Go And Do Likewise: Based On A Sermon At Hebron Presbyterian Church, July 10, 2016 (Text: Luke 10:25-37)

If you have attended church for any amount of time you have heard a few sermons on the Good Samaritan.  In my eleven years here at Hebron I have preached on this text multiple times.  And I have preached on it even more in my 25 years of ordained ministry.  And many, many other preachers have preached on it many, many times.  After all of these sermons have been preached by all these people in all these churches over all these years you might think there cannot be anything new to say. 

A secret.  I think you are right.  There may be nothing new to say.

And yet, here we are.  You.  Me.  Jesus.  The Legal Expert.  A traveler who has seen better days.  Some thieves who were our traveler’s problem.  A priest.  A Levite.  And…a Samaritan.

Sometimes it is not saying something new.

Sometimes it is saying something timely.

Sometimes it is the breathtaking reminder that the text we approach is unique and that while it spoke to specific communities at specific moments in time in its original presentation, somehow it speaks centuries and millennia  later as though it is saying, “This.  This is the moment for which I was intended.”

The lectionary is a three year cycle of suggested texts for preachers.  Not a mandatory thing, but a good idea for preachers to consult for suggestions of possible texts for Sunday.  When I saw that the Good Samaritan was among this weeks texts I thought here is another example of what the Holy Spirit looks like.  This familiar text is roaring to come and speak to the events of the past week.

Anybody watch the news this week?

To be truthful, I was to the point of being afraid to turn on the television to see what would come next.  The shooting in Louisiana and it’s aftermath.  Which was interrupted by the shooting in Minneapolis and its aftermath.  Which was interrupted by the shooting in Dallas and here we are in the aftermath of all of that.

Here is a thing I believe.  In a week like this with all that has happened, with not one, but two more shootings of black men by police officers captured on phone video, and culminates with a gunman in a major American city shooting a minimum of 12 police officers, five fatally - if you have a week like that and the preacher does not mention it - it is possible there are other things that absolutely need to be addressed, but it is also true that you potentially have a strong case for pastoral malpractice.  This is why we are here.  Not to pass the time thinking about interesting concepts from two thousand years ago, but to hear this stunning book - this Word of God - speak to us about our lives and our world now.  And it does.

I want to focus on a bit on the front and back of this story from Luke’s gospel.  The framework.  A legal expert asks Jesus a question.  “What must I do to gain eternal life?’  After some back and forth in which the answer to the question is love God and neighbor, the legal expert asks, “Who is my neighbor?”  And Jesus tells the story.  But let’s not lose sight of how it begins.  “What must I do to gain eternal life?”

Jesus does not tell the legal expert that he would need to pass a test about what he thinks about Jesus.  He says love God and neighbor.  Then he tells a story where he suggests that when he says neighbor he means everyone.

When he finishes his story, Jesus asks, “Which one of these three was a neighbor?”

And the legal expert, who has nowhere else to go with his answer, says, “The one who demonstrated mercy.”

And Jesus says this awesome thing.  “Go and do likewise.”

My wife hates ferris wheels.  We had been, I believe on one date before we went together with a group from the place we were working that summer in college, on a trip to Kings Island amusement park in Cincinnati.  She told me she did not like ferris wheels and so I insisted we ride a ferris wheel.  Friends, when someone tells you they do not like ferris wheels, listen to them.  I thought there were many rides one might not want to go on - a roller coaster, one of those spinning rides or sudden drop rides - but surely the ferris wheel was benign.  So we went.  Then she told me not to rock the cart.  Friends, if someone tells you not to rock the cart in the ferris wheel you are riding, do not rock the cart.  I rocked the cart.  And I learned she was serious.

You see the problem with the ferris wheel is not that it goes really fast, or that it spins like crazy or anything along those lines.  The problem with the ferris wheel is that you are not in control of when you get off.  And it takes a long time to work through getting folks on and off.  And there is a lot of time when you might be simply sitting there at the top, the ride not moving, and in a bad circumstance you’ve got a would be boyfriend the cart rocking the thing.  Somehow, the story ended well from my perspective.  I held her hand for the first time that day.  But I did not help myself with the ferris wheel thing.  I promise you this story has a point beyond confession.

I saw several articles this week posing the question, has the world gone crazy?  I talked with several friends who found their way to the question, is the world out of control?  It seems to be an open question.  So much pain.  So much anger.  So much hurt.  And along with that question I have heard a second thing.  There is nothing that can be done about it.  It’s too big.  It has too many moving parts.  It is too entrenched.  The world is too broken.  It’s out of control and there is nothing any one of us can do.

It’s like we are stuck on the ferris wheel and all we can do is ride.

Jesus say something else.  When we feel like there is nothing we can do.  When we feel like the best strategy is to move quietly to the other side of the road and keep on walking, try not to get engaged, see if we can’t ride this one out….  

Jesus tells a story about a Samaritan who didn’t do that.

You are not a passenger in life.  Things do happen around us and to us.  But we are not scenery.  We are participants.  If we feel like the world’s problems are glaciers - with the part we see and the much more massive part we know is under the water - dwarfing us and our ability to do anything to change the course…

Jesus has a story for us.

“A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death.  Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way.  Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ (Luke 10:30-35, CEB)

Then Jesus has a question for us.  “Which one of these is a neighbor.”

We know the answer.  We speak, “The one who demonstrated mercy to him.”

And Jesus, our Savior and teacher says, “Go and do likewise.” 

Amen.

