Christmas Eve 2013 Sermon

Luke 2: 1-20
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.
Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

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Christmas is a busy time.

It sounds like things were busy around Bethlehem in our scripture story. Mary couldn’t rest and prepare for the completion of her pregnancy and the delivery of her baby boy. No, she and Joseph had to travel from Nazareth, which was about a 70 mile trip. The word that is translated as “inn” can also mean “guest room”, and there are many who now interpret this story as referring to the extra room in a typical house from that time, where the animals would be brought in during the night, and where there would often be a manger built into the floor. So it’s likely that she and Joseph had arrived there some time before the baby was born, and were staying with extended family, sleeping in this spare room. But they were there to be counted in the census, and there were likely others staying in this home as well, so it was probably quite a busy place in which to be delivering a baby.

And then the shepherds sure had an unusual night. First the angel that terrifies them, arriving out of the blue, and telling them such “good news….of great joy….. for all people….”. And just as their fear is being transformed into joy and wonder, an entire host of angels – the Greek word used here for host can also mean “army” – an army of angels from heaven light up the sky, singing and rejoicing at the birth of the Savior, God with us, Jesus. And off the shepherds go, to see for themselves this unbelievable event, this baby boy.

Of course, this creates even more stir where Joseph and Mary are staying, when out of the blue a group of smelly shepherds, who have been working in the field with animals for days on end, show up wanting to see the new baby, and telling them all about the visit from the army of angels, about the song, about the joy.

It was a busy time, Christmas, for this new family, their hosts and their visitors. Probably not as Silent a Night as the hymn might cause us to believe.


And it’s surely a busy time for us, too as we celebrate Christmas, each in our own way.

Some of us are traveling to be with family and friends, and some of us are welcoming those who are traveling to be with us.

There are lots of parties, celebrations, all with lots of good food, and so there is cleaning and decorating and cooking and all the things that go with hospitality this Christmas season.

And there are gifts to be given, so there is list-making, and Santa-visiting, and shopping, and wrapping, and mailing cards and packages…..

And there is also an extra measure of caring that happens this season, remembering those who are less fortunate. So there are lists to make, and volunteers to find, and baskets to fill and to deliver, and more presents, and donations, and taking the time to be with those who are lonely, or are sick, or are sad, because it’s especially challenging to be feeling blue at this time of year.

And some of us who are feeling lonely, or sick, or sad, might give anything for some of that busy-ness to be part of our lives this Christmas season.


But the mystery and the miracle of Christmas is not about how busy we are, or about the travel or the shopping or the preparations and the celebrations.

No, what Christmas is all about, the reason we gather this night, the thing we are here to proclaim is what God has done for us.

Christmas is not about the things we have done to get ready. Chrismas is not about you, and it’s not about me.  Christmas is about God – about who God is and about what God has done for us.

Christmas is about a God who thinks that you – each of you – we – all of us - are so special, and so important, that nothing can separate God from you. That’s the  good news of great joy for all people.

Christmas is about a God who will go to any length to be part of your life – even to a manger in Bethlehem; even to a cross in Jerusalem. When we call Jesus Emmanuel - God with us – this is what it means. It means that God will come and will find you wherever you are.

This Christmas may find you rejoicing; it may find you stressed; it may find you lonely or grieving or feeling hopeless. But however this Christmas finds you, no matter what, God is with you there. God With Us. Because nothing can separate us from the love of God.

So as you celebrate Christmas, however you do, remember that what we truly celebrate is that God is with us, and God walks alongside us, and God will never let us go. This is the great miracle that is Christmas.

Plan B - Sermon for Advent 4A

Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,  but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Plan B

This reading from Matthew’s gospel is the birth narrative in full, according to Matthew. It’s not about Mary’s visit from the angel (that’s in Luke), it’s not about the manger and no room in the inn (that’s in Luke, too). In fact, Matthew is the only gospel writer who provides any sense of Joseph’s character for us at all.  It comes right after the genealogy of Jesus, which connects Jesus to Joseph on one end, and then goes all the way back to Abraham on the other.  Then, in this passage, it tells us, basically, why that bloodline connection to Josephis not very relevant, at least at first, since Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit.

