Text: Luke 10:25-37 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” 27 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 all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, 34 and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii[a] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
So, this lawyer comes up to Jesus and asks him “Who is my neighbor?”
On the face of it, it seems like a very unambiguous and straightforward question. But the fact that it’s a lawyer – or scribe as they were known then – makes me think right away that it’s a trick question, because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the scribes and the Pharisees – two groups that otherwise didn’t have a lot in common – were totally united in their hatred of Jesus and their desire to erase him and his dangerous, threatening, radical message from the face of the earth.
In addition to that, this scribe already knew the answer to the question. Or, at least, his preferred answer. As William Barclay tells us, “with their passion for definition the Rabbis sought to define who a person’s neighbor was; and at their worst and their narrowest they confined the word neighbour to their fellow Jews. For instance, some of them said that it was illegal to help a Gentile woman in her sorest time, the time of childbirth, for that would only have been to bring another Gentile into the world.”[1] Not exactly “neighborly” at all, is it?
This scribe had to have been aware of all that; so his question was nothing less than a verbal grenade thrown at Jesus’ feet. “Who is my neighbor,” he asks, quite possibly thinking to himself, “Let’s see if this yokel gets it right.”
But, of course, Jesus blows all his carefully-crafted legal constructs to smithereens. And he does it with a story – that compelling story of the Good Samaritan, which every one of us knows by heart.
But just what is it that makes that story so compelling? For me, it’s always been about the kindness of that Samaritan – when I first heard this story as a child, no one mentioned the rift between the Samaritans and the Jews, so it was the kindness of a stranger to that injured man that made this story so significant. It really made me want to be like that kind man, helping someone he didn’t even know, going even more than the extra mile for him. Knowing what I know now about the generations of deep hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans only makes it more so.
Kindness. A meek little word that we might not hear very often. But, boy, is it important!
“Kindness is a virtue,” we are told. I think that it’s even more important than that.
Sometimes our popular culture is able to get to the heart of the matter better than all the preachers and pundits combined. When I was writing this sermon, the words of the song by Glen Campbell kept running through my head:
“Try A Little Kindness”
If you see your brother standing by the road
With a heavy load from the seeds he sowed
And if you see your sister falling by the way
Just stop and say you’re goin’ the wrong way
You’ve got to try a little kindness yes show a little kindness
Yes shine your light for everyone to see
And if you’ll try a little kindness and you’ll overlook the blindness
Of the narrow minded people on the narrow minded streets
Don’t walk around the down and out lend a helping hand instead of doubt
And the kindness that you show every day will help someone along their way
You’ve got to try a little kindness…
You’ve got to try a little kindness…[2]
| Kindness goes by many names, names like kindliness, kindheartedness, warmheartedness, mercy, thoughtfulness, generosity, compassion, charitableness, hospitality…and many others. But all of these names really point to one thing: The willingness, maybe even the eagerness, to cast aside fear and suspicion, to go beyond oneself, to reach out and embrace, love, and nurture someone who is different, who is “Other,” who might not even normally appear on our personal radar screens. |
Many years ago, I came across a description of the book The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Recently, I finally got a copy; and it’s one of the dozen or so books I’m currently reading. The most significant thing about this book for me, though, is not just that children were systematically abandoned by the thousands throughout all those centuries, but that many of these abandoned children were rescued by others – the “strangers” of the title – and raised to adulthood. Now, certainly, many of these rescued children were exploited, enslaved, and abused. But many others were raised in loving and caring homes, and went on to have children of their own. I see this as good news. Perfect strangers gave these little ones a chance, a life.
I think it’s at least possible that some of us, maybe even many of us, here today are here only because of the kindness, the tenderness, the generosity, of some unknown, unnamed people hundreds of years ago, who brought our ancestors under their roofs and loved them as their own, regardless of their parentage, their heritage, their origin, or anything else. And we are their heirs.
