[Propertalk] Proper 10 c - Part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

This is a first draft, and part 1.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER
PENTECOST 

	AMOS 7:17-17 PROPER 10 C 

	COLOSSIANS 1:1-14 10th JULY, 2016 

	LUKE 10:25-37 PSALM 82 

	 He was lying down, straight out, looking vulnerable and defenceless.
I wonder how many people saw him. One, two, three people walked past. 

	 I wonder how he felt. Was he aware of anything – the light wind
blowing over him? The sound of footsteps, some of them quite close?
Traffic? 

	 We’re over the hoopla now, aren’t we? Two weeks ago, our
Patronal Festival; last week, Independence Day weekend; Wednesday
last, a renewal of the vows of our ministry. Has the dust settled yet?
Perhaps. But if it has, what comes into focus is the question of being
neighbor. 

	 Such a seemingly simple task. Anyone forty or older – maybe even
younger – was brought up on Fred Rogers and his artfully expressed
question, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” Of course, most people DO
want to be neigbours. But it’s never that easy. You and I –
everyone – can lose sight of that. 

	 So, even if the lawyer’s question WAS a trap, it’s one that’s
not hard to set up. It doesn’t take long to forget even the most
ingrained custom, ritual or law. That’s why we need reminders.
That’s why we have to ask questions, of ourselves as well as others.
We need input in order to check ourselves. 

	 But the curious thing about Jesus’ story, the thing that makes it
like Fred Rogers’ invitation, is that no one is BORN to be neighbor.
Jesus’ question at the end of the story, as Kenneth Bailey points
out, isn’t who IS my neighbor but who BECOMES my neighbour. 1  

	 “Becoming” is what Christianity, what life, is all about.
We’re always beoming, because everything around us is changing. WE
are changing. So we’re finding new ways in which to become neighbor
everyday, everywhere. 

	 There’s far more to Mr. Rogers’ Neighbourhood than often we care
to admit. It’s like the proverbial onion. We peel off one layer of
life and experience only to discover another, and another, and another
after that. And each neigbour looks different, talks differently,
likes different food, has different special ways of expressing her and
himself, of ways of finding satisfaction and fulfillment in her and
his life. It is SO difficult to tell. It seems it’s not a matter of
how a person appears. It’s all about what the situation is, what’s
impacting the person, what’s impacting others. It doesn’t even
matter who makes the move into the neighbourhood or why. “Won’t
you be my neighbor?” should be on the lips of every last one of us.
It takes precedence even over family members, yet family members ARE
neighbours too. 

	 Vanderbilt University Professor, Amy-Jill Levine, raised a point
that, if I’d thought of it before, then I’d forgotten it – very
conveniently. She talked of how this incredibly well-known story is
quoted for political and other brownie points, not always out of
malice. For instance Elizabeth, the current Queen of Britain said, in
2004, “Everyone is our neighbor, no matter what race, creed or
colour. The need to look after a fellow human being is far more
important that any cultural or religious differences.” 2  Levine
went on, “The parable of the Good Samaritan has come to mean
whatever we want it to mean. In one respect, this inevitable
appropriation is to be appreciated, Texts should always take on new
meaning as they are encountered by new readers from new cultural
contexts. However, (and here’s the important point) texts also have
their own original context.”  

	 There are several issues about the original setting. First, Jesus, a
Jewish man, was talking directly to Jews who didn’t need to be
reminded about loving God and loving neighbor. This was ingrained into
their religious psyches. “The parable for them would not have been
about looking after a fellow human being, and the parable is not,
finally, an answer to the questions, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ It is
more provocative than that.” 3 And, sad to say, it’s SO relevant
to us today. The problem was that there could be absolutely no way on
earth, nor, in the listener’s opinion, in heaven, that there could
be a “Good Samaritan”. Put it in today’s language. One of the
things that’s tearing our society apart is the impossibility that
some have to think of a “Good Democrat” or a “Good
Republican”. Today, just as in Jesus’ day, these terms have become
oxymorons.  

	 The first lesson we have to learn, therefore, is not to describe,
far less condemn, people or groups with a single descriptor,
especially if the implication is that such people are beyond
redemption, either as citizens of Albany or the United States, or as
citizens on God’s realm. No one, no thing, is beyond the power of
God’s love to reach, to transform, to draw out from them the
response of compassion which is supposed to be the defining
characteristics of all who worship and love God, be they Jews,
Christians or Muslims. No one cannot be invited by God to reach out,
to touch, to pour healing oil on any and all who are in need of
solace, of rest, of shelter, of balm. 

	 It didn’t escape my notice on Wednesday night that when Carli gave
me a stole and an oil stock that she said, “with prayer,
companionship and laying-on of hands we bring the reconciling presence
of Christ to those who seek healing. Join us in this ministry by
calling us to repentance, and assuring us of God’s forgiveness and
love.” 

	 To which I replied, “Amen. Live without fear: your Creator has
made you holy, loves you eternally, and reconciles you to one
another.” 4 

	 We were all reminded of the ministry we share, a ministry which
doesn’t label, doesn’t differentiate, and is always incredibly
compassionately generous. 

	 The Samaritans of Jesus’ day in the reckoning of Jews were the
enemy, and there were no half measure about describing them. Accepted
understanding in Israel was that they could do no good, nor should
they expect anything good from anyone in Jerusalem, even if either one
or the other had it within her or his means to provide comfort.
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