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July 15, 2007

Fred Heard - July 15, 2007

July 15, 2007 Sermon - Father Fred Heard - Luke 10:25-37

Like most Episcopalians, I have felt uneasy when someone stops me or comes to my door and asks if I love God or if I love Jesus or how my soul is this morning. But gradually, I have come to a strong comfort level on this question. Our Senior Warden Jay Dean wrote me recently that he is eager that we explicitly draw the link between our actions as a parish and the work of Christ on earth, and Jay adds that the pulpit is our most important tool in that effort.

Like you, I have recited the first and great commandment thousands of times: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” It is the combination of the love of God and our neighbor that reveals that we truly understand and accept the scriptures. The essence of this great commandment is community. There is something about loving God that leads us also to love our neighbors.

At the same time, Jay advises that he is increasingly struck that we are living in a time that many observers, in the press, academia and the church, are calling "post-Christian." The author of one article in Congregations Magazine refers to the "end of American Christendom." In this context it might be more accurate to refer to a "post-religious" era. The normal Sunday morning is not "going to church" these days, and we appear to be raising a generation who say the words "God" or "Jesus" only when uttering a curse. As people of faith, we ought to feel called to respond to this development in some way. As an aside, it is interesting to note that many who no longer place the church in the Sunday morning equation go elsewhere whether to the soccer field or Starbucks or the shopping mall, seeking community.

In this morning’s gospel, Jesus tells the lawyer that he has given the right answer to his own question about what he must do to inherit eternal life…and the lawyer thought that it is pretty easy to love God. But what about this neighbor business? He probably started thinking about who his neighbors were. Like a slide show, their faces probably started flashing before him. Perhaps if he hadn’t asked, Jesus wouldn’t have mentioned the neighbors. That made it really awkward.

The lawyer is now in a box, and he placed himself there. As a teacher, I have watched children try to turn discomfort into a discussion or even a disagreement; and I think that is what we have going on here. Who is my neighbor? The discussion begins. It would be really easy if the neighbor was only the person who lived next door.
Jesus told a story. He often did that and this is the first parable in Luke. The traveler was a rather careless man because he wasn’t paying attention to the danger that lurked behind each bend on the winding mountain road between Jerusalem and Jericho. There were often thieves in hiding. He should have known better, and he brought his troubles on himself.

The priest had to be careful. He was responsible for handling the holy things in the temple, and it was necessary to keep himself pure. For instance, if he touched a dead body, he would be suspended from his duties for a time…because he would no longer be pure.

The Levite also worked in the temple and assisted the priests. For the same reasons, he had to keep himself clean.
Samaritans were Jews who had married a member of the pagan tribes. They were looked upon as half breeds. Jews hated Samaritans even more than pagans. Samaritans had been among God's people -- they had been People of the Promise -- but had turned their backs on God and that made them worse than pagans. They had despised their heritage! They had despised God! The Jews hated them. So—we have a priest, a priest’s helper and someone who was shunned by the Jews…that is the list of characters in this parable.

Also, those who were injured might not be what they seemed because sometimes they were thieves waiting in disguise for someone to stop and offer aid so they could rob them also.

The priest and the Levite might have been concerned about purity—but given the times, they might also have been afraid. Whatever the reason, they ignored the injured man.

The Samaritan stopped. He bandaged the man's wounds and took him into town. There he assumed financial responsibility for the man's care. He gave the innkeeper money to feed and house the man for several days, and promised more if needed. That sounds like community to me.

At the end of his story, Jesus asked, "Which of these, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?"

The lawyer did not say, "The Samaritan!" He could not bring himself to say, "The Samaritan did the right thing!" He said only, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said, "Go and do likewise." That's a pretty tough standard. We can mechanically do what is right—but what do we really feel in our hearts. Intellectually, we know what is right…but can we do like Mother Theresa and really get down into the goooo of human life and misery? In spite of the lawyer’s reluctance to say the word “Samaritan,” the Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most popular stories in the Bible, because it tells about a good person—the Samaritan who helps the wounded man—and calls us to be good people. However, this story stands in judgment of me every time I pass by on the other side of the road.
When I was younger, I did not often pass by on the other side. When I was younger, I was more daring and even perhaps foolish. I used to stop to help stranded motorists. I used to pick up hitchhikers. I would spend hours working with alcoholics and drug addicts—people I did not know... I would go where the addicts were, and I was not particularly afraid of circumstances or places. Today, I am more likely to pass by on the other side. And the Parable of the Good Samaritan makes me very uncomfortable.

