The history of science is littered with many famous names; we often associate them with the things they discovered:
My third universal constant is one you may not have heard of - it's the SEP Field and it was first suggested by the writer Douglas Adams. SEP stands for Somebody Else's Problem and the theory is that anyone or anything within a SEP field is rendered completely invisible - no one can see it because it's not their problem.
Our gospel reading today featured just such an incident, a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan, all of them travelling the same road, all of them making the same journey, all of them people of faith - though separated by denominational and geographical distance. But they were all walking the same road. Their actions are used by Jesus as the illustration for one of Jesus' toughest challenges to us all.
As we heard in the reading, Jesus was being tested by a lawyer. He started by asking a nice easy question - to which Jesus gave a simple and straightforward answer - one that everyone understood to be true and in line with the scriptures: love God - love your neighbour.
But then comes the real question the lawyer wanted to ask - the question to test the character and the faith of Jesus.
That question was - "And who is my neighbour?"
The scripture states that the lawyer asked Jesus this question as a means of justifying himself - as a means of showing that he - a teacher of the law of God - was doing all that God asked him to do.
Perhaps the question the lawyer was really asking Jesus was….
"Who is NOT my neighbour?"
That is a horrifying approach to keeping the law of God isn't it? Who must I love - and who can I get away with not loving...
Are there people who are not our neighbours as well - folk who deserve our rebuke, our contempt, our anger, or simply our neglect? Do those who we think live outside the law of God live outside of the law that says we should love them? Such, I think, was the kind of reasoning that lay behind the lawyer's question, "And who is my neighbour?"
Think about it:
Jesus' answer called on the expectations of people - the Samaritans were outsiders - the priest and the Levite were respected. Perhaps the priest and the Levite have been given a bad press…perhaps what they did they could justify. Perhaps they didn't really see the man in the ditch - but we are told they did - because they crossed to the other side. Perhaps they had heard stories of people who lay in ditches pretending to be victims of circumstance and asking for charity - when in reality they weren't - that they used it as a devious means of gaining an income when they didn't have to work - perhaps they had heard those stories of professional victims and so decided that the best course of action was to do nothing so that they weren't taken advantage of.
So Jesus used the Samaritan - the outsider - the one who was not accepted by society to illustrate very clearly the call of the Holy Spirit to help other people - a call that should cross barriers of culture and society. The Samaritan was the one who tended the mans wounds - the outsider was the one who helped him to get to safety - the excluded one was the one who answered God's calling.
And after he had told his story, Jesus threw the question straight back at the lawyer - "which of them acted as a neighbour?"
We
know, don't we, the answer. The lawyer knew the answer. He knew that the one
who showed the man mercy was neighbour to him,
and with Jesus' next words, the words, "Go and do likewise", he
realized that the really important question concerning loving others
was not so much "And who is my neighbour?" but rather "To whom
must I become a neighbour?"
It is not always an easy question to answer. It is not always easy because while we know the answer in our head and our hearts - real life keeps getting in the way. Jesus' parables were meant to call upon examples of living that people could relate to…sadly this is one parable that we should all be able to relate to.
During one of my first visits to Manchester a few years ago now, I saw someone surrounded by a Somebody Else's Problem field, but not in an out of the way place where they could be ignored. As I walked down the street - it was a warm early summers evening and the street was very busy - I noticed a shape underneath one of the street lamps in front of one of the busiest bars. At first I thought it was a big heavy coat that someone had discarded - quite wisely - as it was so hot. It was only as I got closer that I realised it wasn't a coat - it was a person - laying collapsed by the base of this street lamp - alone and barely conscious.
This horrified me for two reasons - firstly that the girl was in that state in the first place - she was 14 years old. But the real sense of horror that filled my being was that though she could not have been in a more public place - directly under a street lamp on a busy street where people were standing and laughing - NOT ONE OF THE PEOPLE ON THE STREET had done anything to help her.
Jesus' follow-up question, "Who is my neighbour", tests us.
Each day God sends people to us - people for us to love. There are folk out there who do not act like they are our neighbours, or the neighbours of anyone else. Folk who do not show love to me - or to anyone or anything else I care for. That is the way it is in the world around us.
But
we are not of the world. We are of God - we are born of the Spirit into Christ,
and we are called to live differently - to think differently -
to do differently. We have to look through the SEP fields and see the people
who need our help. Perhaps we won't be able to see through them all - but
we have to be looking. We
are called to be neighbours to those who are not our neighbours; to love those
who do not necessarily love us; to give to others who may not ever give back
to us.
These are all good questions. Our answer must be touched by the truth: it's not someone else's problem.
Amen.
(Dan Joseph)
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.