When It’s Hard to be the Samaritan

Sermon preached Sunday, July 10, 2022, the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in Chesterfield, VA. 

The story of the Good Samaritan is a familiar one. It’s a Sunday School story, acted out in skits. It’s one that is known in the wider, secular discourse with things like “good Samaritan” laws that protect people who try to help others. Yes, it’s a story that most people at least vaguely know and one that church-inclined people know even better. …which can actually make it hard to learn from.

When we think we already know the story, we tend to think there’s nothing new to discover, or less value in diving deep into the text. There always is. That’s the beauty of scripture: no matter how many times we’ve read a verse or a passage, God can always reveal something new—a nuance, a word variation, a different contextual piece we’d been missing.

In the thirty-something years I’ve been reading this story, my understanding continues to evolve. Early on, it was black and white, with “good” characters and “bad” characters. Then, it shifted as the human realities sunk in. Now, when I read it, I am even more in awe of the Samaritan who chose to stop.

As he is walking along this road, he sees the man who was beaten laying there. The Samaritan took a risk. What if it was a trick to ambush someone like him who was moved to help? What if the man, because of the animosity between Israel and Samaria, refused help or accused him of being the one who robbed and beat him in the first place?

But no, the Samaritan calculates this risk and decides that helping this man is worth it. It’s the right thing to do.

I want to be like the Samaritan—don’t you? And most days, I think I would be, or at least, I could be.

Weighing compassion and risk and helping someone in need.

I can do that.

But right now, I’ll be honest with you. When I think about our world, our community, our country…I don’t know if there is one person laying by the side of the road.

I think there might be fifty. Or even a hundred.

The needs and concerns of our world seem to be coming in an unending wave: news story after news story, prices getting higher, wages stagnant, effects of climate change, war, poverty…it never seems to end.

Even this past week, as I breathed a sigh of relief that, while my sister, niece and brother-in-law live in Chicago, they do not live in Highland Park and were nowhere near that tragic shooting, I read the news that there was almost a shooting at a Fourth of July event in Richmond, only stopped because someone happened to overhear a conversation.

One thing after another. We struggle to communicate with one another, with our neighbors, with our families. Many of us worry about what might be coming next, what’s around the corner, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And that means that even when we want to stand up, to contribute, to step in and help, it can be paralyzing. The compassion fatigue of wanting to show up for every cause and every person means that we’re left with little energy to show up for anything.

How can I begin caring for the person at the side of the road when I know there are fifty more behind them? Do I have that stamina? Maybe the risk is worth it for this one person, but what if the next person hurts me? And even if I do just help this one person, is it worth it? Will it make enough of a difference? Why bother with the work and the stress and effort if it’s not even going to matter in the long one?

Those are the questions I find myself asking when faced with these big issues in our world.

Where do I even start?

How do I start?

What if I can’t follow through and have to take a break before the work is done?

What difference can I make in the face of global, national, and institutional problems?

…it’s paralyzing.

Or at least, it can be.

These are the moments I need God the most. These are the moments I need God to remind me that the answers to these questions can be found in our faith, when we know where to look.

In this morning’s Gospel text, the lawyer asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response is to not answer his question, but to point him in the right direction: “What is written in the law?” And so, we know that Jesus desires this lawyer to think beyond checking boxes on a “how to get to heaven” checklist and rather engage in a life that loves God and that loves his neighbor.

After he tells the story of the Samaritan, Jesus asks the lawyer, to see if he now gets it, “Which of these three was a neighbor to the man?” And the man replies, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Here, and all throughout the rest of the Bible, God reminds us that perfection or accomplishing a list of tasks is not the goal. God calls us to care for our neighbor, to the best of our abilities, recognizing that there will be times when we will fall short.

Yes, we are going to lose momentum.

Yes, we are going to make mistakes.

Yes, we are going to feel like we’re barely making a dent in all the hurt this world has to offer.

But when the lawyer tells Jesus that the neighbor was the one who showed mercy, Jesus said, “Go and do likewise,” giving us the sign and direction we need.

It doesn’t mean that it won’t still be really overwhelming. It doesn’t mean that sometimes it might feel like we’re only putting a small drop in a really big bucket.

What it does mean, is that we’re not in this work alone. God is with us every step of the way, encouraging us, strengthening us, and reminding us to rest when the work gets hard. And, thanks be to God, inspiring our neighbors and friends and siblings in the faith to join in the work, too, so that no one bears the load alone.

After all, the Samaritan doesn’t do it all himself, does he? No, he takes this injured man to an inn where they are able to provide food and a place to recuperate. It’s one more way that this story reminds us that we’re in it together and it’s not up to any one of us to do it all ourselves.

