Pentecost
8 – Year C (Proper 10) July
10, 2016
Luke
10:25-37, Colossians 1:1-14 Panzer
Liturgical Service
It turns out that context is everything.
If I were pastoring a congregation in the States, I think my sermon might
reflect conversations that had already started during thing, maybe at meetings
or public prayer gatherings. The recent events of killings in Baton Rouge, St
Paul/Minneapolis and Dallas, have once again stirred the pot of discord in our
country. They are evidence that both sides of the argument are right… we don’t
just have a gun problem; we also have a heart problem. But this heart problem
isn’t just evident in America… look at the paper or listen to the news every
day and somewhere someone has acted on their distrust of other members of the
human race out of fear and hatred of those who are “other.”
We live in a world where assumptions are
made every day about people’s character – on whether they are good or evil –
solely based on the views they take on social, political or religious issues.
We assume that we know everything about someone just because we know something.
In many years as a pastor, during my years related to the US military
community, and with the experience of living in a foreign country, I am more
convinced than ever that any assumptions I make about people will probably be
wrong.
This is only the second time in 26 years
of ministry that I have preached on these texts. I find this encounter with
Jesus one of the most memorable and defining moments in the gospels. I don’t
think I would be exaggerating if I said I think about this conversation and the
parable that follows every day. Jesus’ question in response to a question is
radically relevant to my life, and to yours. These are our queries for today:
Who is my neighbor? And what does love look like?
Today we encounter Jesus in
conversation with a member of the following crowd. Now there were two kinds of people who showed
up whenever Jesus was around… the many who were desperately in need of what he
had to share, and the few who wanted to trip him up. The desperate ones were usually not members
of polite society. They were poor, lame,
or diseased. They were shunned, shamed
and forgotten. They were the woman who
touched Jesus’ garment for healing, lepers who had spent much of their lives in
solitude, people with shady backgrounds or occupations – In short, the outcasts
of the world.
The ones who wanted to trip him up
were the people who saw Jesus as a threat.
The one we encounter today is introduced as a scribe – a traveling judge
dispensing legal advice on complicated matters of the law and its
interpretations through hundreds of years.
His question seems to be as much about challenging Jesus’ honor as testing
his knowledge of the Law. This is not
about personal salvation - It is much bigger than that. His question is really about “Who is in?” and
“Who is out?” of the Kingdom of God.
And to this expert, Jesus replies –
love God with everything you have – heart, soul, strength & mind – and love
your neighbor as yourself. This
statement implies that no part of us or our lives is to be withheld from
God. There is no compartmentalizing in
God’s world… no such thing as a personal or professional… no sense that faith
is only lived on Sunday. Indeed, when
one loves God fully, life is lived out in service to others as a natural
extension of that love… we can do nothing else.
The scribe, a lawyer, is indeed well read. But Jesus’ answer shows us that knowing about
God or the law is not enough. Real love
of God is found in living the commandments in everything we do. Real love of God is about being “all in.”
Jesus is teaching us that neighbors
are not bound by social boundaries or class divisions. Mercy is not the product of a calculating
heart, nor eternal life the reward for following the rules. We don’t love our neighbors to punch our
ticket to heaven. Being a neighbor is
what we do in response to the gift of eternal life that is already ours
through Jesus Christ. Eternal life is
the promise. Loving God and neighbor is
the “thank you” note we write with our lives every day.
Now with parables, it’s natural to
see ourselves in the characters, and this one is no different. Upon first reading, I want desperately to see
myself in the role of the Samaritan – a helper and friend to those in
need. But as I study it more and more, I
see in myself much more of the other characters in the story.
I see myself often too busy to stop
and help, even when I see I need that I can meet with little delay in my
schedule. I see myself sometimes afraid
of what others will think of me if they see me relating to someone outside my
tiny, comfortable world. I see myself at
times alone and battered by life, wondering if anyone really cares about my
pain, my loneliness, my isolation. I see
myself doing something for someone else, only to realize that I am getting a
lot more out of it than I feel I am giving.[ii]
We can easily be lured into thinking
of Jesus as a kindly Savior, one whose friendship assures us of a place in
heaven. We are comfortable with the idea
of someone who saves us from our sins… and ourselves. But it’s always a surprise that Jesus rarely
talked about that kind of stuff.
Jesus didn’t come to make sure that
things stayed the way they had always been.
