First Reading:
25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. Teacher,
he
said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
26He said
to him, What is written in the law? What do you read
there?
27He answered, You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.
28And he said to him, You have given the right answer;
do this, and you will live.
29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, And
who is my neighbor?
30Jesus replied, A
man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands
of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him
half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that
road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other
side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and
saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan
while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with
pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having
poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal,
brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day
he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said,
‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you
whatever more you spend.’ 36Which of these three, do
you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the
robbers?
37He said, The one who showed him
mercy.
Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise.
Second Reading:
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by
the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ
in Colossae:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
3In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, 4for we have heard of your faith in
Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the
saints, 5because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You
have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the
gospel 6that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit
and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among
yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace
of God. 7This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow
servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your
behalf, 8and he has made known to us your love in the
Spirit.
9For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not
ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the
knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and
understanding, 10so that you may lead lives worthy of the
Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and
as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11May you be made
strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and
may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully
12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share
in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13He has
rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the
kingdom of his beloved Son,
14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Most of the time, when we read the bible and it's something about growing crops or anything that has to do with agriculture… they know much more than we do… most of us don't know much about growing crops and harvesting or things like that… but here in the letter to the Colossians Paul says that the gospel bears fruit and then grows… bearing fruit comes first… I always thought that growth had to come first and then fruit… but he doesn't just say it once… he says it twice… perhaps there's something there… let's see.
Our first passage today might be the world's most famous story about showing compassion for people. When most of us hear it, we hear a nice little story with a nice little moral… in principle most of us like to do good deeds for people who are in need or who are less fortunate. And for the most part, if we were to read ourselves into the story, most of us would like to put ourselves in the place of the good Samaritan… it's a pretty comfortable place to be. But the thing is, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho is a journey. It isn't necessarily comfortable and it isn't often familiar. And when we imagine ourselves on a journey of the sort that isn't necessarily comfortable and isn't often familiar, things become a little more interesting because they hit a little closer to home.
The man, who is identified as a lawyer comes to Jesus with a theological question… what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now when they refer to a lawyer in the bible they aren't talking about a litigator like we usually think of as a lawyer… they're talking about someone who's studied the law. They know the Torah, the law of Moses, the only scriptures Jesus had to work with in his day and age. So when a lawyer comes asking a theological question, it only makes sense that Jesus directed him right back to the scriptures. What does it say in the law? The lawyer gives a one sentence summary of the law that Jesus says is right on… you've all heard it before… Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
The lawyer then tries to get into a semantics game… some people think he was asking out of good faith, who's my neighbor… others think it was more of a challenge, Who do I have to love? Who can I get away with not loving? Where are the boundaries of what you're asking of me? It could also be a pragmatic question that shows his understanding of love isn't terribly different from ours. There's only so much time, so much energy, so many resources, there have to be priorities, there have to be limits… Whose needs and well-being are to be as important to me as my own? And of course the implication in the question is that there's not enough love to share with everyone so where do I need to focus? Jesus if you're going to have these demands, let's have some reasonable parameters... But it turns out Jesus wasn't going to give him a rule to follow… he wasn't even going to give a guideline. Instead he would tell a story because a story has a special way of getting to the heart of the matter and then he would ask a question because an answer that the lawyer arrived at himself would be more authentic and have a more lasting impact than one that's handed to him.
I'm not going to rehash the story too much… the long and short
is a man was beaten, left for dead… a priest and a Levite came
by, both of whom were among the religious elite, but they didn't
help… At least one commentator says that it was common for a
story to begin with a priest and a Levite came by.
The usual
third person in the trio was an Israelite…a regular person like
you and me… that's the usual hero… that's the one the
original hearers of the story would have expected to swoop in and save
the day for the beaten and battered man. But it wasn't…
instead the third person to come by in the story was a Samaritan, a
despised outsider… and he didn't just help, he went above and
beyond what anyone would have expected. And it happened because the
Samaritan was moved by compassion.
I wonder what happened after the man recovered… I wonder how his life changed. I wonder how the lives of the people around him changed because someone they didn't think would care was moved by compassion.
True story: in 1987, when the first intifada broke out in the
Palestinian territories, things shut down in a major way. The
Palestinian economy started heading south and the tensions rose
between Israelis and Palestinians… eight years later in the
town of Jenin a twelve year old Palestinian boy was shot by soldiers
who mistook the toy gun he was holding for a real one. He was taken
to an Israeli hospital where he died two days later. Of course his
parents were beside themselves… but in the span of the two days
he laid in the hospital they decided their part of the world had known
enough hate and violence… there were people in need and they
didn't want anyone else to know the pain they had known… so
they allowed their son's organs to be given by transplant to children,
whether Palestinian or Israeli. Six people received organs and his
mother said, My son has died. Maybe he can give life to
others.
These parents made a journey into a place of unimaginable
hurt and what they found was that they were moved by compassion.
Their story was made into a movie and it's become a symbol of hope in
a situation that often seems hopeless. The movie was shown at
international film festivals and it inspired people from all over to
go to Jenin to help rebuild the cinema and the economy that was so
devastated over 20 years ago… They went to continue the cycle
of building hope and love and a better future for the people who live
there… And the theater opens in less than a month.
As people are moved to compassion… as they learn to care,
things happen… good things. Compassion is always rooted in
reality and it's always open to the possibility that God just might
transform that reality by working in us and through us. The Samaritan
reached out to help the Jew, the Palestinian parents reached out in
hope for a better future for everyone. And when the lawyer asked,
who is my neighbor?
Jesus told the story that we know as the
good Samaritan and he turned the question upside down. Who is my
neighbor? Became whose neighbor will you be. Who will you be filled
with compassion for? And for whom are you willing to work, to go to a
place that isn't necessarily comfortable and isn't often familiar?
But when Jesus told this story he was already on the way to Jerusalem… he was already looking forward toward his own suffering and death… he was already acutely aware that faithfulness is always expressed not only by what we say or what position we hold, but by what we do… and even that is only a shadow of a reflection of what has already been done for us.
You see, the Christian journey is characterized by a process of continually growing by continually stepping outside of our comfort zone. Acting in service leads to growing in faith leads to acting in service… it's cyclical and Every act of kindness: intentional or random, toward an individual or a group, every one of them is a starting point and a potential inspiration for a much larger response of kindness and compassion built into our community and built into our lives.
I guess Paul had it right after all… Go bear fruit… and see how you grow.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on July 11, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
