Third in a summer series: Holy Headlines: news and Good News
Luke 10:25-37 records for us the story of the Good Samaritan. This morning I will look first at the text and what is going on there. Then I will share a couple of vignettes related to local and global news that might be enlightened by this story. In context, this story is part of the conversation between Jesus and an expert in Jewish Law or Torah.
The expert in the Law comes seeking something from Jesus and begins this quest by asking the question. What must I do to inherit eternal life?
This question “What must I do to inherit eternal or everlasting life?” in three out of four of the gospels, is followed by different ways of drawing out the heart of the Gospel that Jesus preaches. It just so happens that the heart of the gospel is also contained in a certain reading and understanding of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). In the Markan and Matthew version of this story, Jesus answers the question by quoting from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and in Luke, Jesus asks the Lawyer himself to answer the question. In both cases the answer is the same:
From Deuteronomy: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and from Leviticus: Love your neighbour as your self. Jesus responds to the lawyer, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live,” but in the style of typical Rabbinical debate, where Rabbis seek to deepen their understanding of the commandment by asking and answering questions and by telling brief stories or parables, this lover of the law asks another question, “And who is my neighbour?” And Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan puts fleshes out the question “who is my neighbour?”
A traveler of no particular identification (it could be you or me) is traveling down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The traveler is assaulted by robbers and left for dead. And then using the same great literary formula as a good joke (did you hear the one about the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan) – the rest of the story unfolds in a familiar way.
The priest and Levite pass by and the Samaritan stops to help, putting himself at risk by doing so, and giving even more than might be expected. He tends the injured traveler’s wounds, carries him on his donkey, nurses him through the night and leaves provisions for ongoing care.
Actually, the formula of three characters in a story or a joke is used to highlight the similarities and differences among the characters. For example, did you hear the one about the blond, the brunette and the redhead, or did you hear the one about the priest, the Rabbi, and the Mennonite? The joke presumes we know what unites the three and the punch line will be what makes them different from one another in some stereotypical way.
The hearers of this story know that a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan share a fairly strict understanding of following the written law or Torah (even if there were some differences in the written text they were interpreting). It is precisely their literal interpretation of the law and their subsequent fear of ritual impurity that would have made it difficult for any one of them to stop. The story is shocking because the stereotypical punch line should include some action by the Samaritan that reveals him to be the real enemy in this story. And yet the opposite occurs – the real enemy shows compassion. And Jesus asks, “Who is the neighbour?” And Jesus’ sparring partner – the lawyer – responds, “The one who shows compassion” even if in this case it is the enemy. And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”
This week as I thought about this story with an eye on news headlines (in accordance with our theme for the summer) I became much more aware of how the concept of neighbourliness especially if it includes our enemies, is quite complex. Who is our neighbour, really? How do we think about being neighbourly? And after we’ve thought about it how do we act on our thoughts (or not)? In this text, the commandment to love God and neighbour are imperatives. They are not options for a Christian any more than they were for a Jewish person. This imperative is the heart of gospel living and brings Life with a capital L according to Jesus. Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it after all.
What follows, in this sermon, will be vignettes of how I understood this commandment and how it affected my thinking and encounters in the last two weeks.
First, I’d like to tell you how it affected my encounter with this text. In the past I have been most un-neighbourly to the teacher of the law, or lawyer here, who asks the question in this story. I used to presume that when he “put Jesus to the test,” as verse 25 says, that he had some evil intent. As I’ve read interpretations of this text by Jewish scholars, I have come to realize that testing a Rabbi in this way, and the question and answer encounter between Jesus and this man, was typical of the Pharisaic and later Rabbinical attempts to get at the heart of the commandments and their application to our daily lives. This encounter does not necessarily need to be read as antagonistic between Jesus and the lawyer.
For my second vignette, I will address the headline in our local news that just won’t go away and that is the police actions in this city during the G20 Summit. I am aware that police riot squads arrested many peaceful protesters, innocent bystanders and even the merely curious who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Much of the online video footage of police violence and riot squad tactics would seem pretty hard to justify. Ben Wert, a young man from the Danforth Mennonite Church and two of the MVSers from Danforth were among the curious on the streets that were arrested on Saturday night, June 26th. From what I hear it was a pretty traumatic experience for many of them. At first glance it would appear that the police officers are the enemy. Are the police officers also our neighbours? In this congregation we can name police officers who are literally our neighbours and in our families.
On my way to Calgary for the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly, I was sitting beside a police officer on the airplane. I heard later that several of the Mennonites at the Assembly flew to Calgary with police officers that were returning home from duty at the G20. Apparently, the gentleman that I sat beside needed an opportunity to talk and debrief the events that unfolded over the weekend and so a two-hour conversation ensued.
He was a Buddhist man who understood his mandate as one who serves and protects. He was open, articulate, self-aware and insightful about the experience.
I was able to ask him how it felt to be on the riot squad line and what went through his mind and heart. He remembers the adrenalin when things were being thrown at him, He remembers the sense of being threatened, his concern for his own safety, the desire to return safely to his family, and the concern that he didn’t know how the police officer to his left, a young man with only three months of policing experience, might react under pressure.
