Take A Risk

A Reflection on Luke 10:25-37

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Pastor Dale Stiles

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

We should be grateful to Jesus.

Because when Jesus talks about what is necessary for inheriting eternal life, he never says that we have to have everything figured out, or that we cannot have questions or doubts about our faith, or that we have to subscribe to four neat and tidy spiritual laws that pave the way to salvation. No, when Jesus speaks of inheriting eternal life, he gives us doable, manageable, achievable kinds of things, the sort of stuff that every one of us gathered here this morning could do, if we wanted to, before this day is over.

Our Gospel lesson from Luke this morning tells us that a lawyer does what lawyers do well - he puts Jesus to the test. The case being tried is the case of eternal life. The lawyer demands to know what we must do if we are to inherit eternal life. But Jesus, being used to people trying to pin him down on one thing or another, turns the question around and basically asked, "Well, you've passed the bar exam, what is written in the law?" "Love God with all you are and love your neighbor as yourself," the lawyer answers. "Correct. If you do this, you will live." But this lawyer is not satisfied with that answer, and as we know, lawyers like to ask questions, so he calls for a point of clarification: The God part he's got.  But who, he wants to know, is his neighbor?  So Jesus, being the good preacher that he is, when explaining truth, when trying to get a point across, launches into a story that we all know now as the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Now, I admit, when I saw that the Good Samaritan parable was the assigned lectionary gospel for this morning, I too, wanted to walk by on the other side of the road. I say that because the Parable of the Good Samaritan is a story so familiar to us that it's tempting for us to begin to glaze over about the time the Levite goes about his own way, potentially missing or forgetting the point.  I'm sure there are those who haven't set foot in this church since they were ten years old and in Marcie's Sunday School class, but who could still tell you the story of the Good Samaritan.  So there's a challenge here for us.  There's always a challenge to look again at these stories that seem so familiar to us, and try to figure out what God is saying to us today, at this stage in our lives.

So that's what I've done, and what grabbed me this time through was not that the Samaritan helped the man, and not that the priest didn't, but that the Samaritan took a risk on someone else! He risked something; he got his hands dirty. He let his life get mixed up in the messiness of somebody else's life. He didn't know where the robbers were. Maybe they were hiding in the ditch on the other side of the road, or hanging out around the next bend. Just ask the average Iraqi citizen or US soldier inBaghdad; ambush is everywhere. The easy way out would be to keep everything at arms' length, stay safe, stay on the other side of the road, don't get involved, mind your own business, let somebody else handle it. But no, the Samaritan got involved, got mixed up with a life in need; he took a risk.

That's probably why the Priest and the Levite didn't stop to help the man -  because deep down, they were afraid.  They didn't want their lives to change.  They were headed in one direction and they didn't want to get involved or change their course. Life is easier that way.  Who knows, maybe the man was diseased, lying there in the ditch. Maybe it would have required more than just calling the ambulance?  You might have to ride along to the hospital.  Contact the next of kin.  Provide a statement.  That's all too involved isn't it?  We prefer to not to get involved usually.  Research says that the society we've created is lonelier, more isolated, and more depressed than ever before. It's a society in which our culture seems intent on keeping us apart. Laptop computers, IPods, cell phones, and now IPhones tune out everyone around us and allow us to be our own little island in the sea of humanity.  One writer has said that we've gone from a front porch society to a back deck society.  With all of our technology and progress it seems that we have become trapped by our fears - the fear of involvement and the fear of risking our lives on someone else.  I heard a person say once, "Good fences make good neighbors."  I'll mind my business and you mind yours.

The lawyer from Luke's gospel would fit in well our American Culture of 2007 wouldn't he?

It seems he's not interested in a relationship with Jesus, he simply wants to engage Jesus in a question and answer dialogue, a heady debate about theology: "What is eternal life?" he asks. But in Jesus' fashion, he keeps it simple and basically says, "The gift of life is this: Go. Take a risk. Cross the road. Go, be a neighbor to someone else, especially someone who is poor, lonely, or hurting; in doing so, you will discover the healing of your own loneliness."

A Bishop was asked to preach at a big downtown church.

On Saturday night some key members of the congregation who invited him took him out to dinner at a pretty plush local restaurant. After the food came, the bishop announced that he would say grace. Noticing the waitress standing near the table, as they circled hands, he invited her to take part in the prayer. He gave God thanks for all their blessings, for the food and company, and then he said, "and thank you O God for this young woman who has served us so well, for her gentle care and attentiveness, and if she is hurting in any way tonight, put your arms around her, make her know how much you love her. Amen."  When the prayer was over the young waitress had tears rolling down her face. "Today has been the worst day of my life," she said. "My husband recently left me; my little boy is sick.  I'm so alone and afraid. How did you know?"

How did the Bishop know? How do any of us know? Because deep down, there is only one answer to our own loneliness, and that is community. Taking a risk, opening the circle to someone else, especially to someone who is hurting, someone who is poor, or someone who is lonely creates community. Author Jurgen Moltmann even says that "the opposite of poverty is community." The Levite and Priest, went on down the road, on their side, isolated and alone. But the Samaritan took a risk, and in the process, found the cure for his own loneliness, he found community. Jesus says, he found life!

And this is what we believe about God.  God does not stay away, up there in his heavenly fortress, thinking about humanity, wondering if we'll ever get it straight, sighing over the mess we've made of the world, and of our lives. No!  God crosses the road!  God opens the circle!  God takes a risk with us, and rushes towards us to tend to our wounds.  In the sacrament of Holy Communion today Jesus rushes towards us as the Good Samaritan.  He comes to us wrapped up in the disguise of bread and wine.  He takes a risk on us, pushing his way into our lives, getting down in the ditch with us who are wounded, and lonely, and hurting, while inviting us to get involved with him.

I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but I am always amazed at how sober and serious we all look when coming forward for Holy Communion.  The Sacrament, without question, is the greatest and most valuable gift we will ever be given, right alongside of our baptisms, and yet we look like we're in a funeral procession as we come forward to receive it.  Not just here at Fish Lake, but in most churches - denominational pieties have made the sacrament such a formal affair where we all get in a line, while the organ plays and we rotate in and out of the pews just so, and everyone is polite, steady, and no one gets up before the ushers signal. It's all done very carefully and predictably.

Well, in 1999, during my second mission trip to Juarez, Mexico, at the conclusion of a week of mission, I remember gathering for our final worship service in a dusty little tin building surrounded with six foot concrete walls that had been embedded with broken glass to deter bandits from climbing over.

At the conclusion of that three hour worship service I was amazed at how, after the pastor blessed the bread and wine, the people began to come forward for Holy Communion.  These people, who literally had nothing to claim as their own, except for hardship, loneliness, and pain, came forward with an enthusiasm, a joy, and an eagerness like I had never before, and have never since, experienced during the sacrament.

They all came forward at once - no lines, no order, no ushers, just running to Jesus to be fed.

And when they got to the pastor and put out their hands, they clung to that bread as if someone had placed a million dollars in their cupped palms.  I remember going forward near the end of the distribution, in my usual, pious, orderly way, thinking about how chaotic and disrespectful it all seemed to me.  And then I watched and took it all in from the back of the room, as my Mexican brothers and sisters continued to rush and push forward, in spite of everything, staking their very lives on the body and blood of their Lord and Savior, thinking to myself, "I wish I had faith like that." 

God has chosen to get with us.  Let's get involved with God.

Amen.