We’ll get back to that in a minute.

The passage first sets the stage for us. Joseph and Mary are betrothed. This is a legal term, which means they will be married, and means she is not to be with anyone else from that point on. We can expect that, like many young men about to be married, Joseph likely has plans in mind for their lives together after they are wed, plans involving his work as a carpenter, plans about where they will live, dreams of raising a family together, of his children following in his footsteps someday.

And then the unthinkable, the unimaginable becomes a reality in his life; his betrothed is pregnant.

From the Holy Spirit.

Mary might have told him this, trying to explain to him her predicament, or perhaps he does not yet know this at all, but the narrator is telling us. Because the dream has not yet happened to Joseph. The angel has not yet filled in this detail for him.

How must this have felt to him? What a horrible situation! What will the community think? What should he think about this woman?

We are told he was a righteous man. This means he followed the law. And the law, the Torah, said that a woman who commits adultery when she is betrothed is to be publicly shunned at best, and publicly stoned at worst.

So the first thing we know is that this righteous, law-abiding man makes the choice to step aside from what the law would have him do. Joseph has already decided to take a kinder, gentler, more loving approach to this dilemma; he will divorce her quietly. He will avoid bringing the wrath upon her that would ordinarily be deserved, according to the law. He is “unwilling to expose her to public disgrace”, our scripture tells us, even though that is what the law would have him do.

He is showing mercy, by not giving Mary what it appears she deserves.

So he makes new plans for how to best handle this situation, to bring about the best outcome he can figure out, given the dilemma and the pain it must bring to him. Clearly he wants the best for both himself and Mary, as best as he can imagine it.

And then comes the dream.

We should note that the angel begins by saying, “Do not be afraid.” These are words that will be spoken over and over throughout the gospels. “Fear not.”  Next, he is given the so-called reassurance that “the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” The words after that are even more astonishing, if that is possible: “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

Imagine yourself waking up from a dream, after a troubled sleep in a difficult time of your life, a time when you had a great challenge to deal with, and you had a game plan in mind, but you didn’t really know what was the right thing to do.

And you wake up with a clear message, like this one, a clear direction that’s been planted in your head. And the clarity of the message is completely at odds with the absurdity of it, the total unexpectedness of it, the contradiction of it with everything that makes sense to you.

“The child is from the Holy Spirit. You will name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

What is a law-abiding guy like Joseph supposed to do with this?

Well, the response we see from Joseph centers around obedience and trust. Joseph hears totally unexpected news. Perhaps he recalled the words of the prophet Isaiah that we heard in our first scripture reading – that a young woman would conceive, bear a son, and he would be called Immanuel – God with us. Perhaps he made the connection between that and the Holy Spirit that the angel spoke about, and the name he was given for this child, his son, the name Jesus – meaning God saves. And by taking the action the angel instructed, by Joseph naming this child, Jesus becomes his son. Joseph adopts him by the act of naming him. The child’s humanity and divinity is reflected in these words. Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, adopted by Joseph the carpenter. And we need to recognize that beyond that, Joseph has no idea, has no plan, for what comes next. Even the law does not give him a guideline for this. It’s not as if the whole story line is given to him before he had to decide to go along with it. All that he can do is to step forward in obedience and trust.

How does this story speak to us today? What can we learn from this, about ourselves and about God?

First, Joseph is told by an angel of God, “do not be afraid”, in the face of a situation that was clearly troublesome to him, if not downright frightening. What courage it must have taken for him to stand faithfully by Mary, as the baby grew inside her and people wondered, quietly or out loud, how this could have happened and what Joseph had to do with it.  He is remaining faithful to God, even as he remains faithful to Mary.

