“Go and do likewise”

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

March 9, 2025

I grew up in a communally-oriented family. My parents were both public educators. My dad was a rural school superintendent, which means I spent several nights a week at various sporting events, tagging along while he made his public appearances. Basketball, football, volleyball, cross country - you name it, we were there. I spent countless hours sitting under bleachers with friends and consumed a significant amount of neon orange nacho cheese dip. 

When I wasn’t at 2A sporting events, you might have found me at Walmart with my mom. These were never quick trips because, well, as a teacher, she knew everyone. I’d think we were running in for just one or two things only to discover that she ran into several people she knew and so I’d twirl in the aisles or count cereal boxes or take out my book to entertain myself while she chatted. 

An introverted child in an on-the-go family, I never left the house without a book. I think it was a coping tool for me, a way to “shut down” the loudness of the world around me. To this day, there’s almost no place I’d rather be than wherever the pages of a book will take me. It’s my happy place. 

I think my grandmother must have been a bit more introverted like me. She’s the one who taught me the art of people-watching. She would sit with me on the bench at the mall and we’d pass the time noticing everyone who walked by. We’d make up stories about people and pass the time quietly together. 

Though she may have been more introverted, my grandma was also a product of her time. A homemaker in the 50s and 60s, she found herself enmeshed in all kind of communal activities. She played bridge, was in a bowling league, and went down to “the Moose” most Friday nights. She was even in a literal club called “The Jolly Homemaker’s Club.” Not kidding. 

I thought about my grandmother when I first read Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone. Putnam’s argument is that, by the turn of the 21st century, we were starting to see some major tears in the social fabric that holds us all together. We might go bowling, but we probably weren’t part of a league. 

Putnam said a lot in that book about the rise of television. But he had no idea of the sea change that was about to come in the form of social media. Or COVID. 

Americans are spending more time alone these days. I definitely spend more time alone than I was ever able to as a child. And please hear me when I say: that’s not always a bad thing. Many of us need our alone time to recharge. And it’s truly a gift to enjoy your own company.

I wonder if the lawyer in the story we heard today was a bit of a bookworm, like me. I mean, he’s a lawyer, so I’m guessing he spent a good deal of his life with his head in some text or another. Reading, learning, pondering, wondering. Maybe he enjoyed organizing ideas - putting concepts in order, creating checklists, breaking the world down into if-then statements and 1-2-3 lists. He’s certainly done his homework. When he asks Jesus how to gain eternal life, he already knows the answer. And when Jesus shoots the question back at him, he’s ready to answer: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus gives the lawyer an attaboy and, really, you’d think the story would stop there. I mean, if Jesus told me “well done” I like to think I’d be smart enough to leave well enough alone, you know?

But the lawyer has another question: “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answers this question not with another question but with a story. 

A man is attacked while traveling the notoriously dangerous road between Jericho and Jerusalem. Left for dead, naked, as vulnerable as a person can be. A priest and a levite both pass him by. A third man, a Samaritan, is moved with compassion and stops to help. He takes the injured man to an innkeeper and generously starts an open tab to pay for his stay, promising to come back soon to check on him. 

Jesus closes the story with a question, “What do you think? Who was the neighbor to the man in need?” 

With this question, Jesus flips the script a bit, doesn’t he? The lawyer asked WHO is my neighbor. But Jesus gives an answer to a slightly-different-but-related question instead: HOW do we neighbor? 

WHO is my neighbor is focused on who is in and who is out. And it’s a great question. (Spoiler alert: it seems that everyone is in, in Jesus’s story.) 

HOW do we neighbor, though? Well, that takes us in a different direction. A neighbor is a noun. But neighboring is a verb. And so Jesus’s answer is less about categorizing people and more about what we DO when we’re neighboring.

In this story, it looks pretty straightforward: to neighbor is to notice, be moved with compassion,  and take time to care for others - going above and beyond to ensure the welfare of those we encounter.

And it is to do all of these things on a dangerous road - traveling from point A to point B, in a liminal, in-between space. The Samaritan is not a homebody like I prefer to be most of the time. He’s out there in the world dealing with whatever comes his way. He’s intentionally put himself in a space where he might be called upon to neighbor. 

Neighboring is something we desperately need right now. No wonder Jesus told this story in response to a question about the greatest commandment. Want to work on loving God and loving neighbor as yourself? It turns out neighboring may be the key. 

