This sermon was preached at the invitation of Parkview United Church of Christ, Aurora, CO on February 14, 2010. Parkview's pastor, Rev. Steve Hoffman, asked Comunidad Liberación/Liberation Community members to participate in worship and for the sermon to address a pressing issue in the Aurora community: Immigration. My text was the Good Samaritan, Luke 10: 25-37, and attempts to connect what may at times seem to be an abstract and distant debate with the reality of suffering in Parkview's own neighborhood.

“And who is my neighbor?”

That’s not really the question Jesus answers, is it?

The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” and you get the sense he’s not looking for a vast universal answer here – not hoping for “well, everyone!” – but an answer that will put some limits on the reaches of his responsibility...or affirm the limits of his responsibility as he already understands them.

But that’s not the question Jesus answers.

The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” and Jesus responds with the now-famous story of the Good Samaritan, a story which has rightfully inspired hospitals and clinics and humanitarian projects and even laws to protect strangers who help those in need.

But it’s a story which doesn’t answer the lawyer’s question.

“Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asks. But Jesus flips the question and turns it back to the lawyer: “Which of these was a neighbor?” Who was the neighbor to the man left for dead?

This is the question of essence for Jesus: Who was the neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The command to love your neighbor as yourself should provoke in us not the attempt to define the other, but rather, the attempt to define ourselves. The question is about us, and who we are to be, and how we are to live in relationship with those around us, particularly those who are wounded, who have been left by the side of the road to die. How are we to love? How are we to tend to the wounded around us?

To read the rest of the sermon, click here.

The sermon is also available in Spanish.

Rev. Anne Dunlap is the pastor of Comunidad Liberación/Liberation Community in Aurora, CO, a bilingual, multi-cultural base community in the Christian tradition, striving to live faithfully, to embody God’s vision of the beloved community, and to resist joyfully oppression and injustice. Comunidad is a ministry of Mayflower UCC in Englewood, CO.