So what about us? Do we have the same sort of courage it takes to be faithful to God, even when all the appearances may cause others to be skeptical of us, cause others to wonder why on earth we aren’t following a game plan that makes sense to the culture we live in, the societal norms? Can we remain faithful to a person whose situation complicates our life in a big way? Can we look at our own plans and humbly recognize those places where we are working out of our own fear? Can we put aside our fear, even when nothing seems to make sense?

Second, Joseph obeys the angel in the dream. Joseph has already made a decision, in his own initial plans, not to obey the letter of the law.  Even though Matthew describes him as a righteous man, an upstanding, law-abiding guy (and I mean the Jewish law, the Torah, all those rules we find in the ten commandments and beyond, Leviticus, Deuteronomy), in this case he decides that it is best to act out of care for another person’s dignity, to save Mary’s reputation as best he can, rather than strictly adhering to the law.  Matthew is beginning to show a theme that continues throughout his gospel, displaying the tension between the prevailing understanding of God’s commandments and the new thing that God is doing in Jesus Christ. It’s the same as what we hear when Matthew’s tells the story of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus says, over and over,  “you have heard that it was said, but I say to you”.  In this difficult moral situation that Joseph is facing, he chooses to set aside his previous understanding of God’s will in favor of this word from the living and saving God. He attends to the voice of God.

So what about us? Can we accept that the Holy Spirit is still actively at work in the world, even today, making all things new, and that the Bible is not intended to be a rule book, but is rather the story of God’s love and God’s saving action in the world?

Third, Joseph trusts an incomplete plan with an unknown outcome.  Actually, Joseph trusts God’s providence in the face of an incomplete, unknown plan. We have got to think that if Joseph knew the rest of the story – the fact that they would have to flee to Egypt with a newborn to save his life, the challenging child that Jesus would be as he grew, the painful acknowledgement during his public ministry that he was not simply “their child”, not to mention the arrest and the torture and the cross and the resurrection – how could Joseph possibly bear it? We really have to acknowledge that in this case, only knowing the next step was, for Joseph, the only way to possibly take it in and to trust.

So what about us? Are we willing to trust God’s providence when the plan is only known one step at a time? Are we willing to step forward in faith when we don’t know the outcome? Are we willing to accept that an outcome that may seem crazy and hopeless and even tragic may, in fact, be the path to New Life?

As we get to know and understand Joseph a bit better through this passage, let us commit ourselves to becoming more like Joseph – to not be afraid to give up plan A and take on plan B; to claim the good news that God is still making all things new, and that we have a role to play in that, by being obedient to the living Word of God as it is revealed to us; and to trust that, one courageous step at a time, we will live and move and have our being, trusting in God’s providence without knowing the final outcome.

And as Paul wrote so beautifully in his letter to the Ephesians, “Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Worthy Fruit - or, When Life Gives You Apples......

Gospel Lesson: Mathew 3:1-12 

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,  "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."  This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.' "  Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.  Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan,  and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Do not presume to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.  Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Sermon: “Worthy Fruit”

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(or…) When life gives you apples….

About two weeks ago I brought home from church a grocery bag half full of apples. A friend of mine had posted on her FB page that her backyard tree was bearing sweet Fuji apples, way more than they could use. Free to anyone who wanted them. But they were wormy - must be carefully cut into pieces. 

The bag sat around for a few days, until I could get at them.

One of the things I loved about my brief season of “ real” retirement - which consisted of six months since May of this year, when I finished my studies - is that I have time to sit down and do things like trim up 20 pounds of little apples to make applesauce. Most of my life has been filled with multitasking - at least 3 things happening at once - and now to be able to sit down for however long it takes to trim apples is a joy and a blessing. I will admit that the laundry was running in the background, though - I still seem to find ways to do two things at once!

I didn’t really know what wormy apples would be like. I guess I have always bought the pretty, fully-grown, nicely shaped, healthy-skinned apples.