What is neighboring? It’s being aware of the people we encounter. It’s seeing them with eyes of compassion. It’s extending ourselves for their well-being. It’s receiving their gifts to us in return. It’s a reciprocal relationship based on proximity. In short, it sounds a whole lot like love. 

Neighboring is something we have to work at in the year 2025. It’s not just going to happen naturally in our current environment. After all, the Jericho road can be a scary place, so you might not want to open yourself up to strangers. And besides, we’re all in a hurry to get where we’re going. Plus it’s easier to just stay home and go to Jericho in VR anyway. 

It occurs to me that flexing our neighboring muscles would actually make a great Lenten practice for anyone who’s still looking for one. Neighboring happens in big and small ways - formal and informal. You might choose to neighbor in structured ways like….

• Joining a book group

• Taking on a regular volunteer commitment

• Creating a babysitting co-op with friends

• Participating in a mutual aid group

• Joining the choir, adult Sunday School, the Ministry of the Decorative Scissors

• And Dr. Putnam’s favorite: joining a bowling league

Neighboring also happens on the fly. When it does, it might look like:

• Taking 15 extra seconds and making small talk with the clerk at the store

• Speaking of the store: shopping locally where you can make those connections

• Taking leftovers to your next door neighbor because you made too much soup

• Striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to you at the game

• Picking up the phone and calling someone that you haven’t talked to in a while

• Staying for coffee hour after church and visiting with someone new

• Inviting someone you’d like to know better out for a walk or lunch

It’s not rocket science, right? And for some people it comes as easily as breathing and it’s joyful and exciting and energizing. For others of us it can feel hard and like one more thing on our to do list. Regardless of whether it feels easy or hard, like work or play, neighboring is something we are called to do as Christians. 

Incidentally, I kind of think Jesus might have fallen into the category of people who found it hard because he was always pulling away from the crowds to carve out some quiet time. But he recharge and then head back onto the road to neighbor some more. We are called to do the same. 

A few years ago, I read Together by Dr. Vivek Murthy. Like Robert Putnam before him, Murthy shared his concerns about the state of our social fabric. As the Surgeon General, he went a step further, saying that loneliness is a public health crisis in our nation. Throughout the book, Murthy shares stories of organizations and individuals that are combating the loneliness epidemic. Time after time I was struck by how simple and basic many of these solutions can be. One of them was a group of older guys who get together at their church every week just to tinker. They replace bulbs, clean out closets, replace toilet flaps, that kind of thing. And that’s what I thought, “Oh! These stories feel basic to me because they are what we DO as a church.” 

Neighboring is our bread and butter as followers of Jesus. And our congregations are places where we intentionally practice and model the art of neighboring. The church is called to be a place where we intentionally weave a web of social connection - both with each other and with the world around us. To walk and talk and act like Jesus is to extend ourselves for the benefit of others. In ways big and small, formal and informal, we are called to the work of neighboring. It’s the work of being love in the world. 

And boy does the world need it right now. 

I don’t know how much worse things will get before they get better. 

What I do know is that if we want to build something better on the other side of this moment of national crisis - if we want to weave a world that we’d like our grandchildren to live in - neighboring is the way. 

And if we’re going to care for those who are directly in harm’s way - if we’re going to make sure we all make it to the other side as healthy and whole as possible - neighboring is the way. 

Because we’re on the Jericho road now. It’s not an easy road to walk. In fact, it’s been known to be quite dangerous. We know there are robbers lying in wait. And there are people languishing on the side of the road who need our help. 

But sometimes the only way out is through. And neighboring is how we will get through. One foot in front of the other, resting as needed. When we see people on the side of the road, we will stop and check on them. When we are thirsty, we’ll pause by the spring and fill our bottles. When the children need to be carried, we’ll take turns carrying them. We will sing our songs and tell our stories and gaze upon one another with compassion. We will share what we have with those in need and welcome newcomers into our traveling band. We will gently call each other back when we wander off the path. And when we get worried or need to have a good cry we’ll find someone by the campfire willing to listen. 

And we will tell the story of the time a lawyer asked Jesus how to find his way to the fullness of life. And Jesus told him a story about neighboring. And how, at the end, he said, “Go and do likewise.” 

We’re trying, Jesus. Walk with us. Show us your way of compassion. Weave us into one body. Neighbor us through the ups and downs of this hard road. 

May it be so. Amen.