Today, Holy Trinity is being called to community. Initially, it will be structured kind of like a blind date—but hopefully, the time will come when we get to know each other, and we genuinely learn to love each other. Formerly, proclaiming something about being a child of God was enough to draw community together. Jay quite accurately points out in his note to me that our changing times mean we can no longer assume that everyone is a Christian by default; that everyone comes from a childhood in some mainline Christian context. Jay suggests that our community needs to be re-evangelized from the start, but we are not "missionaries" to some remote third-world country. We are preaching, like the earliest apostles, to the center of wealth, power, learning and culture, the new "Rome," in a way. But you know what, if they were able to make Christianity exciting in Greece and Rome, we can do it in the Silicon Valley. It is Christ’s command that we should love one another, and we should love those who are outside these walls who really are hungry for the experience of the living Christ. However we cannot reach out to the world that awaits us until we understand how to walk with each other in community. The September 9 changes, and particularly the forum hour, ignore the question, “What’s there for me?” and suggest instead a new question, “What are we doing for community and where do I fit into this community?” We have important work to do. Jay adds, “People in this town, despite the money and all that comes with it, need a way to connect to the Spirit and be renewed.”

Today’s Psalm calls us to “Save the weak, and the orphans; defend the humble and needy; Rescue the weak and the poor; deliver them from the power of the wicked.” I submit that the entire Trinity community should find a place somewhere in this Psalm that describes them.

One of the principal ingredients of community is love and some will find it as difficult to express love for another person as they do talking about their love for God. I read a letter recently in Dear Abby that really talks about the core of community. The letter read, “I, like so many others, became caught up in the details of my own life and forgot that I was a part of someone else’s life—my mother’s. I forgot to chat with her about nothing when she called me. I forgot to visit her for no special reason. I never bought her a Mother’s Day gift because I never seemed to have the money. Of course, I always had a good reason; and I thought tomorrow would bring another opportunity. My mother committed suicide March 24, 2004.” In community, we never know just who we are going to touch. In community, we never know how we are going to touch someone. In community, we never know when our time will end together.

But I do know this, come September 9, we will have the opportunity to all come together—to reach out and truly meet this Trinity community.

The question of community is one of inclusion, not exclusion. What our Senior Warden is calling for, and indeed what Jesus commands us to do, is very radical. The Parable of the Good Samaritan shows us just how radical Jesus Christ is. It also tells us something else—being a Christian is radical. And at the same time, it is easy to emasculate this parable by saying, "It is a different world today! It has become too dangerous to stop and help." It was too dangerous for the Samaritan to stop, but he did.

Don't emasculate this parable by saying, "Some people make their own troubles; they don't deserve help. The wounded man had made his own troubles; he didn't deserve help.” The fact is that most of us make our own troubles; most of our wounds are self-inflicted; most of us don't deserve help. The Good Samaritan helped anyway!
When Jesus talks about those difficult topics like neighbors and community and love, we are always tempted to remake Christ in our own image in 2007 because he surely wouldn’t have done those things he did during his ministry if he had lived in modern times. It is just too dangerous to be “out there too far.” That really is a foolish thing to say about Jesus—the one who died on the cross. We are always tempted to remold him so that he supports our political views—our prejudices—our special interests. We are always tempted to emasculate Jesus—to make him safe.

The most dangerous thing we can do as Christians is to hold that Jesus believes as we believe. Jesus doesn’t always make sense. Paul says in 1 Corinthians “…the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
As a priest of the church, I invite you to embrace community. I invite you to be radical. I invite you to follow in the radical footsteps of Jesus Christ. During the coming weeks, help draw the link between Trinity parish and the work of Christ on earth. AMEN

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