1.
 |
| The Good Samaritan by Dinah Roe Kendall |
On
this it almost seems to me like the terrorists and the major news outlets are
working hand in hand: maybe fear sells advertising; maybe fear stokes the
ratings; maybe fear is what mass media does best. But is there any doubt about this: that fear
just about incapacitates human creativity and empathy? Frightened politicians build awful walls and
turn refugees away. Frightened kids in
frightening cities turn to xenophobia and violence. But Jesus comes our way this morning with a
counter-narrative, with a gospel story, with a reminder of who and whose we
are. I want to speak this morning on the
subject of fear, because we Christians have a particular way of speaking to fear
and responding to fear. Not just the
preachers. Not just the teachers. But every one of us. Every one of us must bear witness, must give
testimony, must shine with love in anxious times like these. Every one of us. It’s our calling.
So it’s this
point—that fear so effectively incapacitates creativity and empathy—that proves
so decisive in Jesus’ teaching and especially this morning in the Parable of
the Good Samaritan. The parable’s
familiar. It’s timeless. But it’s so dang relevant this week.
“A man was going down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, and it was a dangerous road to begin with. And he fell into the hands of robbers, of
mercenaries; maybe they were politically motivated, maybe they were just
desperate and greedy. But they stripped
him, and they beat him, and they terrorized him, and they left him there for
dead in the road. A grizzly sign for the
rest of the world to notice. A way of
striking fear in the hearts of all the other travelers. Now by chance a priest was going down that
same road, and when the priest saw the beaten man, bloodied and scarred and
terrorized, he passed by on the other side.
So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he too
passed by on the other side.”
Now these two men, the priest and the Levite, they’re probably not bad men; they’re probably not callous men or scoundrels, certainly not robbers. But they are anxious men. They’re so very anxious about crime in the area. They’re so very anxious about the terrorists lurking who knows where. And given all that: who’s to judge them for crossing the street, for avoiding the mayhem, for hustling off to their families, their jobs, their obligations? They're anxious men. And to be honest, their anxiety is stirred a bit by their faith, by their tradition, by their sacred texts. Jesus is kind of sneaky on this point, but it’s not to be missed. Literalism makes us antsy. Rigid religion makes us rigid people. The Bible says don’t get your hands bloody when you’re off to serve the Lord in holy places. The Bible says don’t go near a dead man when you’ve got sacramental duties to fulfill. The priest and the Levite are decent men, certainly religious men, and Bible-toting men to boot. And they’re playing by the rules, it would certainly seem. Conventional wisdom and the rules.
But all of this makes
them antsy and anxious. All of this leads them to
turn their faces and their lives from the beaten man in the road. All of this incapacitates creativity and
empathy. And they pass by on the other
side. No, they’re not bad men, they’re
not cruel men; but they’re afraid.
2.
“But a Samaritan,”
Jesus continues. “But a Samaritan came
close to that same beaten and bloodied man.
And when he saw him, he was moved with pity, with feeling, with
love. And he went right to him and
bandaged his wounds, and then he poured some precious oils and wine on those
wounds. And he took care of him.” A Samaritan took care of him.
But in that town, in
that particular Samaritan town, the people refused to extend themselves; they
refused to offer Jesus a place to sleep; they turned Jesus and his friends
away. The text says, “They did not
receive him.” And in ancient times at
least, that was a huge affront. That was
a maddening slap in the face. “They did
not receive him.” Because he was a Jew,
apparently; because he worshipped his God in Jerusalem, apparently. Bigotry won out.
Now this infuriated Jesus’ friends, his disciples, understandably. And they asked Jesus, then and there, if he wanted to destroy them, if he wanted to call God’s wrath down on the inhospitable, unreceptive Samaritans. Seems clear that the disciples were rankled and ready to rumble. If that’s what Jesus wanted.
But Jesus turned, Luke
says. Jesus turned right then and
rebuked them. “We do not respond to fear
with fear,” he might have said. “We do
not respond to judgment with judgment,” he might have said. “We do not respond to hostility with more
hostility.” And that’s in Chapter
Nine.
So in Chapter Ten,
after the priest passes anxiously by on the other side, after the Levite passes
anxiously by on the other side, it’s a Samaritan (in Jesus’ story) who sees the
beaten man. Who stops and bandages his
wounds. Who cares for him. Remember how we said a minute ago that faith
has to do with seeing clearly and living freely? Remember how we said that when we’re afraid
we do neither?
