josephholubsermons


 

August 9, 2009  -  Pentecost 10
Luke 10:25-37

 (This morning I detoured from the assigned lectionary readings of the day for this alternative of Luke 10)

  In The Grip

Over 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 himself by curling up with his hands and arms over his head while being brutally kicked. 

Adrenaline rush - at once my heart was in my throat!  A myriad of thoughts instantly flashed through my mind.  You know how that can be, when your brain kicks into overdrive, and you can have a dozen thoughts simultaneously in a split second.  What do I do?  Do I go and help?  If I do, what if they have weapons?  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!  This was long before cell phones, so calling 911 was not an option. 

Believe it or not, in that instant when a flood of thoughts filled my consciousness, this parable also flashed through my mind, and I knew what I had to do.   With my heart racing, I began flashing my bright lights on and off, laid on the horn, stepped on the accelerator 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 fled. 

I screeched to a halt, got out to attend to the wounded, bleeding, suffering man.   I looked up and suddenly realized this whole event had taken place in front of a little corner tavern, "Mary's Tap" it was called.  Then I saw a most amazing and disturbing sight.  Looking out of the tavern’s large front window were at least a half dozen faces pressed up against the glass. I screamed at the faces to call the police.

In one critical split second I was presented 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 emerged in my consciousness.  This story laid claim to my life.  I had no idea that this story had such a grip on my life.  In those critical moments I discovered I was in the grip of this story and the story-teller.  I couldn't shake it - and there was huge part of me that desired to do just that.  I knew what I had to do.  In spite of the fact there were all sorts of forces pulling at me not to, I knew I had to proceed at risk. 

Even though it occurred decades ago, I have often reflected on that incident.  In hindsight I realize that this story was a conduit through which the compassion of Jesus took up residence in my life as a latent power ready to emerge if only given the chance.  I have also concluded this parable is a dangerous story, especially if you let it soak in to your psyche, seep into your soul, integrate with your life and your being.  The end result of this story is that it may empower you to go to places and be with people you never would have gone to and been with if not for the story and the story-teller. 

A lawyer came to Jesus and wanting to "justify himself", Luke tells us that 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; a great neighbor; a superb neighbor - and I am sure he was!   He was looking for pat on the back from Jesus!   In those days, their sacred writings defined 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)   There were very clear, specific, and definite limits and boundaries. Neighbors were the righteous and the good.  Sinners, outcasts, undesirables, the marginal, enemies, the unclean, the strangers, were not considered neighbors.   

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

There are two things we can say about many of Jesus stories (parables): 1.  They challenge the listener to move into a fuller experience of life- a transformed life;  2. They often offend or disturb the listener, especially those who consider themselves righteous by religious definitions.

 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 reasons, but it is not that they were bad people.  They were not 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 certain religious expression; an expression that disconnected them from the man in the ditch rather than connected them.  That is the issue of this story. 

• First, the man was dying.  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 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 rendered first aid; touched that which the priest and Levite would have thought made them “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 life.  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!"   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!

When this story laid claim to my life that shadowy evening so long ago, I experienced what I believe Jesus saw "religion" to be all about - transformation - change - empowerment - new mindset.

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 puts correct beliefs, creedal formulas and moral requirements in front of following Jesus into a deeper experience of God’s inclusive love lived out in the world.

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.        

One question we might ask is, "Which of the characters in the story looks most like Jesus?" For obvious reasons, Jesus looks a whole lot like the Samaritan, but not just the Samaritan.  There is a remarkable resemblance between Jesus and the man in the ditch:  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 languishing in the ditches of the world: forgotten, ignored and left to suffer and die - and nobody cares or hardly acknowledges their pain.  It also changes my understanding of faith, not as correct beliefs, but trust in following the inclusive love and compassion of God.     

It seems as if 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.  But if we take this story and the story-teller seriously at all, Jesus has enmeshed the sacred and the profane, jumbled everything up,  and declares that God is perhaps most fully experienced in profane places and profane 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 the holy and sacred places.  

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.  The story and the story-teller had worked their way into my psyche at a deeper level than I was aware, so that when the opportunity came, I intuitively knew that the man being brutalized in the street was in some unfathomable way Jesus himself.   By following Jesus to that profane place where he was, lying there in the street severely wounded, I was given, at that moment, the gift of a fuller humanity, transformed by compassion and participation in the suffering of another. 

I believe there is a profound invitation and challenge being extended to each and every one of us this morning, and the invitation is open your life to be claimed by this story and the story-teller.   We are being challenged to live our lives in the grip of this story and its teller; to let it soak in; to absorb it into our very beings. Just know there is a warning label attached to the story that says, “This story and its teller may be dangerous to your over-all well-being.  You may find yourself transformed beyond recognition.”