“We Belong to Each Other”
Luke 10:25-37
excerpt from “My Parting Prescription for America”
Let me be clear: I didn’t set out to design a Lenten sermon series that would counter the hateful messages of division and demonization that flow daily from the Trump-Musk administration.
What I did do was try to put together a series of reflections and activities that would ground us in God’s goodness and grace. I did try to encourage us to love our neighbors and maybe even save the heart and soul of our nation by practicing the lost art of interpersonal connection and community-building. I did try to come up with something that would encourage us to follow the guidelines for grateful and peaceful living laid out by the apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi:
Whatever is true, he said, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
How was I supposed to know—how could we have known?—that something so seemingly simple would require acts of heroic spiritual practice in the face of one of the cruelest and most destructive administrations our nation has ever seen? How was I to know—how were we to even imagine?— that the country’s un-elected co-president would declare empathy—empathy, for crying out loud—the greatest weakness of civilization, and that large swaths of the evangelical church would call empathy a sin?
Well.
Politics, at its worst, is all about exercising power over others. It’’s about who’s in and who’s out, who’s up and who’s down, and who to demonize in order to accrue even more power.
Long before Jesus walked the earth, and still longer before “Wicked” became a musical, people in power understood that “the best way to bring people together [was] to give them a really good enemy.”
But Lent, at its best, is all about the power-surrendering way of Jesus, and Jesus is all about empathy and love and building transformative community among all kinds of people, starting with the most despised, marginalized, and oppressed. The church, at its best, proclaims the love and justice of Jesus and builds the kin-dom of God by healing and changing the world. And, like Jesus, it does that by loving, including, healing, and empowering one person at a time.
Which brings us, of course, to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
It’s helpful to remember what comes before the parable: The lawyer’s question about how to live his best life, and then, after being prompted by Jesus, answering his question with the greatest two commandments in Jewish law: to love God with all one’s heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.
Jesus praises the legal expert’s answer, but then the expert—intending to elicit still more approval—asks what may be the most important question of all: And just who is my neighbor?
In response, Jesus tells a story that challenges us all, and makes at least three important points. First, our neighbor is anyone who is in need. Second, our neighbor is anyone who helps us in our time of need. And third, loving our neighbor has nothing to do with how we feel about them.
Loving our neighbor is not about believing the same things, being from the same place, being of the same religion or race or gender or politics, or even liking each other. Loving our neighbor is an action we take—action that reaches out, action that includes, action that serves, action that heals, action that empowers—loving, compassionate, justice-making action that may scare us, life-giving action that may cost us something, boundary-crossing action that may change us.
The story tells of the despised-by-Jews Samaritan man tending to the wounds of the beaten, left-for-dead, ignored-by-his-own-people Jewish man. The Samaritan then takes the Jewish crime victim to an inn, where the Samaritan continues to care for his enemy. The next morning, when the Samaritan—think undocumented immigrant, think trans woman, think ICE agent, think MAGA voter, think DOGE employee, think anti-abortion vigilante, think someone who denies the God-given sacred worth of LGBTQIA+ folks—pays for the continued care and housing of his oppressor.
I would love to know the part of the story that Jesus doesn’t tell. I would like to imagine the conversation that happened overnight between the anti-Samaritan Jew and the Samaritan who saved his life. I want to believe that the beaten man’s heart was open and his life was changed because, for the first time, he experienced a Samaritan as his equal. I want to believe that both men were changed and healed because, for the first time, they realized they were both beloved children of God and that they belonged to each other. I want to believe that when the Samaritan returned to the inn to check on the beaten man, they left together as friends and were soon meeting each other’s families and sharing meals together.
The New Testament Book of Acts tells us that people joined the first-century church—despite political and religious persecution, family rejection, and economic hardship—because they saw a community of people who took care of each other. They took care of each other and, with some struggle, welcomed all comers and shared their resources. They realized that, in belonging to Christ, they belonged to each other.
Community organizers make a distinction between different forms of community-building action.
Hospitality is the welcoming behavior that says, “Hey, you belong with us. Come on in!” Solidarity is the supportive behavior that says, “Because we belong together, we will stand with you in your time of need.” And mutuality is when everyone realizes they need everyone else, that there is no such thing as us and them; there is only us.
Mutuality says, “We are all in this together. Because we belong to each other, there is no longer Jew nor Greek, gay or straight, documented or undocumented, Christian or not, American or not, MAGA or Democrat, conservative or progressive, climate-change denier or climate-change activist.” Mutually says, “Because we are all broken and in need of healing, we need each other. Because we belong to each other, we will love each other in attitude and action. We will show up for each other, we will care for each other and cherish one another and be tender with each other during this hard time.”
Friends, I want to believe that is where we are and that, even if we have not yet arrived in that place that we are on the way, that our lives are shaped by the shared journey and commitment to creating that beloved, life-changing, world-healing community.
So in these distressing times, let us be tender with one another. Let us resolve to love and cherish all people, and let us start here and now.
In closing, I’m going to play a song for you. I invite you to close your eyes and receive this song as balm for your weary heart and inspiration for your soul. Let the tears flow, and know you are not alone.
The words to “Tending the Spark,” by Heather Houston, go like this:
And we will care for each other
As the world around us unravels
And we will tend to the spark
Of hope that lives within our grieving hearts
And we are here now, in this present moment
Lifting our voices and hearts
And we are here now, we have come together
We are tending the spark of hope
Oh may it grow
And we will care for each other
May it be so.