That’s not what these were like at all. They were small, misshapen, puckered, and each one had either multiple tiny holes or one big cavity in it.



As I rinsed them and sat down to start cutting into them, I wondered what wormy apples would be like on the inside. Would I cut one open and find a worm popping out to smile at me like the Richard Scarry books I used to read my kids?  

Well, it wasn’t like that at all. It was basically nice apple fruit, and yucky apple fruit. And every apple had some good fruit.

Now, that didn’t mean that I used every apple. I didn’t have the patience to deal with some that were extra ugly - I just cut them in half and tossed them into the scrap pile.

But I thought as I worked about how every single apple had something salvageable, useful, in it - and I may not be willing to take the time to save every good piece of it, but God does - God sees our ugly selves, our wormy souls, the sin that is in each of us, and God looks past it to the good fruit that is also inside every one of us. This is the fruit that is worthy of repentance. No matter how messed up or broken or incapable of doing good we may feel, or we may see others as being, we all have good, and God delights in that good, and encourages us to use that to bear even more good fruit. 

How many of you recognize the name Antoinette Tuff? She is the woman who talked Michael Hill out of a terrible potential tragedy in late August of this year, when he walked into her school near Atlanta one morning, loaded up with weapons and ammunition. Both Michael and Antoinette had good fruit in them - and both of them had difficult, ugly pasts that also misshaped them and made life extra challenging for them.

Antoinette’s life was a mess at the time this had happened. She was struggling to care for a child with multiple disabilities. Her husband had left her after 33 years of marriage. She had been so despondent that she had tried to take her own life. If you imagine yourself in Antoinette’s shoes, you can begin to understand how hard it could be to overcome the ugliness and sadness, the discouragement of her life, to get up every morning and go to work as a receptionist, to get through the day with no real way of knowing how or when things would ever get better for her.

Michael’s life was a mess that morning too. All we know about him is that he hadn’t taken his medications, that he thought he needed to be hospitalized for his mental illness, and that in the depths of his illness, he had gathered up guns and ammunition and headed for the school where Antoinette worked.

And what had perhaps looked at its beginning like another humdrum, boring day, same as all the others, for Antoinette, became a defining moment. And for her it was defined by her faith, by anchoring on her faith, as she said her pastor had been preaching just recently. And so not only did she step out – way out - in faith and courage and hope that morning, but she very intentionally sought out the goodness in Michael – she calmed him, she reassured him, she encouraged him, and clearly she spoke loving kindness and compassion to him – even though he was heavily armed and had already shot off a few rounds to show what he was capable of.

Bear fruit worthy of repentance. What does John the Baptist mean by that? We know that to repent means to turn – to turn away, certainly, from evil and sin and its grip on our lives, but even more it means to turn toward, to anchor on, to choose the straight path, every time we have the opportunity to choose. Repentance doesn’t happen once for all time. That’s why we acknowledge our sinful nature every time we gather for worship, in our words of confession. And it’s why we remind ourselves, and one another, that our pardon is already assured, undeserved, unearned. It’s grace. It’s the peace of Christ that we share with one another. It doesn’t make the brokenness go away. But it says that it’s OK to turn from it, to recognize and to focus instead on what is good in one another, to love one another and to work together, even with those who we would rather judge or turn away from, or run away from, so that together we can add up all our fruit, all our good fruit, all that is worth the courageous act of repentance, in order to help build up the kingdom of God.

So then, out of a bag of ugly apples, blemished, partly rotten, invaded by worms that made them damaged goods, we can gather together their goodness, and we transform them – dare I say merge them together - into delicious, useful, worthy, applesauce.

Into something that doesn’t look like what it started as, that makes use of the good, that steps away from the inevitable bad parts, that rejoices that God has promised that every branch that bears good fruit will be pruned – will be pruned – for the purpose of bearing more good fruit; and that, just like Joseph said, even when his brothers intended to do harm to him, God intended it for good.

