Daily Devotion – June 20, 2020 – Charlie Axness
Who is my brother/sister?
Luke tells us: “A lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the law?’ And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with your entire mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have answered right; do this and you will live.’ But he desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘Who is my neighbor?’” Jesus then proceeded to share the parable of the Good Samaritan. It wasn’t what the man wanted to hear. First of all he likely held deep prejudice against the Samaritans. They were not like the Jews. They were of a different nation, culture and belief system. I would surmise that he thought Samaritans inferior compared to Jews. At the parable’s end Jesus asked, “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” Apparently the lawyer couldn’t bring himself to say the Samaritan. He replied, “The one who showed mercy on him.”
Who are the Samaritans of your life? Who are the people you dislike or feel superior to because of their nationality, color, culture, station in life, or belief system? Prejudice is a deep and hurtful disease and it lives in all of us. We make tasteless jokes. We sit on the other side of the room rather than sit next to “them” in a public place. We don’t wish to have our children in the same classroom because “they” will impede the progress of our “more gifted child.” We don’t kill in a literal way, but we do in so many subtle ways. We violate Luther’s explanation of Fifth Commandment. What is worse we pass our prejudices on to our children.
I grew up in Minot, ND, where the Samaritans were the American Indians. I am unsure if it is so in Minot at the present time. However I am confident that they remain the most marginalized people in our state. Ask Larry Thiele, an American Indian, an ELCA pastor and a spiritual leader of the Dakotah O’Yate Congregation. He will tell you that the prejudices against the America Indians are every bit as alive as the prejudices against blacks or maybe greater.
The question for us is not if prejudice exists, but what are we doing in our homes and churches to begin to eradicate prejudice? I am afraid that often the answer is that we ignore it. Perhaps we of St. John Lutheran of Fargo, ND will be the people who are willing to help in a meaningful way those who have be marginalized by our society and culture. Let us be known as the people who lived, worked and shared with those on the margins.
