PENTECOST 7

Sermon

11^th July 2010 - PENTECOST 7

Text Luke 10: 25 – 37

In the name of God- Creator, Pain-bearer and Spirit of Life and love

On Wednesday evening of last week I went with friends to the Stirling Parish’s annual ‘Winter Feast’ at a restaurant in the city. Denis dropped the ladies off at the restaurant and he and I went searching for a car park – I hate going to the city – it is always crowded and noisy and finding a car park that doesn’t cost a fortune is virtually impossible. However after some adept ‘alley driving’ we found a park and started our walk to the restaurant.

When we came to the corner of one of the main streets we noticed a man lying out in the road – actually in the traffic lane. We immediately went over to him and after finding him sort of conscious lifted him and took him back to the foot path where we propped him up in a door way. He was able to tell us his name and that he was from Perth – also that he had ‘had a few drinks’. He had given it up, he said, but started again after his mother died. I phoned the police and they sent an ambulance to pick him up and help him out of his predicament – also a police patrol car turned up to check on him. Whilst we were waiting a local resident came along to take his rubbish bin inside and after a glance to see what was going on outside his apartment simply ignored us all and went inside.

After we saw our sad drunk safely into the hands of the Ambos Denis and I walked on to the restaurant – everyone thought we had needed to park in Port Adelaide due to the time we had taken in reaching the dinner. It was good to have been able to help though. Had we not come along there is little doubt that a vehicle would have hit the man, lying as he was in the road in such a dark area of the city. We didn’t know him and had never seen him before but he was our ‘neighbour’ in the real sense of today’s Gospel story and we could do nothing less than help him. I might be wrong but it seemed to me that the local resident would not have touched him – he might have phoned for the police - but who knows? I didn’t think of this parable at the time but when thinking over the text for today I thought how well it fits the events of last week.

This story in Luke is probably a reworking of the one found in Mark 12 where a scribe (another ‘expert in the law’) asks Jesus a similar question. Also remember Mark 10 where Jesus is visited by the rich man who seeks to find his way into the kingdom of God? “What can I do to inherit eternal life?” is also asked in Luke 18. It’s the big question! This same question seems to be often put to Jesus in these Gospels. ‘Inherit’ seems to indicate a bequest – remember that an inheritance is something that is bequeathed – unearned – a gift if you like – here it’s something that God wants us to have. So there is an ironic twist to the question “What can I do to inherit…”? The simple answer is you can do nothing - nothing except LOVE! That’s the short answer. The story of the Good Samaritan is told not to point out the man’s generosity or his superior position over a man down and out – but to point out his LOVE for the victim – his neighbour.

Another thing – ‘Eternal Life’ – what are we talking about here? There is an expectation of everlasting life inherent in these Jewish writings but the emphasis would seem to be on quality of life rather than quantity. Everlasting? Who knows and frankly I don’t really care. I see this as Jesus coming to show humanity what it is to live life in an extraordinary way – to live life ‘on the edge’ as it were – to live life to its absolute fullest and most satisfying. It is living our human lives within the all encompassing and all pervading life of God – and being aware of that Presence within us – closer than our very breathing. It is simply living our lives with the single most important goal – to love God and to love our neighbour. That’s the simple message in this story which clearly defines our neighbour as the whole of humanity – but further than that even – the whole of creation – the earth – other animals – the whole cosmos and its contents. For if we truly love the creating spirit that we call God the rest MUST follow!

What a sharp and clear picture the writer of Luke’s Gospel draws. There is little left to the imagination – and what irony in the Levite passing by. The theme for this story comes from the Hebrew Torah – the sacred law of the Jews – from the book of Leviticus no less (the Greek word Leviticus translates as "relating to the Levites") - where God orders the people to ‘love your neighbour’.

This is God speaking to his people and laying down the law! And here we have a Jew lying wounded and naked in the middle of the road whilst another Jew of high rank – religiously and politically speaking – goes out of his way to avoid him and any involvement. A total violation of the Torah!

The same applies to the priest. He would have known the law – he simply ignored it – he ignored God’s law and the practised traditions of generations of his people. And here we have the Samaritan – the lowest of the low in Jewish eyes - coming along and showing mercy to his enemy the Jew – he was putting into practice what the two Jewish community leaders ignored – he showed mercy and in that mercy - love - to who was surely his neighbour in the true sense of the word.

You can hear the other two say, “Love your neighbour if he’s a Samaritan? You must be kidding God!”

The Jews and the Samaritans hated and despised each other – portraying a Samaritan in positive light would have come as a shock to Luke’s audience. It is typical of his portrayal of Jesus - provocative speech in which the conventional expectations of his hearers are turned upside down. Luke’s Jesus is being typically subversive in having a despised Samaritan play the goody role. Don’t you just love subversion? It brings out the radical in us all. If you like being radical and subversive become a practising Christian. Luke uses this subversive theology in order to answer the question: ‘Who is my neighbour?’ What are the limits? Do I include only the people of my community? Might this also include undesirables? Does it include women, people with disabilities, lepers and others so frequently excluded? Ultimately it becomes a theological question: whom does God love? The answer is made obvious in this story – everyone – regardless.

There are really two commandments here – Love God and Love the neighbour. Can we see that the priest and the Levite in this story probably loved God? They were part of a complex temple structure of hierarchy and were possibly just the victims of their human made system. How often have we seen ‘the system’ divert people from the real task – that of not just loving God but also loving all around. We see Bishops and priests become ineffective in the real needs of ministry because they stop at owning the first commandment only.

It’s interesting to see the generosity of the Samaritan man as well. He not only stops to help but takes the victim to a hotel and pays for his accommodation – no ambos and hospital emergency wards then! It seems a bit like early Australia really – the pub was the centre of community life and served all sorts of needs from food and drink and accommodation for the traveller to meeting place and church – even as in this case – hospital.

The man left the inn-keeper with two dinarii. A denarius is a silver Roman coin and represented one day’s wage for a labourer in the fields. It’s virtually impossible to bring that into today’s value but I reckon if we take the equivalent of a day’s wage for the same person today (about $140) and note the cost of a night in an average hotel (about the same) – it would appear that something like the equivalent of $280 - $300 was handed over. Who here today would be prepared to put their hand in their pocket for that much in order to help a person they: (A) did not know and (B) who was of a different and despised cultural group?

I think times have perhaps changed a bit in our society during the last couple of decades but a few years ago I could have easily cast the characters in this story as:

(A) The priest - an Anglican priest / Bishop in all the finery of the office.

(B) The Levite - a government politician – the local member – perhaps the Honourable The Minister for Social Welfare – in well tailored suit and tie.

(C) The victim - a half-dressed, drunk, dirty, smelly Aboriginal man.

There could well be another character walking along this road - the ordinary everyday person in the street – that’s us – you and me! Where do I fit in? How would I react? Would I stop and help or – not wish to become involved for any number of perfectly good and sane reasons? That puts a different light on it for us, doesn’t it?

The Stirling parish has decided to support in practical terms the ministry of Grant Hay amongst his people at Point Pearce – much is being done and loads of helpful and needed goods have been taken over there. There’s love in action!

Can we think about what we as a church could do to put love into practice?

Retired Anglican Bishop of Newark in the USA, Bishop Jack Spong has said ‘Love wastefully’.

It seems that however much love we ‘waste’ – more seems to come – it’s a miracle!! Let’s try it and see what happens! THE LORD BE WITH YOU