In The Grip of a Story and the Story-Teller

 About 30 years ago on a Saturday evening after dark, I was on my way home from church in my car.  The street traversed through a shadowy warehouse district near the river.  As I traveled along the deserted dimly lit street my mind was far away on other matters.  Suddenly I was jarred back into the moment!  About a block ahead of me there was a disturbance in the middle of the street.  It appeared to be two men viciously kicking a third man lying in the street.  As I approached I could see that the down man was trying to protect his head by curling up in the fetal position with his hands and arms over his head while being brutally kicked. 

 Instantly my heart was in my throat, adrenal glands pumping profusely.    A myriad of thoughts instantly flashed through my mind.  You know how that works, when your brain kicks into overdrive and you have about a dozen thoughts simultaneously.  What do I do?  Do I go and help?  If I do, what if the muggers have weapons, perhaps a hidden gun or knife stealthy hidden under their coats?  I could be hurt, even killed.  Do I turn up this side street and pretend I don’t see the whole thing and just go on my way?  What do I do?  I am afraid!  What do I do?

 Believe it or not, in that instant this parable also flashed through my mind, and I knew what I had to do.   With my heart approaching ventricular tachycardia, I began flashing my bright lights on and off, laid on the horn, stepped on the gas and headed straight for them.  When the muggers saw me coming, I must have frightened them more than I already was and to my great relief they ran away. 

 I screeched to a halt, got out to attend to the needs of the wounded man.  I looked up and suddenly realized this whole event had taken place in front of a little corner tavern.  Then I saw a most amazing and disturbing sight.  Looking out of the tavern’s front window were at least a half dozen faces. In a fit of rage, I screamed at the faces to call the police.

 In one critical split second I was faced with a clear choice, to proceed ahead perhaps at great personal risk, or to avoid the whole scene by turning up a side street and pretend I didn’t see it.  In that same critical split second something else happened.  This story laid claim to my life.  I discovered at that critical moment I was in the grip of a story and the story-teller, and I couldn’t shake it or him.  If I am honest, I must confess there was little part of me in that instant that groaned in regret that I had ever even read the story or had made friendship with the story-teller in the first place.  You see, the decision for what to do had been made for me 2000 years earlier when Jesus told this story for the first time. I simply could do no other.  I had to proceed at risk. 

 This is a dangerous story, especially if you let it soak into your psyche and seep into your soul.  This end result of this story is that it may cause you to go to places and people you never would have gone to if not for the story and the story-teller. 

A lawyer came to Jesus and wanting to justify himself he asked, “And who is my neighbor?  He only asked because he believed that by the accepted religious definitions of the time, he had been a good neighbor.  He was looking for pat on the back from Jesus!   Back then it was commonly taught by the religious teachers exactly who was and who was not a neighbor.  In the apocryphal book of Sirach it says, “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.” (Sirach 12)  You see there were very clear, specific, and definite limits and boundaries. Neighbors were the righteous and the good.  The sinners and outcasts were not considered neighbors.   

Like the lawyer in Jesus’ story most of us think of ourselves as good neighbors, at least by our own definitions.  But he did not and we do not get a pat on the back.  Instead he got and we get a story.

 A man is mugged and left to die on the side of the road.  A priest and a Levite (clergy) came by, but they passed by on the other side of the road.  It’s not hard to figure out why; all sorts of good reasons.

First, the man was dying.  A Priest or Levite who got within four cubits (about 10 feet) of a dying man made himself ritually unclean and subsequently had to go through purification rites.  Until the purification rites were completed the priest was forbidden to practice duties in the temple.  To help this man would have likely meant a terrible inconvenience and even embarrassment.

          Second, there was no way to know if this man were a Jew or Gentile, righteous or sinner since he couldn’t speak (“half dead” in Hebrew means “near death”) and his clothes and possessions had been taken from him.  So why even risk it? 

          Third, to help this man would be to put oneself in jeopardy.  Maybe the robbers were still close by and would present a threat.

          Fourth, by all appearances this dying man did not appear to fit the religiously accepted definition of “neighbor.”  He was outside the boundary, so the Priest and Levite felt no obligation to help. 

Along comes a despised Samaritan who does help; gets involved; sacrificially involved.   1)     He renders first aid; touching that which the priest and Levite would have thought made them “unclean.”   2)     He puts him on his own animal which likely meant he would now have to walk.  3)     Takes him to an inn and assumes the man’s debt by paying for his needs.  The Samaritan disregarded all the potential risks to self and attended to the needs of the dying man.  End of story. 

Then Jesus places the story in the lawyer’s lap by asking, “Which of these three was neighbor…”    It’s no-brainer – the Samaritan of course!  With one little story Jesus completely dismantled and demolished not only this lawyer’s personal boundaries, but all the accepted religious boundaries of who was and who was not considered a neighbor in Israel.   Holy cow!  Was Jesus ever asking for trouble, and of course, we know what eventually happened to him.

When this story and the story-teller laid claim to my life in that awesome instant that dank Saturday evening so long ago, I experienced the gift of salvation. I was saved!  I was saved from my cowardice; saved from my indifference; saved from my apathy; saved from the attitude that the tragic event going down in the street had nothing to do with me.  Well, it had everything to do with me and that leads me to one final thought – a deeper level of meaning hidden away in this story.

I love to ask this question: Besides the Samaritan, which character in the story most resembles Jesus?   In the interest of time, I will tell you:  the guy in the ditch, that’s who!   Ambushed, bleeding, stripped, left to die, you can bet your boots he looks a lot like Jesus!   The guy in ditch looks a heck of lot like Jesus dying on the cross!  

You see, the cross that stands high above our altar is not only a symbol of some mysterious transaction that happen between heaven and earth; between God the Father and Son that resulted in your salvation and mine. 

The cross is also a symbol that speaks of God’s total and complete solidarity with your broken life and mine and the entirety of human suffering and agony on this planet.  

Those who are in ditches of hunger, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, poverty, homelessness, disease, loneliness, nursing homes, hospitals and hospices are your business because Jesus has made them his business.  He is present in their pathos in the sense he enters into it and vicariously suffers with each and every victim, every blessed suffering human life on this planet!  

It seems as if people are hungry for a spiritual experience these days.  One thing I do notice is that in search of mystical spiritual experience people run away from life to retreat centers, mountaintops and other sacred places in search of an experience of the divine.  But if we take this story, the story-teller and his cross seriously at all, Jesus has fused the sacred and the profane and is perhaps most fully experienced in the profane places and profane people, the muck and misery of life, where it is required we get our hands dirty and be made unclean, place ourselves at risk and willingly bear the burdens of others. 

Perhaps that is the ultimate reason why this story and the story-teller laid claim to my life that night three decades ago, and you know, I haven’t been able to shake him since, as hard as I have sometimes tried, especially those numerous other times when I have also played the role of the Priest and Levite and walked by on the other side in indifference and apathy.  I believe I intuitively knew that the man being brutalized in the street was in some unfathomable way Jesus himself.

If that is true it changes everything.  It transforms the way we see and our attitudes about those who suffer and are in pain; those who are sick in mind, body or soul; those who have been dehumanized by prejudice and racism; those who are victims of social, economic and political injustice.

I believe there is a profound invitation being extended to each and every one of us this morning, and the invitation is allow your life to be claimed by this story and the story-teller and his cross.   Just know there is a warning label attached to the story that says, “This story and the story-teller may be dangerous to your health.  You may find yourself transformed beyond recognition.”