The Good Samaritan (The Rev. Richard Smith, Ph.D.)

When I heard about yesterday's verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, I was on my way to see Fruitvale Station, a film about the tragic shooting four years ago in Oakland of another unarmed young black man. Another story about both the deep racism and violence in our society.
On my way to the theater, I got a text message inviting me to join other clergy from around the country in an emergency conference call. Ninety clergy dialed in.
All of us were outraged. Some feared what might happen to their own teenaged sons and young men in their congregations who are just like Trayvon. Would the same thing happen to their kids as happened to him?
You remember his story. One rainy night, Trayvon, a 17 year-old kid with a sweet tooth, decided to throw on an over-sized hoody and run to buy Skittles and iced-tea. His mere presence in a community caused him to be shot in the chest and killed.
Trayvon and other young black and Latino men are often misperceived by everyday Americans and the media as violent, dangerous, and as the "other". These racist lies about them are consciously perpetrated. These lies have left us, especially us white Americans, unwilling and unable to see their humanity, value them, and care about their lives.
And to the degree that this is true, we have sadly lost touch with our own hearts, our deepest loves and values and beliefs. We have become flatlined.
Today's gospel about the good Samaritan is about what can happen inside these hearts of ours
A lawyer, who is out of touch with his own heart, initiates a conversation with Jesus. He's not really seeking an answer, a deeper truth, but is testing Jesus' knowledge of scripture and the law by asking a tough question: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
This is not a question about how one gets to heaven. It's about is the meaning of life, the whole matter and purpose of life itself.
Jesus answers with another question. What does it say in the scriptures? How do you read it?
And, of course the lawyer knows all the right words: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus says, “That's it. That's what life is all about. It's about love. You have given the right answer. Do this, and you will live."
DO this! DO it. This is the key. You gotta move out of your head and live and act out of your heart in order to be fully alive.
The lawyer is not ready to make this shift from head to heart. He'd like to keep it a matter of abstract theological jousting. So he asks Jesus an abstract question: And who is my neighbor?
He wants to do some legal wrangling about boundaries and obligations, what the law requires, who qualifies to be my neighbor in the legal sense.
And as he so often does, Jesus responds not with abstract reasoning as the lawyer would like, but with a story.
A priest and a levite see a robbed and beaten man along the road. They move to the other side of the street.
Like the lawyer, they've lost touch with their hearts. Like him, they might have been weighing their legal obligations, an inner debate about what they were required to do, and what they were excused from doing.

• If they touched a dead or bleeding body, they would become impure.
  
• If the man was not a Jew, they were under no obligation to help him.
  

With this inner debate going on, they can't see the suffering human being in front of them. For them it's all legal fine print. Like the lawyer, they can recite the double commandment, but they can't do it.
In contrast to the priest and the levite, when the Samaritan sees the beaten man, he does not draw back; in fact he draws closer, and, as Luke says, he is "moved with compassion.”
The Greek word Luke uses for compassion here is esplanchnisthe. It's an interesting word.
The splanchna are the guts. To be moved with compassion is no matter of abstract reasoning. No, in this case you feel something in your guts.
Luke uses this verb on two other occasions:

• When Jesus sees a mother processing to bury her son
  
• and in the story of the prodigal son it is the father’s response when he sees his lost son returning home.
  

Esplanchnisthe. The Samaritan is connected to his heart. He sees another human being in need and he does not engage in inner debate about the law. No, he is moved, and out of that feeling of compassion he goes to work: bandages the man, pours oil and wine on his wounds, puts him on his own animal, brings him to an inn, nurses him, and gives money to the innkeeper for his care. Not a moment for legal and theological debate. It's time for action.
Could the Trayvon Martin verdict finally be our moment for action:

• working for sensible gun laws
  
• and for sentencing reform and other measures to keep black and latino kids from filling up our jails
  
• working to create more educational and employment opportunities so they have a fighting chance.
  

We gotta get out of our heads. We can't just talk about this. It's time for action.
There are times when it all seems clear to us religious folks. Like the lawyer, we know in our bones what must be done. We see the law so simply drawn: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Ah, but the living of it, the action, that is the rub.
To the extent that we cannot act with courage, we are flatlined, like the priest and the levite. We have lost touch with our own hearts. It's what our scriptures call sin.
At the end of the gospel passage, the lawyer's question, who is my neighbor, has been answered. He has moved beyond recitation and debate about the law. Through this story, Jesus has given him a concrete understanding of how to love God and neighbor, a preparation for action.
There is only one thing left for him and for each of us--the most important thing, the thing of courage--and that is to go and do likewise.

And that is up to us.