I preached in the Biola chapel last Wednesday morning on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Two weeks ago was our missions conference, and this week is our social justice chapel series, so my sermon was attempting to bridge the topics of missions and social justice. What is the link between the two? The Second Greatest Commandment: “Love your neighbor.” The Parable of the Good Samaritan was Jesus’ response to the Teacher of the Law who wanted to know, “Well just who is my neighbor?” There were two points to my sermon: First of all, Luke makes it clear that the Teacher was trying to justify himself, and to test Jesus. In other words, the Teacher wanted to figure out who was his neighbor so that he could determine who he didn’t have to love. He was looking for a technical loophole. The other thing I pointed out was that the neighbor, to the Jew, was the Samaritan. The Samaritan represents someone of a different nationality, different ethnicity, different social standing, different economic class, and different religion. In other words, Jesus raised the bar on the Teacher of the Law and said that his neighbor was the person most different from him, in fact the most offensively different from him. That’s radical love!
I gave some practical pointers on how to love someone so different from yourself:
-TRAVEL: Go visit other countries to learn about other cultures, feel what it’s like to be a minority, see how other Christians worship, and broaden your perspective on the world.
-KNOW YOURSELF: Everyone has a particular gender, race, age, educational standing, socioeconomic class, and nationality. All of these things are power dynamics. Know where you stand and it will help you navigate power structures with other people. The powerful ought to be watching out for those less powerful than themselves.
-CRITICISM & ADVOCACY: Two of the principles I live by are: 1) You are often the best critic of a group if you are part of it, and 2) You are often the best advocate of a group if you are not part of it. One of the reasons I did my Ph.D. on Latin America (even though I’m Asian American) is precisely because it has nothing to do with me. I think Jesus calls us to defend those who are different from us, otherwise it is just a vested interest.
-ADOPTION: Not just in the literal sense, but also in the figurative sense—I think everyone should get to know a culture which is not their own, and if possible, befriend/adopt people who are different from them.
-CHURCH: The local church should be our outlet. Obviously at Biola, though we can have people of different ethnicities, we cannot have people of different religions, ages, educational levels, and socioeconomic class. Church is not 18-21 year olds who are middle class with IQs over 120! The church is therefore important, because that helps us to engage the world.
One of the ways that Southern Californians can do all of the above is to go down to Mexico. This past weekend, that’s exactly what I did. Most Americans are sadly ignorant of other countries, but in Southern California we are just hours from an international border. We ought to take advantage of it. I drove down with some people from my church to an orphanage near Ensenada, just about 1½ hours south of the border. We brought food, clothing, and arts & crafts. Much of what these kids need is just love. My heart broke for them. As rich, well-educated, resourceful Americans, can we just stand by and live our own sheltered existence when there is such need going on just hours from us? The U.S.-Mexican border is the international border with the greatest economic disparity in the world. These kids are the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak, and Jesus calls us to love them. And by doing so, we are loving Him. (Matt. 25:37-40)
I want to end with a quote by Justo Gonzalez, an evangelical church historian, which puts into perspective the “otherness” of the neighbor:
“Most of us find ourselves in multiple roles. We may be the powerful by race if we are white, yet among the powerless if we are women. We may be part of a powerless group if we are in an ethnic minority, yet if we are well educated and employed, we join the powerful in that category. Even within the family structure, the child is often the last victim of those who have no one else over whom to rule and yet are oppressed themselves. Our tendency is to claim only one part of our identity, to think of ourselves always as part of an oppressed group or to think of ourselves always as the powerful. A much more creative dynamic is possible when we claim both parts of our identity, and the liberation given by the gospel can nurture a constant interior dialogue within our own lives.”
