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