Our Call To Contemplate Jesus: Based On A Sermon At Hebron Presbyterian Church, July 17, 2016 (Text: Colossians 1:15-28)

There is a video making the rounds on the internet of the singer Rufus Wainwright joining forces with a fifteen hundred voice choir to sing Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah”.  It’s sublime.  The lyrics, of course, matter, but there is so much more involved that contributes to the impact.  There is the unique and lovely voice of Wainwright.  The animated direction of the conductor.  The faces of the members of the assembled choir, a diverse group sharing their vocal gifts.  And before any of the folks came together there was the arranger who imagined the melody and the harmony, the back and forth, the ebb and flow of the music.

To view this video - click here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRfJ6-qkr4

It is transcendent.  I can describe it to you, but description only gets you so far.  It has to be experienced.  One must watch and listen for oneself.  It is possible, in watching, that you will find your emotions swelling, that you will be lifted up, that you might perhaps find tears in your eyes.  And it is just a song.

This morning we consider Church.  And we consider Christ.  We are pushed to consider what goes on in this place.  We will try to put into words what we suspect may be beyond words.  There is something that pulls us out of bed on Sunday mornings.  You could be home, perhaps still asleep in bed.  You could be home at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.  You could be on the couch with a blanket on this particular day watching the final round of the Open Championship.  Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson are probably on about the fifth hole right now.

We may be here because it is our heritage.  People we love have come here before us and we follow their example, we follow in their footsteps.  We come to study - for Sunday School, on Wednesday evenings to engage the minds God gave us in pursuit of greater understanding of the things of God.  We come to worship, to pray, to gather around the Lord’s table along side of brothers and sisters in Christ.  We gather in order to not be alone.  To experience  support and encouragement, and at the same time to offer support and encouragement.  To know that there is a place where our presence matters, where people will miss us if we are not present.  All of this may describe what draws us to church - but none of these things get at the transcendent core of what we are about.

In the opening chapter of the letter to the church at Colossae, the Apostle Paul attempts to remind the people of what brings them together as the Church.  This passage is known as the Christ hymn.  It is Paul at his loftiest and most poetic.  He is summoning words to describe that which defies description.  He portrays the church not by what they do, but by who they are.  Not by what we do, but by what we are.

The Son is the image of the invisible God,

        the one who is first over all creation,

Because all things were created by him:

        both in the heavens and on the earth,

        the things that are visible and the things that are invisible.

            Whether they are thrones or powers,

            or rulers or authorities,

        all things were created through him and for him.

He existed before all things,

        and all things are held together in him.

He is the head of the body, the church,

who is the beginning,

        the one who is firstborn from among the dead

        so that he might occupy the first place in everything.

(Colossians 1:15-18, CEB)

Christ is the head of the body, the head of the Church.  Christ existed before all things and in Christ all things are held together.  Paul is pushing us to do work.  Pushing us to consider the Christ we follow and what is at stake in our choice to follow and be a part of the Church - Christ’s body.

Back in my college days - and this will come as a revelation to most of you who most likely have never utilized something like this - back in those days there was a resource known as Cliff’s Notes.  Cliff’s Notes were thin pamphlets that would communicate summaries of great works of literature.  The themes, the characters, the plot twists and turns.  Say, for instance you were assigned to read my favorite book after the Bible, Don Quixote.  Don Quixote is a hefty bit of reading.  Cliff’s Notes would give you a quick and efficient  overview of some of what you would know if you had actually taken the time to read the book.  This approach may be enough to get a busy student with too much to do and to little time to do it through an impending exam.  What it will not do is give that student the transcendent experience of actually reading and engaging this masterpiece.  You can quickly and efficiently gather information, you cannot quickly and efficiently experience a transcendent work of fiction.

And you cannot know Jesus quickly and efficiently.

You meet Jesus in a moment, but having met Jesus it will take every breathing moment you have remaining in your life to begin to know Jesus.  There may be hurried moments in life when someone is trying to explain an urgent matter to you.  You may become impatient and ask that they skip to what you need to know.  There may be times when that approach will work.  It will not work with Jesus.

Simply put, we dare not try to make Jesus seem tame or manageable.  If as we talk about him, Jesus begins to seem either tame or manageable we are not talking about the Jesus of the Bible.  Understanding the Son of God - just pause there for a moment, the Son of God… - comes in bits and pieces and even as a truth comes into view we will immediately come to understand how much more we do not understand.  

Writing about this passage, Matthew Flemming states that, “Given that Christ is the very structure of creation to live in accordance with his gospel is to follow the grain of the universe.”   Which is to say, because Christ is one with the Creator, to follow Jesus is to get in sync with the creation.

Knowing Jesus is where we will find purpose, joy, and unity with our Creator.  It is not an impossible thing, which is remarkable in itself - we can know Jesus!  However, it is not a do it today and forget about it job.  It’s a lifetime commitment.  To learn, to grow, to seek to know Christ and in knowing Christ to know who we are and what we are about as Christ’s body.  Perhaps more effectively stated it is a lifetime commitment to desire to know Christ.  To desire Christ.  To feel deep within ourselves that need to “follow the grain of the universe”, to get in sync with creation and with the Creator.

This desire becomes all the more acute in times where things have the feel of falling apart.  A week ago we considered the quality of events going on in the world.  The relentless pounding of bad news following bad news following bad news.  This week has continued the theme.  It feels more rather than less this morning as though the world is falling apart.  Under such a barrage of news it can feel like what we must do is hold things together.  Grab on to whatever we are able to grab on to and hold the world in place.  That project is doomed to failure.

But here is good news.  Paul tells us, that Jesus existed before all things and all things are held together in him.  Not held together by the Colossians.  Not held together by us.  Held together in Christ.  The Christ Paul calls us to contemplate.  Contemplation that is not about satisfying religious curiosity, but about keeping sane and finding a way to move forward day by day, in our lives, in our world.

Our hope, our call as participants in the Church - the body of Christ - is to continuously seek to know, to understand and to follow the One in whom all things are indeed held together.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.