The Eighth Sunday
after Pentecost
A Sermon of The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
Christ Church, Grosse Pointe, MI
RCL Proper 10, Year C
10 July 2016
10 July 2016
"Lord, surely this commandment that you have
commanded us is not too hard for us, for you promise that the word is very near
to us; it is in our mouth and in our heart ..." Amen
The great 20th Cty
theologian Karl Barth
is often quoted that one
should preach
with the Bible in one hand
and the newspaper in the other.
Turns out, he never said that
exactly,
but he did say something
close[1]
…and what he meant was, read
both,
but interpret newspapers from the Bible.'"[2]
Interpret newspapers from the Bible.
And so, today, we’ll start with the
news and interpret it from the Bible.
The news, well, you all know.
It has been awful.
More black men[3]
killed by police officers.
More police officers killed by
civilians.
I am heart broken, feeling woefully
inadequate
to describe the news, let alone
interpret it.
Yet, I rest in the promise that
the word is very near us,
in our mouth and in our heart.
Karl Barth encourages me as today’s
gospel collides with our context.
Today’s scripture offers a passage so
familiar
it is almost dangerous.
After the lawyer sought to test Jesus
by asking him to clarify who the
“neighbor” is,
Jesus said: “A man was going down
from Jerusalem to Jericho,
when he was attacked by robbers.
They stripped him of his clothes, beat him
and went away, leaving him half dead.
A priest happened to be
going down the same road, and
when he saw the man,
he passed by on the other side."
My sisters and brothers:
We, here, the priesthood of all
believers,
we cannot pass by those black men
– Alton Sterling and Philando Castile –
And what they represent for our
society.
These are just two of the 136 black
people
killed by police this year.[4]
That is the question to ponder:
what this represents.
Like you, I sometimes feel
trapped in anger and fear,
and paralyzed by an inability
to know what to do next,
wondering if this situation
has become more than a parable
for our
church.
Today’s gospel: The familiar
Parable of the Good & Compassionate
Samaritan.
We might think we know the moral
already:
Love your enemies and help the one in
need.
And there is
more:
Jesus calls us to go further within our
context.
Who is our neighbor?
Who do we see
as our neighbor?
I wonder if our sight is part of the problem.
Who is our neighbor that we don’t see,
or don’t want to see
because it is inconvenient?
Can we relate to the priest in the parable,
reacting to the one in need by withdrawing
to the opposite side of the road,
so as to preserve religious purity?
Can we relate to the Levite in the
parable, reacting to the one in need by seeing them
but still passing by,
so as to avoid someone who might
tarnish?
Last week, three times, I found myself
passing by a motorist
whose car had broken down in an
intersection.
Did I stop to help? No, I kept
driving.
I had some place “important” to
be.
It was “inconvenient” for me to
stop. Inconvenient for me to see the one
in need;
they were invisible.
In 1952, Ralph Ellison wrote a book
called Invisible Man.
It tells about the social and
intellectual issues
facing African-Americans early in the 20th
cty.
The narrator begins by saying that he
is an "invisible man, not because of his physical condition—he is not
literally invisible—but “…because of
the refusal of others to see him.”[5]
This perspective begs the question:
who do we see as our neighbor
and whom do we
overlook?
Perhaps, like the priest and the
Levite,
we overlook and avoid those who are in
need
because of our intolerance for
“inconvenience.”
But when we allow our hearts to be
“moved with
pity,”
we know that we have no choice.
“We move from
‘what will happen to me if I help’ to
‘what will happen to the person if I
don’t help’”[6]
We realize, it’s not inconvenient.
Can we relate to the Samaritan in the
parable, reacting to the one in need by seeing them,
by being moved with pity,
by doing compassion?
For that is where we find God.
And that is where God finds us.
God show up when people act like the
Samaritan.
This is what it means to accept
the Lordship of
Jesus Christ:
that we do “down to earth compassion”[7]
for anyone in need, even an enemy or
even one whom we have been taught is
“not” our neighbor.
“For Jesus, compassion was
a badge of discipleship
and not merely a religious amenity.”[8]
Biblical Scholar A.T.Robertson once
remarked,
“This parable of the Good Samaritan
has built the world’s hospitals,
and if properly understood and
practiced
would remove race prejudice,
national hatred
and war.”[9]
The Samaritan offers us clues
for our life,
for our community bound together by our
shared need and
for our own vulnerability.
For here is what we believe:
God is Love,
and God serves
as our Samaritan,
our only salvation in this midst of
this news
and our conviction
in the face of
these scriptures.
Jewish theologian Elie Wiesel taught,
"The opposite of love is not hate,
it's
indifference."
Indifference because of inconvenience
is the opposite
of love.
Indifference to a pattern of societal
racism
is the opposite
of love.
Indifference to our neighbors
Alton Sterling
and Philando Castile
is the opposite
of love.
God continues to work
through so many Samaritan-like people
who have cared for us until now.
God wants still to meet our needs
through others
(and sometimes through those we would
least expect or want to help us.)[10]
And, with God’s grace,
we will not be indifferent
to the societal sin of racism.
on Sin and
Redemption>
We must look directly at it
and begin the conversation, for the
words are very near us.
With conversations grounded in “I”
statements,
we can touch that place in our own
lives
sharing our personal experiences of
racism.
With these conversations,
we can examine our lives
and confessionally express our need
for each other.
And we can touch God’s presence
in the intimacy of our
vulnerability.
God’s mercy, which lasts forever,
inspires us to do compassion.
God’s compassion, which endures all
things,
saves us from indifference.
God’s Love, the source of all that is yes,
calls us into discipleship.
Compassion:
God’s original
response to humanity.
Go and do likewise.
Amen
[1] Close to
it, such as "Der Pfarrer und die Gläubigen sollten sich nicht einbilden,
dass sie eine religiöse Gesellschaft sind, die sich um bestimmte Themen herum dreht,
sondern sie leben in der Welt. Wir brauchen doch - nach meiner alten
Formulierung - die Bibel und die Zeitung." ["The Pastor and the
Faithful should not deceive themselves into thinking that they are a religious
society, which has to do with certain themes; they live in the world. We still
need - according to my old formulation - the Bible and the Newspaper."]
Cited on Princeton Seminary’s blog at http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2015/05/09/ars-praedicandi-preaching-with-the-bible-in-one-hand-and-the-newspaper-in-the-other/
on July 9, 2016
[2]Cited on Princeton Seminary’s blog at http://www.ptsem.edu/Library/index.aspx?menu1_id=6907&menu2_id=6904&id=8450
on July 9, 2016
[3] According to The
Counted, a project of The Guardian, 136 African Americans have been killed
by police so far this year. Alton
Sterling was number 135. Philando
Castile was number 136. The Police officers were Brent Thompson, Patrick
Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith and Lorne Ahrens.
[4] Cited at The Counted: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
on July 9, 2016
[5] Cited at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Man
on July 9, 2016
[6] Portions excerpted from Martin
Luther King’s Good Samaritan Sermon cited on July 9, 2016 at https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2012/04/why-didnt-they-stop-martin-luther-king-jr-on-the-parable-of-the-good-samaritan/
[7] Peter Rhea Jones, The love command in parable: Luke 10:25-37
from “Perspectives in Religious Studies,” 6 no. 3 Fall 1979, p. 224-242 on
ATLA0000779569
[8] Ibid, p. 240
[9] A.T. Robinson, Word Pictures in The New Testament, cited
at http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/robertsons-word-pictures/luke/luke-10-37.html
on July 9, 2016
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