Who Is Our Neighbor, the One We Are to Love?

Though there are almost no Samaritans left in the world today, there are many people we may be tempted to despise and reject.  I am thinking of people of another race, color, or culture; homosexual persons who are victims of homophobia; or people of another faith, such as Muslims.  Jesus's parable challenges us to overcome all such racial, social, sexual, and religious prejudices.  I am not suggesting that we compromise our Christian beliefs and morals, but rather that we do not allow these to impede our active love for our neighbor.  That is what "go and do likewise'" (v. 37) will mean for us.

-Stott, "The Parable of the Good Samaritan," which Jesus tells in Luke 10: 30 through 37, and is today's reading in Through the Bible Through the Year.

All of this catches my attention, together with the whole of Stott's little essay and, of course, the Parable itself.  But what snags me most deeply during this reading is the phrase "active love."

Tough Love from St. Paul about Taking Care of One's Family

If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

-1Timothy 5:8, and cited in today's reading in Stott's Through the Bible, Through the Year, at page 91.

I see this ethic applied among all classes of people, notably (at least to me) among the immigrant families here in Miami.

At the recent Annual Dinner hosted by Heartbeat of Miami, we heard a testimony from a young woman who, with the help of her mother at age 16, fled sexual abuse in Nicaragua from a man who threatened to kill her and her parents if she told them and the authorities about the abuse.  She came to the US in the way many of the Central American children come here that we read about:  She made the journey across Mexico, waded the Rio Bravo, was taken into custody by INS, but had an aunt in Miami who would take her in.  Say what you will about the government authorities, they gave the young woman bus fare and she finally arrived here, to be sheltered by her kinswoman and, from there, introduced to the Christian community that works with Heartbeat, her larger family.  Unknown to herself at the time that she fled her country, the man in Nicaragua had impregnated her.

When the INS gave her a physical examination, they discovered her pregnancy and a social worker advised her to get an abortion, telling her "Every time you look at that baby's face, you will see the evil that has been done to you."   The young woman refused.  Heartbeat helped her.  She said at the Heartbeat Dinner that when she looks into the face of her baby, now 2 years old and there with us at the dinner, she sees the face of Jesus.

On Adding and Subtracting from the Truth

Stott (p. 227) sums up the differences between the Pharisees and the Sadducees as this: "The Pharisees added to Scripture (their traditions); the Sadducees subtracted from Scripture (its supernatural element)."  That is such a helpful contrast, and it brings the problem quickly to the present.  As the Preacher writes: "[T]here is nothing new under the sun."

"Haven't you read . . . ?"

Both houses of Maryland's legislature have approved same-sex marriage, and the bill is on its way to the governor for signature.  He will sign the bill, as he sponsored it in the first place.  Maryland will become the eighth state in the Union to apply its  marriage laws to two people of the same sex as it does to two people of opposite sexes.

Haven’t you read  .  .  .  that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

 This is what Jesus said in Matthew 19 in reply to a question about divorce that the Pharisees put to him.  As John Stott points out in today's reading, rather than answer questions about whether (and, if so, on what grounds) a man could divorce his wife, the questions in which the Pharisees wanted to embroil him, Jesus chose to talk about marriage.  He went back to first principles.

There is an argument, I suppose, that as a legal matter, same sex couples should be treated the same way as opposite sex couples.  After all, it is a free country.  I am ready, however, to hear someone from the "progressive" side of the argument argue that we should drop marriage as a "legal matter" altogether, and make it a matter of contract for everyone.  If a couple wants to create rights and obligations between them, then let them make an agreement that the state will enforce.

 These civil unions are permitted in some states, but for the "gay rights" movement, I believe it is seen as a stepping stone for their quest for moral equivalency.  That equivalency, at least in their eyes, is same-sex "marriage" approved by the government.  But moral equivalency is in the eye of the beholder in our post-modern world.  Why should the other side get a win on this one, and oppress the rest of us with their moral views.  Why don't we simply take marriage out of the realm of government altogether, and make it an agreement between two people that the courts will enforce?

That would leave "marriage," then, to religious institutions to confer or clubs or other associations, permanent or temporary.   Evangelical Christians, for example, can recognize a marriage as Jesus described it.  The rest can pour spiritual content into whatever arrangement they like.

Eating with Sinners

Stott's reading this morning is Mark 2:13-17.  In his comments, he defines "sinners":

"Sinners" in this context were not just those who were disobedient to God's moral law (like all of us) but those who, whether through ignorance or intent, did not live according to the traditions of the scribes.  Both groups were shunned by all respectable people, who would neither give hospitality to them nor receive hospitality from them, fearing ceremonial contamination.  But Jesus deliberately and freely fraternized with them, having no such fears.

Does this cut against the idea of a church program that soaks up all of one's spare time?  When does a Christian get the opportunity to " deliberately and freely fraternize with them," if every free moment (even our Valentine's Day dinner) is within church walls?

We don't deny hospitality to "sinners."  But they must walk through our doors to receive it.  I don't think that's nearly enough.  I believe we fear a sort of contamination from people our middle-class culture would consider "unclean."