So let us find strength in knowing that God sees the good in ourselves and one another, let us joyfully accept the grace that comes from the Holy Spirit to forgive us for what is not good, and let us be the body of Christ to one another by acknowledging the good in each other and by working together to bring unity, and reconciliation, and to build up the kingdom of God, in this Advent season and always.

Friday Five on Food (on Saturday!)

Weekly Questions from revgalblogpals. Here goes!

1) Is there a food from a foreign land whose reputation led to trepidation when you had a chance to give it a try? Did you find the courage to sample it anyway? If so, were you pleasantly surprised or did you endorse the less than favorable reputation that preceded it?

Eww.  I am remembering in detail a meal at a Chinese restaurant in NY/Chinatown, at which my former college roommate (who I was meeting up with for the evening, and who was always more daring than me!) told the owner to bring us a meal he would serve to us if we were Chinese. We were served many things I'd never seen before; most of them were wonderful! But I actually tried to eat the sea cucumber when it arrived, I really did. It was the worst gag reflex I can ever recall. And I had the same reflex several years later, when I saw one at a "petting aquarium." Ugh!

2) What food from your own country/culture gets a bad rap?

My heritage is Italy and Cornwall. It's hard to think of something that has a bad rap from either place!

Perhaps the Cornish pasty, which looks heavy and uninspired, and are sometimes made badly by places that sell them, but when it's made right, it is a blend of the best flavors I know. Beef, potato, onion, and rutabaga (not carrots - that's a Finnish pasty!), with a good lard crust so you can pick it up and eat it. And lots of ground pepper. Glad fall weather is coming so I can start up the oven and make some soon.

3) Of what food are you fond that others find distasteful?

Lima beans? Brussels sprouts? Beets? Lox? None of them sound distasteful to me, so I'm not sure if they qualify!

4) Is there a country’s food, not native to you, that you go out of your way to eat?

Indian Dosa. There's a restaurant in Ann Arbor that fashions them into all sorts of shapes - cylinders and so forth - and stuffs them with wonderful things. But they are so interesting and crispy and large! I love them.

5) What is your guilty pleasure food?

It's gotta be ice cream. I really have to keep it out of the house, because I just can't resist its clarion call from the freezer to me!

Bonus: What was your most memorable meal (good or bad), either because of the menu, the occasion, the company, or some other circumstance that makes it stand out?

For my then-husband's 50th birthday, I invited some friends and family members to join us for dinner and I made a number of the Italian dishes from the movie "The Big Night" (google it if you're not familiar, and try to watch it sometime!). The entire meal was amazing, but probably the highlight was the Timpano - layer after layer of pasta, sauce, meatballs, sausage, cheese, all enclosed in a crust, baked, then cut into slices that include all those amazing layers. It was unbelievably good and fun to make! One day I'll bring my best friends together and do it again.

Walk on By..

“WALK ON BY…”

It’s great to be back! I loved being here earlier this year serving as your intern, and I’ve really been looking forward to seeing you all and to worship with you again, ever since Fran asked me to come while she was gone on a well-deserved vacation, so thank you so much for inviting me back.

One of the things I learned during my time with you is that I really love the process of finding the sermon in the scripture.

The act of reading and wrestling with the stories, finding what’s new or unfamiliar, and the time spent in prayer and brooding about the themes that I find, reading commentaries, and then finally pulling it all together into a sermon that hopefully says what it needs to say, and not a whole lot more than it has to say, all that was a learning process that brought me great joy and challenge each time.

So I have to tell you that I got a good laugh when I saw the gospel text for today, which is the story of the Good Samaritan. My first thought was, Oh, that’s great! Thank you, Lord! How many times have they heard a sermon based on this? What am I going to do with this that they haven’t already heard? And the irony was, even though I’ve heard it so many times myself – it’s was like working with a brand new thing for me, because it’s the first time I’m preaching it!  So I moved into the sermon writing process with all the openness and humility I could bring, and as always, the Holy Spirit took me places I didn’t expect.