When I start to feel paralyzed or stuck, I remember this. I’m not in  it alone. And neither are you.

It doesn’t matter if we see one person on the side of the road or a hundred.

Jesus cares for that person through us, through our hands and feet and voices and actions.

And then helps us keep moving to the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Not paralyzed, but energized. And ready to love God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind and love each of these neighbors as ourselves.

Amen.

Finding Good News

Sermon preached Sunday, August 4, 2019, the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. Audio from recent sermons can be found here.

I did something this morning I haven’t ever done before in my almost five years of weekly preaching. I rewrote my sermon this morning. I woke up and realized I couldn’t say what I had planned to say. The Holy Spirit was calling for something different. I had to listen, and you probably know why.

Yesterday morning, twenty people were killed and twenty-six more were wounded in El Paso because one person’s xenophobia and racism had become an idol which not only demanded his life, but called upon him to indiscriminately take the lives of others.

This event, only six days after three people were killed at a shooting at a garlic festival in California.

And this morning? This morning I woke up to the news that there was another shooting fourteen hours after El Paso in Dayton, Ohio, in which new reports say at least nine have been killed and sixteen injured.

People of all ages and backgrounds. People going to a community festival, doing their weekly shopping, having a night out with friends. So many of them will never do anything again. And the survivors? Imagine the trauma they will be recovering from in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

And do you want to know the really sad thing? The thing that almost makes my heart hurt more than the grief of knowing so many people have died? It’s that I almost feel numb to it. It’s that I know it will happen again because we continually do nothing to address this epidemic. I’m not saying that I have the answers or that I believe just one particular answer would solve everything—problems of this magnitude usually take a coordinated and multifaceted approach—but the truth is, we don’t even seem to try.

We pray and cry and grieve and act shocked, but we do nothing to attempt to address the systemic and individual issues and causes. Instead, we simply feel a little less shocked and surprised the next time.

But this is a sermon, so we need to find the good news. We need to hear a Word from God. We need to know that God has something to say to us in the midst of tragedy.

This morning, we hear Jesus tell a story about a rich man. This rich man’s land produced so much that he decided to build bigger barns to be able to store it all. Now, the man is never condemned for his wealth; it is not the wealth itself that is damaging, it is his faith in it and overreliance on it. God says to him, “This very night your life is being demanded of you!” Another way to translate that passage is that God says, “This very night your possessions are demanding your life!”

In other words, not only are the rich man’s possessions not able to save him, but his hyper-focus on them is actively destroying his life.

What are the things we are hoarding in our barns? What can’t we let go of? What is demanding our lives?

In so many ways, we are like the rich man when faced with this epidemic of mass violence, building our barns and stuffing them full, looking out for ourselves and ignoring what might be happening outside, to others. It is greed. It is pride. It is selfishness. It is shortsightedness. And it is idolatry.

We say there is nothing we can do, but the truth is we haven’t really tried or explored all our options.

We resign ourselves to the fact that this will continue to happen, that innocent people will continue to lose their lives. We accept that places that should be havens of safety like churches and schools are also targets. Why? Because we see other things as more valuable than human life.

So, what are we to do this morning? How do we gather together as God’s people to find hope in the midst of despair and peace in the midst of chaos?

My original sermon was about finding the gospel, the good news, in verses filled with words of law. What is the good news for us today? Well, fortunately, I think it’s still the same.

In Hosea, this morning’s good news is at it’s clearest.

Hosea was a typical prophet, not afraid to speak his mind, using direct and even offensive language to make his point. He had an urgent message from God and he would use whatever imagery he needed to in order for people to listen. In this passage, though, he is a bit softer and milder. He presents this image of Israel as God’s child—a child who has gone astray and ignored their parent, but a child who is loved deeply nonetheless.

This really is wonderful, beautiful good news. Hear again how God speaks to Israel and hear how God is speaking to us today:

“Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
⁴I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

My people are bent on turning away from me.
To the Most High they call,
but he does not raise them up at all.

⁸How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
⁹I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord. (Hosea 11:3-4, 8-9, 11)

Isn’t that incredible? Aren’t those words lovely? “How can I give you up?” God asks. How can God abandon us, God’s beloved creation?

God’s love is so deep and so abiding that even when we, God’s children, reject God and rebel and sin and decide to go our own way, God never stops caring for us. And, what’s more, even in the midst of that rebellion and sin, God will seek us out to return us home, to return us into God’s loving embrace.

Even when we continue to hurt each other. Even when we love our idols more than God. Even when we put our faith in ourselves, our own resources, our own abilities. God still loves us.

This morning, that’s where my hope lies. In a God of love and mercy and grace. Amen.