So here we see that kindness is not just “something nice” that we do for others, like holding open the door for someone, or even giving a homeless person a dollar or two of change when we’re stopped at the top of a freeway onramp. It’s a fundamental function of human existence. Without kindness, the skein of human life that we all depend on begins to unravel. Without kindness, we’re all nothing but a bunch of savages, howling at the moon.
The veneer of civilization is razor thin; and it doesn’t take much, not much at all, to rub it off entirely.
The events of this last week, on top of the events of the last few months, make me really wonder whether we have finally managed to rub off that veneer. Because the horrible acts of carnage we are seeing are ugly. They’re not civilized. They’re definitely not Christian, far, far from it. They represent human behavior at its most savage.
Of all the horrible things that happened this last week, the worst – the absolute, rock-bottom worst – for me was seeing the news report that a two-year-old boy, an innocent infant, was killed by gunfire while sitting in his car seat in his parents’ van at an intersection. His sister was also wounded. A life, a baby’s life, snuffed out – and for what? Some gang turf war? Words fail us. There are no words that can adequately plumb the depth, or the breadth, or the enormity of such a tragedy. And little King was not the first child to die in that way. There have been many others – too many.
Have we become a nation that is addicted to violence? There are many who think so.
Yet, for all the horror of the past week and the past months, my answer is No, we have not. Not yet. Kindness still exists all over the place, in the hearts of people of goodwill, like you and like me.
For our nation has gone through dark periods before, and survived them – the Civil War comes most readily to mind. But the closest parallel to the tensions of today that I can think of would be the dark, dark days of the 1960s, when even as a little kid I came to the conclusion that our world was not going to make it to 1970 – I really and truly believed that.
But we did. Here we are. The 60s are decades behind us. We survived them. We will survive these days, too. Are there things we need to do? Yes. Should we, as individuals and as a nation, do some soul-searching as to who we want to be and where we want to go? No question.
What are we to use as a guideline? We can do no better than to follow what Jesus says in today’s lesson.
“Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asks, smugly sure of his answer. To him, and those like him, our neighbor, of course, is someone who is close to us, who looks like us, who sounds like us, who believes like us. All others must stand clear, far removed from the warmth and light of our campfires or the fences of our villages.
But no. He is wrong. Jesus says he is wrong. We know he is wrong. Beyond the screaming headlines and the doom-and-gloom prognostications of all those talking heads on TV, we recognize in others and in ourselves the depths of kindness that, in the end, will make all the difference.
And it starts right here. With us.
The most heartening statement I have read this week comes from one of our own, Holly Struve. She put this on her FaceBook page on Friday:
“One day we will all stand before God and give an accounting of how we lived and how we loved His children. I, for one, do not want to tell God I was unable to love all of His children because their skin color was different from mine, because they made stupid mistakes, or they chose to live and believe differently than me. I have enough to answer for in my own mistakes and bone-headed choices.”
That, Sisters and Brothers, is the attitude of kindness, not to mention humble self-awareness, that I’m talking about.
Professor David Lose, in this week’s post on his blog “…in the Meantime,” writes about “the God we didn’t expect”: “God often shows up where we least expect God to be. No one expected God to reveal God’s glory through the disgrace of the cross. And no one expected, or even wanted, God to reveal God’s power through vulnerability and suffering. But that’s what happened. Perhaps that’s why Jesus chose a Samaritan, to remind this self-justifying lawyer that there is no self-justification possible, because the moment we can justify ourselves we no longer need care about those around us. The consequence of justifying ourselves, it turns out, is to struggle to recognize the presence of God in our neighbors and, even harder, in our enemies. When we fail to see, draw near, and help those we mistrust or fear or just want to ignore, we risk missing the saving presence of God in our lives and in the world. So who, we might ask, do we have the hardest time imagining God working through? And then we should probably expect God to do just that.