I asked him about police officers who react aggressively or inappropriately. I asked him what he knew about that and when does that happen. He agreed that it happens and that it’s usually guys who are not initially part of the line. He knows that some of the officers who were behind the security wall without being part of the “action”, couldn’t take it when they saw things thrown at their colleagues. He told me that if any of these officers became aggressive, they needed to be sent home. He did not say whether or not this happened.
Also he told me that when you are part of the line yo
u take orders and the order to round up and arrest everyone happens when the riot act has been implemented. Then he explained to me the strategies they used to make those arrests. The use of these strategies is clearly visible in online video footage of the event. However, why the riot act or rather the “right to detain” was implemented late Saturday night is not clear on any of that footage.
I told him that from my perspective, everyone – the protesters, the police, the black bloc, even the innocent bystanders were all players in a script that they hadn’t written and that I was choosing to have compassion for everyone involved. He agreed with me, about the script and when I asked him how that script could have been different we discussed things like – the difficulties caused by the location of the event, the untouchability of the world leaders, the lack of police leadership to truly understand what it’s like to be on the front line. I even had an opportunity to suggest to him that as a pastor, a Mennonite and a Christian (by this time in the conversation he knew these things about me), I believed that Jesus showed us a different script, where vulnerability, radical listening to the other, engagement between people instead of security walls to segregate/separate people might have helped. The police officer suggested that since CSIS knows who the black bloc protesters are – their presence at the event could have been restricted and then the things that I suggested would have been more feasible.
It is doubtful that this police officer and I managed to solve all the problems of the G20, but in our encounter with each other – in a place where there was no pre-determined script – we were free to be neighbours.
There are many others in our world who are literally trying to write new scripts and in so doing they are articulating what it means to be neighbours.
This is my third and final vignette. Jack Suderman, Mennonite Church Canada, General Secretary, was present at the World Religions summit 2010: a gathering of Interfaith leaders of G8 nations, that met in Winnipeg the week before the G8/G20 met in Muskoka and Toronto.
Together they create a statement that they send to the G8/G20 leaders.
Their statement begins as follows:
We, 80 senior leaders of the world’s religions and faith-based organizations together with 13 youth delegates, from more than 20 countries representing Aboriginal, Bahá’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, and Sikh religious traditions, have convened in Winnipeg, Manitoba on the eve of Canada hosting expanded global summits.i
Jack was asked to address the gathering for five minutes on Peace and Justice concerns.
Right now the United Nations has 8 Millenium Development Goals – and the interfaith leaders in part call the leaders of the G8/G20 Nations to be accountable to these goals. In Jack’s brief address to the World Religions Summit, he suggested a 9th Millenium goal – He proposed that world religions must resolve to stop teaching and justifying the use of violence between and among faith communities. Jack told us that he thought his suggestion might be seen as pie in the sky, but before he could sit down he was greeted by an orthodox priest, who shook his hand and said, “that’s exactly what we need,” and behind him was a Rabbi, who shook his hand and said “that’s exactly what we need,” and behind him was the Archbishop of Canterbury who said, “that’s exactly what we need.” The next day, Jack’s proposal that faith communities resolve not to teach or justify the use of violence between and among each other became part of the official statement that they sent to the G8/G20 leaders.
Under the section that encourages our world leaders to Invest in peace it reads:
WE are aware that there are those who use religion to justify violent acts against others, and thereby offend the true spirit of their faith and the long-standing values of their faith communities. We condemn religiously motivated terrorism and extremism and commit to stop the teaching and justification of the use of violence between and among our faith communities.
It also goes on to say:
Our faith traditions are steeped in the promotion of love for one another and deep respect for all humankind; peace and justice walk hand in hand. Our most inspiring teachings are stories of reconciliation and compassion. We will collaborate to create paths of peaceful and sustainable coexistence.
This is a literal rewriting of scripts. In the words of one of the World Religions Summit’s participants, “By the Grace of God, may these words find legs.”
The question that the lawyer asks Jesus two Millenium ago – “what must I do to inherit eternal or everlasting life,” can in this century be expanded.
Today the question could read –
What must we do so that our children and grandchildren and the earth itself will inherit everlasting life?
I am convinced that the answer remains the same.
We must love the Lord our God with all our heart soul, mind and strength and our neighbour as ourselves.
This is a commandment – an imperative.
And who is our neighbour? In this century, the flourishing of our children and grandchildren will depend on how we answer that question. It begins by acknowledging that in some way we are all neighbours to each other – in the words of our larger church body – from across the street to around the world – from the streets of our city to the seat beside us on an airplane to the heads of state and world religions.
May God grant us the grace and the courage to love God and neighbour, no matter who that may be, for the sake of Life! Amen.
iTheir statement can be found on the World Religions Summit 2010 website. The Statement is entitled: A Time for inspired Leadership and Action Final Draft – June 23 2010.
http://www.faithchallengeg8.com/pdfs/2010%20Interfaith%20Statement%20-%20English.pdf