Let’s pray.

Gracious God, may we hear this familiar story in new ways today, and may we be moved with compassion to learn what you desire from us, and to do your will in all the unplanned and unexpected circumstances of our lives. May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Listen with me once again to this familiar story.

Luke 10:25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" 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." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

The question in this passage that is typically held up to the light and examined is the one the lawyer asks Jesus up front: Hey, just who is my neighbor, anyway? Eugene Peterson, in his Message translation, calls this a trick question – and that this legal expert is looking for a loophole when he poses it.

Of course, Jesus is not easily duped by this guy. And so he tells a story, and ends with a question posed right back to him – not who is MY neighbor, but – Who was the neighbor to the man in trouble?

And given the choice of three responses – the priest, who was a leader in the Jewish faith; or the Levite, who was something like a designated lay priest or an associate; or the Samaritan, who was considered not even worthy of attention by a Jew – this legal expert can not even bring himself to say “the Samaritan”.

He responds instead by saying, and you can almost hear the underlying sarcasm in his words, “the one who showed him mercy.” To which Jesus says, OK – so go and do likewise. Go and show mercy. Go and be sure that you don’t just walk on by, like the others did.

So why did the Samaritan show mercy when the others did not?

The story tells us that the other two saw him, but then they crossed over to the other side of the road, whereas only the Samaritan came near him. And the act of drawing near to him is what led him to truly see this man’s awful situation – he had been beaten and left for dead – and so he was “moved with pity.” Other translations say instead of pity, that he was moved with compassion. Now compassion can be defined as a gut level feeling of empathy for the suffering of others. And being moved means doing something about it.

How many of you have ever seen the movie “Tootsie”? It’s a complicated plot, but the main thing is that Dustin Hoffman takes on the persona of a woman to get work, and obviously he gets into all sorts of crazy situations, and of course he learns a lot in the process.

Now there’s a short video clip of an interview with Dustin Hoffman that’s been really popular on the internet recently.

In it, he talks about an epiphany he had that came from drawing near, and experiencing the world through the filter of another.

Dustin Hoffman Interview Clip

What do these two stories have in common – the Samaritan’s response to the man who has been attacked by robbers, and Dustin Hoffman’s reaction to being made up to look like a woman?

Both stories include a description of what it means to “walk on by”, and also the impact that happens when we “draw near”, come close.

Hoffman’s epiphany was that he would, in essence, cross the street when a woman didn’t meet his expectation for female beauty. He wouldn’t have bothered, in the past, to get to know her, to learn what was interesting or unique or special about her, because, as he said, he had been brainwashed to believe she didn’t matter.

Because he brought himself near to the experience of another in this way,he was moved with compassion to do something.

The priest and the Levite crossed the street when they were faced with a situation that didn’t fit the way they wanted to experience life; a situation that was not neat and not tidy and not according to rules and regulations. As long as they didn’t have to come near, they would not be moved with compassion, they would not have to do something.

If we don’t come close, we will not be moved. If we don’t come close, we will not have the experience of knowing many, many, interesting people… because we, too, have been brainwashed.

So why don’t we come close? And how much of that might be brainwashing rather than reality?

Sometimes it’s because we are afraid. It may be a reasonable fear, or it may be a fear that has been passed on to us, a fear that has no basis when it is held up to the light. We live in a world that wants to eliminate all risk, and so anything that might go wrong becomes something we don’t want to get ourselves into, even though the chances might be great that things will turn out just fine. So we take what we were told as children – “don’t talk to strangers” – and we continue to practice this as adults.

And we rely on our filters to tell us what’s safe and what’s not – who’s a stranger and who’s not. But we have got to ask ourselves if those filters have gotten clogged over the years. We’ve got to realize that those clogged filters can cause us to make snap decisions that can have terrible, long lasting consequences. We must draw near to others to have any hope of knowing if our filters make any sense anymore.

