I once heard a simple story about a
wise, old preacher, who had just been called to serve a
congregation. Preaching was an important part of this church’s
tradition and this preacher was called because of his reputation of
giving eloquent, inspirational sermons. When the preacher stood up
for the first time behind the pulpit, he said, “Love one another.”
He then sat down. Over the next several weeks, he did the same exact
thing, simply standing up and saying, “Love one another.” The
congregation was understandably disappointed at this repeated, very
basic message.
Finally the chairman of the board of
elders met with the preacher and asked him about his repeated, three
word sermons. “You were such a good preacher when we came to hear
you during the search process—what happened?!” The preacher
responded, “I have given a lot of sermons over the years and I
finally decided that these three words were all that mattered. Once
we start living this message, I’ll start preaching something else.”
Now, the temptation at this point is
to sit down. Part of me probably likes that story because it
provides a cop-out for the hard work of prayerfully preparing a
sermon. But the point made by the preacher is also profoundly true.
If preaching does not proclaim our responsibility to follow God’s
rule of love, then as St. Paul writes, we are “noisy gongs and
clanging cymbals.”
The Gospel for today of course
provides an important example of what the preacher in the story was
talking about. Unlike the three word sermon, it also gives us a
concrete way to think about how we love one another.
Let’s look at the Gospel.
A lawyer—really, a religious
authority-- comes to Jesus and asks a question, “Teacher, what must
I do to inherit eternal life?” The text states that he did this to
“test Jesus.” This was not a humble seeker of God and truth, but an
expert in religion who was trying to entangle Jesus in a difficult
question and perhaps even start a controversy. Jesus wisely avoids
the lawyer’s trap and puts the question back on him, “What is
written in the law? What do you read there?” The lawyer responds
with the answer that we have heard so many times in our
tradition—love God with all that is in you and love your neighbor as
yourself.” Jesus agrees with his answer… problem solved—“do this and
you will live.”
But the lawyer couldn’t let well
enough alone. The text states, “Wanting to justify
himself, he asked Jesus, ‘and who is my neighbor?’” Really, this
lawyer does us all a favor. Love is a big word with many meanings
for different people. That’s one of the problems with the simple
three word sermon in my earlier story. We really need to know--
How do we love? Or as this lawyer asks, who
do we love?
Like he often did, Jesus responds to a
question by telling a story. It is a story most of us have heard
many times since we were little children in Sunday school. Let’s
listen to it again—a man is traveling and he is viciously attacked
and left for dead. Imagine the scene—a body on the side of the road,
naked, bleeding and probably unconscious.
Imagine walking up on this person.
What would you do—and why? Jesus tells about three different people
and how they responded...
The first person to come by is a
priest. Scholars say that since he was traveling away from
Jerusalem, he had probably just completed his temple duties and was
returning home. There is also an implication in the original
language that the priest was avoiding what he was thought was a
corpse in order to maintain his ritual purity. You see, certain Old
Testament laws stated that if a person touched a corpse, he would
become unclean and have to go through a seven-day cleansing process
before he could enter the temple again. According to his
understanding of his faith, the priest was doing what was right, he
was avoiding contamination.
The second person to come by was a
Levite. He also served the temple and was sensitive to keeping pure
according to the law. Like the priest, he crossed over to the other
side of the road without even approaching what he probably thought
was a dead person. In his way of seeing the world, he was doing the
right thing by keeping pure.
What do you think of these responses
so far? Would you respond differently? Why? Or would you avoid this
man too, but for different reasons? I believe it is important not to
jump too soon to judging the priest and the Levite. Their actions
were based on a conscientious faith and a clear way of viewing the
world.
In fact, I had a similar experience
about eight years ago. When we lived in south Florida, I used to
commute through a tough area called Liberty City. Lynn thought I was
crazy for going that way, but it enabled me to avoid the congestion
of the highway.
Anyway, one afternoon I was heading
home after a long day at the office. As I passed through an
intersection in Liberty City, I saw a car stopped with the door open
and a pair of legs hanging out. I’m not sure what had happened—it
didn’t look like an accident; I imagined it could have been a
shooting. I heard sirens heading in this direction and I just kept
driving.
