josephholubsermons


 

July 11 2010
Pentecost 7
Luke 10:25-37

Hazardous Material

Jesus was recognized as an extraordinary teacher, but was also recognized as one who frequently departed from the traditional teachings of his own religion which, in turn, caused many to feel uncomfortable and even threatened.  As a result, he was frequently challenged by learned authorities of traditional religion. That's the spirit in which the lawyer approached Jesus in today's gospel. 

Luke begins this scenario with, “Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.”  That verse alone reveals much.  “Lawyer” means he was an interpreter and teacher of Mosaic law.  In other words, he was one smart religious dude.   It also tells us he came with an agenda.   To “test”, in Greek, means to uncover the essence of one’s character.[i]   Because Jesus was often considered unorthodox, challengers came at him with the agenda of exposing him as a false and blasphemous teacher.

The lawyer’s chosen issue was eternal life. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  “Eternal life”, in this context, was not a reference to “heaven” but a reference to “true life” or “authentic life.”[ii]  Deflecting the lawyer’s question, Jesus responds with his own question, “What is written in the law?”   (Mosaic Law of which you are an expert)  

Learned scholar that he was, the lawyer quickly responded, “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.”   Give the man a cookie!  “You are right,” said Jesus.  That is authentic life, CAPITALIZED,  underlined and in bold-faced!

But the lawyer’s unsatisfied ego couldn’t leave it there, so he pressed on with, “And who is my neighbor?”   At this point, feeling affirmed by Jesus, the lawyer sought more affirmation, not necessarily information.  He might have thought, “Maybe this Jesus character is OK.”  After all he and Jesus seemed to agree, at least to this point. 

“And who is my neighbor?”  It seemed like a safe enough rhetorical question because by the accepted religious definitions of the time, he had most likely been a good neighbor; a great neighbor; a superb neighbor.  I have no doubt about it.  In those days, their sacred writings defined who was and who was not a neighbor.  In the apocryphal book of Sirach it reads, “If you do good, know to whom you do it… do good to the devout and the humble… for (God) hates sinners… so give to the one that is good, but do not help the sinner.”[iii]   Other writings specified that only fellow Israelites were considered “neighbors.”  For the most part, neighbors were the righteous and the good.  Sinners, outcasts, undesirables, the marginal, enemies, the ritually unclean, strangers, were not considered neighbors.  “And who is my neighbor?”   For the lawyer it was a safe question because, most likely, he had been a good neighbor by most conventional definitions. 

But looking for an affirmation from Jesus, he got neither an affirmation nor an admonishment.  Instead, he (and we get) got a story.

There are two things we need to keep in mind about Jesus’ stories (parables): One, they almost always challenge the listener to move into a deeper and fuller experience of life and humanity.  Two, they often  disturb and shake up the world of the listener-challenging the listeners world-view.

A man is mugged and left to die on the side of the road.  A priest and a Levite (religious/clergy) came by, but they passed by on the other side.  It’s not hard to figure out why they passed by, all sorts of reasons, but it is not that they were bad people. There is nothing in the story to even suggest they were bad people. That’s not what this story is about. They were religious people of a specific religious paradigm-a paradigm that disconnected them from the man in the ditch rather than connect them.  This is the core issue of this story.  So why did it disconnect them? 

• First, presumably the man was dying or dead.  According to the their religious law, a Priest or Levite who got within four cubits (about 10 feet) of a potential corpse made himself ritually unclean, and subsequently had to go through rather elaborate purification rites.  Until the purification rites were completed they were forbidden to practice duties in the temple.  To attend to the man, who may have been dead, would have likely meant a terrible inconvenience and even public embarrassment.
• Second, by all surface appearances this dying man did not appear to fit the religiously accepted definition of “neighbor.”  It was likely he was outside the defined boundaries of neighbor, so the Priest and Levite felt no obligation or compulsion to help. 

Along comes a Samaritan, who was considered to be a religious outcast by the orthodox in Israel. And he did help; did get involved, sacrificially involved.   1) He placed himself at risk by rendering first aid; touched that which would have left the priest and Levite “unclean.”   2)   He put him on his own animal, which likely meant he would now have to walk.  3)     Took him to an inn and assumed the man’s debt by paying for his needs.  The Samaritan disregarded all the potential risks and attended to the needs of the dying man and got involved in his suffering.  End of story. 

Then Jesus places the story in the lawyer’s lap by asking, “Which of these three was neighbor…”   It’s a no-brainer – even the lawyer had to concede, "the Samaritan, of course!"   If we have been paying attention to the context, we see that with one little story Jesus completely dismantled and demolished, not only this lawyer’s personal boundaries, but all the conventional religious boundaries of who was and who was not considered a neighbor in Israel!   My friends, this story should come with a warning label, “hazardous material!”

One way to frame this story is to see that it represents two very different religious paradigms.  The priest and Levite represent one kind of religious paradigm, and the Samaritan represents another kind of religious paradigm. 