Sometimes it’s because we are just too busy. Our work demands our primary attention. Our families are going in so many directions, and we must help them, must be there for them. And then there’s time at the gym for ourselves, and choir practice and session meetings, and all the host of other things we cram into our days and nights and lives.

How can we possibly let any of those things slide by stopping to be a neighbor?

But we must ask ourselves what priorities we are serving with the way we fill our lives, and also what it would take to make us rearrange our priorities.  For example: I remember the time my dad had a medical crisis. I had young children, I had a high powered stressful job, and for the next four months just about everything got minimal attention from me, so that I could be present for him and my mom. Will I shift my schedule to help another, to show mercy, to someone who’s not in my family or circle of close friends? Jesus tells us if we insist on saving and protecting our own lives, we will lose them, but if we lose our lives, put them out there for Jesus’ sake, accept the consequences, we will save them.

Sometimes it’s because it seems it won’t matter. What good will a dollar or five dollars do if I give it to this homeless person, on this corner, this one time? The problem is so large, Lord, and I am so small. It seems like the tiny drop in the bucket that I am able to offer is just a wasted effort.

And I really want to be productive with my donations! Surely there must be a program out there that is trying to solve the bigger issue, the systemic problem. I’ll write a check to them instead.

But – that would not involve coming near, and we would miss learning firsthand about the lives of the people we serve. And if we believe that God puts people and situations in front of us to teach us to trust, and to love, and to serve, then we really need to think differently about our responses to the people and situations we encounter. We may not be able to fix the whole situation, but often there is something we can help to address just by being present at that moment.

Our gospels are filled with parables from Jesus about people bringing less than what is needed – the boy with five loaves and two fishes, the widow giving her last two pennies to the synagogue, even Jesus using ordinary stuff like water and mud – and from these came miracles.

 We tend to think about all this from an individual standpoint, and that is part of it. We should each come away from this gospel lesson asking ourselves if we are neighbors, and where, and when, and for whom. But I think there’s an important message here for us as the church, as the body of Christ, as well. I think this parable can help us see what it means for the church to be a neighbor, and to show mercy.

But to do so means facing the ways we have likely been brainwashed as the church as well. How shall we learn to suspend judgment, and to trust, each time we have a chance to be the body of Christ for someone in need? How can we retrain ourselves as a congregation to offer time and space to the stranger – ways to provide a listening ear, a willingness to stop and sit and be moved by the compassion that we do feel, without being overcome by the natural anxiousness that arises when we consider what we ought to do? What if it was less about plans and more about being present, tangibly caring?

How can we show mercy by making a start at new ways of serving, even if we realize that we can’t do it all? Can we learn greater trust that God will bring the right things together, the things that are out of our control anyway, so that God’s will can be fulfilled in a situation?

What kind of neighbors has the Holy Spirit shaped us to be? What kind of situations does the Holy Spirit present to us these days? As we respond, can we – will we – reflect the Samaritan or the others? Will we pass by the other side, because we have been brainwashed, because we are afraid, or don’t have enough time or resources or energy to take on helping another, or can’t handle it all ourselves?

When we are open to the spontaneous holy guidance of the Spirit, we will see with new eyes, we will recognize needs differently as they come our way, we will recognize strangers as those to whom we are called to be neighbors, we will embrace the compassion that pushes us off of complacency, and turns us away from hostility. God willing, we will be able to act on compassion, and not fear, with confidence that God is always creating a new thing, and that God seeks for us to draw near and participate, and that God will bring it to completion.

Let’s pray.

God of grace and mercy, Help us to be neighbors to those in need, and to not just walk on by. Move us with compassion, and give us new eyes to see the wonder in each and every person, every one your beloved child, so that we can be the kind of neighbor you desire, the kind that shows mercy beyond measure. In Christ we pray – Amen.

Jill A. Mills

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

July 14, 2013