Now frankly, I can argue why that may
have been a wise thing to do. This is a rough area and in those
split seconds I thought of my safety and justified myself because I
was pretty sure that the police would be there soon. But I didn’t
stop. I was more concerned about getting home safely after a long
day than with caring for that possibly injured person. So I can’t
judge the priest and the Levite in this story. At least at that
time, in that place, I can identify with them. My motivation was
different—I was concerned with my safety and frankly even my
convenience instead of ritual uncleanness—but my resulting behavior
was the same.
Thankfully, in Jesus’ story, a hero
appears. In telling his story, Jesus chooses someone who would be
immediately despised by the lawyer—a Samaritan. For us to understand
the relationship between the Judeans and the Samaritans, we may
think of the rivalry between Georgia and Georgia Tech fans or the
tension between Israeli and Palestinians. Another analogy in today’s
world might be the way some Anglican bishops in Africa feel about
some Episcopalians in the United States. Samaritans were despised.
The lawyer questioning Jesus—and others like him—equated the
cultural differences of Samaritans with a lack of orthodoxy and
morality.
The text states that the Samaritan
“was moved with pity.” Something in this man’s heart was touched.
But his pity did not stop there; he didn’t just walk by, shake his
head and say to himself, “That’s a shame.” No, the Samaritan went to
the man and tended his wounds. He even took the man to an inn and
paid for the innkeeper to care for him.
An interesting detail in the story is
that Samaritans believed in the same Old Testament purity laws that
stated that touching a corpse would make a person unclean. But
something in this Samaritan, some sense of human compassion, some
deeper connection with the implications of his faith, enabled the
Samaritan to see the injured man and respond
to his needs instead of worrying about rules for ritual purity.
This preference for human compassion
over religious law is a distinction that Jesus repeatedly made in
his teaching and ministry, a distinction that often got him into
trouble. Jesus repeatedly healed on the Sabbath, infuriating the
religious authorities. Jesus touched corpses, lepers, and women
hemorrhaging blood—all people who were unclean according to the
Scripture—and Jesus’ touch raised the dead and healed the sick. In
this story, Jesus makes clear again his priority between people and
law.
This point even becomes clear to the
religious expert who was trying to trap Jesus with academic
questions. When Jesus asked him, “Which of these three, do you
think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the
robbers?” the lawyer responded, “The one who showed him mercy.” I
wonder if this was an “Aha” moment for the lawyer that changed his
attitude, or if he was only reluctantly admitting the point as the
conclusion of an academic exercise?
Either way, the story stands as a
witness to us. A good question to ask when reading the Gospels is
“Who do I identify with in the story?” There are several
characters—the lawyer, the priest, the Levite—who are easy to
criticize in this passage. Some of us—like me when I drove through
that intersection—need to hear the story from their perspective.
What governs our lives? Are we too quick to point to what we believe
and feel justified instead of seeing people who are wounded and
showing compassion?
There are other characters in this
story, too. The Samaritan, of course; he is our Christ-like example
of responding in love to the one who is before you, the one who is
suffering, and the one who may not be expecting your care. Some of
you—like the story of Ryan in Rob’s sermon last week-- follow
Christ’s example and live your life with open eyes, open hearts and
open hands to those in need. Keep it up—like the Samaritan, you are
a role model for the rest of us.
Then there is the victim, the wounded
man on the side of the road. He sometimes gets forgotten as
preachers and readers focus on the good guy and the bad guys of the
story. The victim is a passive presence; he was in the wrong place
at the wrong time and something bad happened to him. He was hurt by
robbers, then he was ignored by the religious leaders of his
society. There are some of us here this morning that can identify
with the victim. You are neither the pious person who fails to show
compassion nor the unacceptable, unorthodox Christ-like hero who
shows unexpected mercy. No, you may be a wounded person who is
looking for care.
The message for you today is that our
common Lord calls us all to show the compassion that God shows us.
That is our higher law, what the epistle of James calls “the royal
law” ... to “love your neighbor as yourself.” There are many
wonderful stories of people of faith following that higher law,
caring for people with compassion.
But there are also times when the
church falls short, when its leaders ‘pass by on the other
side.’ If you can identify with that injured person on the
side of the road, please help us to see you; give us a chance to
share with you the compassion that ultimately comes to all of us
from God. Talk to one of us and let us know what you need. The
Gospel for today is clear about what we should do. Now we need to
see you so that we can respond like this Samaritan, this one who
showed mercy. Help us ‘love one another.’ Amen.