Metaphorically the priest and Levite represent a religious paradigm that had neatly ordered the world and people and things into good and bad; acceptable and unacceptable; righteous and unrighteous, clean and unclean; neighbor and foreigner, friend and foe, sacred and profane, etc.  They represented a religious paradigm that drew very clear boundaries, and there were certain boundaries that one did not cross if one was properly religious.   A contemporary parallel might be a paradigm that emphasizes the next life at the expense of this life, or one that puts correct beliefs, creedal formulas and moral requirements in front of following Jesus into a deeper experience of God’s compassionate love lived out in the world.

On the other hand, the Samaritan represents a religious paradigm that jumbled everything up.  It was a religious paradigm not defined by boundaries, creedal formula's, strict requirements, correct beliefs but defined by compassion; and compassion is blind to boundaries, categories, and anything that separates people and minimizes the humanity of others.  

Compassion, as I shared with the children, is a special kind of love with which Jesus loved.  The heart of compassion is a passion to put oneself in the place of the other who has been mugged by life and left to manage for himself or die alone in the ditch. As one who had been despised, rejected and marginalized perhaps it was easier for the Samaritan to identify with the victim laying by the side of the road.          

One question I like to ask about this story is, "Which of the characters in the story looks most like Jesus?"   For obvious reasons, Jesus looks a whole lot like the Samaritan, of course, but not just the Samaritan.  There is a remarkable resemblance between Jesus and the victim at the side of the road:  ambushed, bleeding, stripped, dehumanized, left to die!  He looks like Jesus moving through life on his way to the cross. 

If that is true, it changes everything for me.  It radically changes where I look to experience God’s presence in this world.  The story ultimately declares God's solidarity with those who languish or have been pushed into the ditches of the world: forgotten, ignored and left alone to suffer and die – with nobody caring or hardly acknowledging their pain.  It also changes my understanding of faith, not as correct beliefs, but trust in following the compassion of God deeper into life and the suffering of others.     

I was taken by an article that appeared in Wednesday’s Denver Post in the Lifestyle Section about a young 23 year old Denver woman named Jessica Posner who has chosen to take up residence in one of the poorest and most desperate places on this planet-Kibera, an area in Nairobi, Kenya about the size of Central Park, New York.  1.5 million human beings live in that same area, most without drinkable water or electricity, amid garbage and human sewage.  There are 1300 people for every available toilet.   It’s an area characterized by gender violence, tribal conflicts, sexual exploitation, AIDS, unemployment and more.  To use her words she says, “Kibera is a hell on earth.”  

She also said, “There is no rhyme or reason to why I was born into the 80220 ZIP code; why I have never wanted for anything – and these people have nothing.”

Jessica had the opportunity to live in a more comfortable nearby middle class area, but she declined.  She said that if she was to be taken seriously, she had to live alongside everyone else.  The people of the Kibera neighborhood were shocked that she would chose to live among them.  To anyone’s knowledge, no white person had ever done that before.  The people were sure that it was only a matter of time and she would die.  In fact, on a daily basis there would be a line of people in front of the house in which she was staying, and they would ask if she had died yet!

She didn’t die and she has returned a fourth time, this time for at least a year.  She has taken creative initiatives that have brought a degree of help and relief to Kibera .  Her work has resulted in a non-profit initiative called Shining Hope that, so far, has developed a school for young girls, community gardening projects, sanitation facilities, a simple community health center and much more. 

Over the years many in this congregation have journeyed to numerous places with the compassion of Jesus to empower those who have been swept into and suffer in the ditches of life.  Today we lift up two among us (Paul and Doug) who are joining others this week in Manchay, Peru to help build houses in one of the most impoverished regions of that country. 

Compassion goes far beyond obligation.  Compassion is the result of putting yourself in the situation of the other, and being called into the suffering of the other.  And compassion is concentrated – a little bit goes a long way!  Just image what a lot of compassion might do?

It seems as if many people are hungry for a spiritual experience these days.  One thing I do notice is that in search of a spiritual experience people often withdraw from life in any number of ways: to retreat centers and mountaintops; or retreat into a kind of withdrawal mind-set that minimizes engagement with people and places that are perceived as being outside the sacred.  And, I certainly want to affirm that it is appropriate to make time to withdraw, regroup and renew.   

But if we take this story and the story-teller seriously at all, we can never forget that Jesus enmeshed the sacred and the profane, jumbled everything up, and declared that God is perhaps most fully experienced in profane places and people, the muck and misery of life, places where we will be placed at risk, our hands will get dirty, we will be made unclean and called to bear the burdens of others.  Jesus made the profane ditches of life, and those in them, as holy and sacred as any temple, cathedral or haven of retreat. 

Following Jesus means to travel with him beyond the limits of what conventional religion and culture says is far enough – good enough – sufficient enough.  I have observed and experienced that a profound and amazing thing can and does happen when we follow that far.  Not only are those gone to empowered, but often those who go are transformed and changed in many ways.  And what seemed, at first, like a huge effort, ends up being experienced as a joy and a privilege.

This story of Jesus is a challenge for us to live and perceive in a new way, to see those that life has mugged, marginalized, and pushed to the side as neighbors in Christ; and it is a privilege to be able to serve them and encounter the living Jesus in them and where they are.