no matter,
It sounds like a Backstreet Boys song,
Who you are,
Where you're from,
What you did as long as you love me,
Let's look at that.
Let's look at the love that is shared and when I look at another person,
After my judgment,
My automatic judgment,
Why don't I start recognising and honouring God in that person?
It doesn't say that we shouldn't necessarily or that we should,
When people are challenging,
When people are doing things that we don't agree with,
That we should just go on with it.
We must also recognise that it's their ego and that it's their journey.
So it's not roll over and die.
But recognise that God is working in those people,
Recognise that God is in all of us and I think when we do that we become like the Good Samaritan and we realise that our neighbour is all.
Amen.