“But it is not simply a lesson; it is also a promise. God comes where we least expect God to be because God comes for all. The self-justifying lawyer and the outcast Samaritan; the refugees and those who want to keep them out; those in need, those who help them, and those who turn away. No one is beyond the pale of God’s mercy, grace, and redemption. And if we’re not sure, keep in mind that Jesus, as we heard two weeks ago, has set his face to go to Jerusalem, and there he will not only suffer and die on the cross to show us just how far God will go to demonstrate God’s love, but also forgive those who crucify him. No one is beyond the reach of God’s love. No one. And so Jesus brings this home by choosing the most unlikely of characters to serve as the instrument of God’s mercy and grace and exemplify Christ-like behavior. That’s what God does: God chooses people no one expects and does amazing things through them. Even a Samaritan. Even our people. Even me. Even you.”[3]
I believe, as Abraham Lincoln did, that “the better angels of our nature” will yet win the day. This isn’t just wishful thinking on my part, either. Those “better angels” are at work already. I’d like to close with the following true story that happened to two Muskogee, Oklahoma, police officers back in April. Here’s their story:
“While sitting in his parked patrol car and waiting for his partner, an Oklahoma police officer didn’t have to go looking for action, when it came to him instead. An African-American woman slowly rolled by him, before stopping her car and approaching the white officer with a shocking request, before he noticed what was right behind her.
A pair of two Muskogee cops, known as Pancho and Lefty, pulled over into a city park parking lot to wrap up some shift duties, while on their regular daytime patrol. Seemingly out of nowhere, a woman pulled up alongside them and began making her way toward their vehicle.
With a look of concern consuming her face, the only officer in the car at the time could only imaging what was about to happen, but he never expected her to present him with the offer she did. The unnamed woman didn’t need help with anything, but she did have an urgent safety concern — the officer’s.
In a post about the incident on social media, the cop explained that “she simply stated that she wanted to pray for me. Specifically for my safety.” He couldn’t help but notice her two small children, one at her feet, the other in her arms who was too young to walk on her own. The children looked at him in awe at the honor to bless this man’s life, for which the officer gratefully accepted.
The mother and her children circled around him, as she prayed for his protection, which meant more to this man than the woman could ever know. “I expressed my gratitude the best I could, but she really has no idea how much that meant to me,” the cop wrote in his post. After her prayer came to an end, her little boy looked up at the cop with his big brown eyes and reached into his pocket to give the officer a gift.
“’Her little boy handed me a wilted flower that looked as if it had been in his pocket for a week,’ he wrote. ‘At that moment, it was the most beautiful flower I’d ever seen.’ However, the interaction stuck with him for deeper reason than her faithful gesture. Pancho and Lefty hadn’t planned to share this afternoon occurrence on their shared Facebook page, until one of them realized the bigger thing at play in what happened that day.
“’My prayer is that sharing this encounter will encourage many to give people a chance, regardless of race or profession,’ they began to conclude, after explaining what a stranger did for them. ‘You simply cannot judge an entire group of people because of the actions of some. Don’t hate evil more than you love good.’
“This woman is setting a great example for her children who are growing up in an era where many feel entitled to disrespect those who are there to protect them. Thank you to these excellent officers, who disproved the naysayers who fuel their hate for law enforcement with assumptions of racial injustice, which wasn’t evident in this parking lot.
“The officer didn’t reach for his gun when he saw her coming, he extended his hand. The cop, the woman, and her children came together that afternoon as common people living in a terrifying time, both in need of God’s superior protection.”[4]
Let us pray:
O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day those innocents who have died this week [owing] to gun violence. We thank you for giving them to their families and friends, and to us the people of our nation, to know and to love as companions on our earthly pilgrimage. In your boundless compassion, console us who mourn. Give us faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence we may continue our course on earth, until, by your call, we are reunited with those who have gone before; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.[5]
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Barclay, William, The Gospel of Luke, The New Daily Study Bible, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 1975, 2001, p. 167
[2] “Try A Little Kindness,” © Glen Campbell
[3] http://www.davidlose.net/2016/07/pentecost-8-c-the-god-we-didnt-expect/
[4] http://madworldnews.com/black-woman-cop-request/
[5] The Book of Common Prayer, p 493, adapted