So who’s the faithful
one in Jesus’ story? Who’s the one who
sees clearly and loves boldly and lives freely?
It’s the Samaritan. We know it’s
the Samaritan. It really doesn’t matter
which God he worships or which mountain his people identifies as their sacred
home. It really doesn’t matter which set
of scriptures he reads or how literally he reads them. It doesn’t even matter that some of his
countrymen are jerks. What matters—at
least to Jesus Christ, the Son of God—is that the Samaritan sees the beaten and
bloodied man, that he sets aside his own fears, and that he stops to bandage the
poor guy’s wounds. He sees clearly and
he lives freely. “Go and do likewise,”
Jesus says. In the end, the antidote to
fear, the only antidote to fear, is love.
3.
Think about the
parable, for just a minute: think about the parable from the perspective of
Jesus’ disciples. They’ve just had this
miserable experience with some Samaritans, in that Samaritan town. Who knows how poorly they were treated
there? What kinds of hostilities they
encountered there? We know they were
rejected there. The disciples were
rattled by the Samaritans, rattled enough to suggest that Jesus do some serious
damage and send a serious Son of God message.
But instead, and ever
the contrarian, Jesus goes ahead and uses a Samaritan as the hero of what might
be his greatest story. As the shining
example of neighborliness and mercy and love.
And you’ve got to hand it to him.
It’s gutsy story-telling. It’s
like going to Paris this morning and telling a story about a Salafist, a
fundamentalist warrior who stops to bandage the wounds of a schoolgirl who’s
been attacked and left for dead, outside the Cathedral of Notre Dame. When the local bishop and the respected rabbi
have passed by on the other side. What
Jesus is doing in the Parable of the Good Samaritan is turning, turning,
turning our attention to the power of love and capacity for compassion in every
human heart. The Salafist has it. The Samaritan has it. You have it and I have it. We all have it. The power of love and the capacity for
compassion. And only these can change
the world.
“So which of the
three,” Jesus asks the somewhat anxious lawyer in Luke’s narrative. “Which of the three was a neighbor to the man
who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
And the lawyer says, maybe getting the point at last, “The one who
showed him mercy.” The one who showed
him mercy.
Friends, we who walk
in path of Jesus, in the footsteps of Jesus, we are called out beyond the
suffocating boundaries of fear and despair.
This is not where we live. We are
called to live in the holy space of grace and mercy and love. Especially now. Most definitely now. And I want you to hear the call clearly and
resoundingly this morning. Because it’s
directed to you, and to you, and to you, not just to some vague and abstract
church, but to you, and to you, and to you: to young and old, to gay and
straight, to black and white, to rich and poor.
You are called to live in the space of grace; you are called to meet the
world’s pain with your love and kindness.
You are precisely and exactly the witnesses, the servants, the lovers
God needs in a time like this.
You see, we inhabit a
tradition that celebrates God’s love in the most expansive, the most
liberating, the most radical ways possible.
Because God loves the world, the cosmos, because God cherishes us so
completely and so deeply, we live beyond fear, we live beyond anxiety, we are
not shackled to our worries and our fears.
Do you hear that? Do you get
that? Jesus lived and died and rose
again to free us from those fears, to free us for loving and serving and
stopping and bandaging and caring and forgiving. That’s what this whole Jesus thing is all
about.
So wherever you’re off
to this afternoon: if you’re staying for our workshop with Muslim and Jewish
allies, if you’re heading home to hike the golden hills with a friend, if
you’re off to the library to work on a project or study for a test. Wherever you’re off to this afternoon, however
you spend your time this week, I want you to know that Jesus is calling you to
partnership in his cause. He needs you
out there, as his friends, as his lovers, as his ministers of grace and
peace. So, don’t be afraid. And don’t hold back. Isn’t that the message, always the message,
of the angels and the muses and the poets in scripture? Don’t be afraid. And don’t hold back. Let yours be the laughter that brings hope
and strength to the weary. Let yours be
the song that lifts the spirits of the sad and lonely. Let you be the one who stops for the beaten
man by the side of the road.
Because this is who you
are. This is what it means to
follow. And this is what Jesus is
saying, when he says, to you and to me, “Go and do likewise.”
Amen.