Whether we like it or not, Jesus came to change the world - to challenge
the status quo. Prevailing religious
wisdom said that following the letter of the law would save the world – some of
us live that way today. Instead, Jesus
asked the people (and us) to follow two commandments: First, to love God with everything we
have. And then, as a natural outpouring
of that relationship, to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. In a nutshell, the 613 laws from the Torah
and thousands of interpretations all boil down to one simple command – just
LOVE.
This week’s violence, in the US and in
other countries, is evidence of a heart sickness that is in opposition to all
that Jesus modeled. For sure, none of us here are the ones who carried out the
violence we read about or see on TV. But are we willing to walk by, stand by,
and do nothing to help? Are the stories we share or the conversations we have
reflecting the person God intends us to be or merely a way to make us feel
better about maintaining the status quo? Are we so afraid for our own safety
and status that we are offended by movements that seek to lift people out of
their stereotypes and identify them are beloved children of God, and in the US,
under the equal protection of the US Constitution?
We are being called into relationship with
all of our neighbors. And that is hard, because the world is telling us that people
who are different are evil or of lesser value, all because of how they dress,
or worship, or which political party or candidate they support or who they
love. When I think of all that I would miss out on by only hanging out with
people like me – that would be one boring life, for sure. I think that is one
of the things that brought me to where I am now.
Several years before I was called to go to
seminary, I worked with a youth mission project in my home state of South
Carolina. Starting in the early 1980’s a minister friend starting taking high
school youth and adult helpers into poor, rural communities to help families
with small construction projects in their homes. Sometimes these houses had no
electricity. Some had no running water. Most had leaking roofs and sagging
floors. Often many generations lived under the same roof. For many of us, it
was as close to living with people from a different race than we had ever come
before.
Those weeks were life-changing, for the
youth and for the adults. Once I had a parent ask where I left her son, because
the teen who came home looked like someone she had given birth to, but was a
totally different person. One year, I worked with another adult and 8 teens to
clean up a lot where a very elderly woman lived in a trailer, with no power and
no bathroom. We cleared away 10 truckloads of trash to the dump. We built a
shelter over the trailer to keep the rain from coming in because it was too far
gone to repair. We dug a hole 6 feet deep and built an outhouse so she wouldn’t
have to use a pickle bucket from Hardee's as a toilet.
We worked hard in the Low Country heat and
sun and we were proud of all the work we had done. So imagine our dismay when
we returned the next morning to see yesterday’s trash littering the yard. Those
kids were mad. I was sad. And in our evening gathering they wanted to know why
they should go back and work another day if she didn’t appreciate all that they
had done for her. And from somewhere outside my own sadness and frustration, I
was able to remind them that God called us to love her because she needed love,
not because we needed to be appreciated. And we cried together. And we prayed
for God to change our hearts so that we could go back the next day and do
whatever needed to be done.
At the end of each
sermon, we say the words of the Creed… Credo…
I believe. I think as much as anything, this parable reminds us that a life of
faith is not just about having the right beliefs. It’s also about living those
beliefs every day. It’s about seeing a need and responding, no matter who it
is. And this is hard, hard work that happens over time. Anglican Bishop and New
Testament scholar N.T. Wright says, "Character
is a slowly forming thing. You can no more force character on someone than you
can force a tree to produce fruit when it isn't ready to do so. The person has
to choose, again and again, to develop the moral muscles and skills which will
shape and form the fully flourishing character."[iii]
Different is not bad…
more and more often, I am reminded that different is good. It helps me to grow
outside of my own self-important little world. Always and never are words we
rarely use anymore, because we experience more and more that is different than
what we are used to. More and more, we expect the unexpected. And in the
process, the world has gotten bigger and smaller at the same time, however that
is possible.
Radical obedience to God’s commandment of
love is a lifetime’s work. It’s
hard. It’s scary. It’s uncomfortable. But that’s the job. Paul’s greeting to the Colossians is a just a
fitting reminder and encouragement for us today.
… Be assured that from the first
day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you
wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough
understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you’ll live well for
the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you
learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray
that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim
strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is
strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the
Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and
beautiful that he has for us.. Colossians 1:9-12 (The Message)
Amen.
Peace, Deb
[i]
Culpepper, Alan, “Luke,” The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Abingdon Press
(Nashville:1995), pp 226-232.
[ii]
Inspired by a reflection by Kathryn Matthews Huey, http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/july-14-2013.html.
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