Sermon 7/11/04
You Won't Get Away with It! - Luke 10:25-37
(view lectionary notes on this text)
Today, we continue our examination of some of our favorite hymns chosen by our fall worship survey. Today's focus is "Lord, You have Come to the Lakeshore," number 10 on our list. I admit, I was surprised to see this hymn in our top ten more than any of the other hymns chosen, even though it just made it on to the list, for a few different reasons. First of all, it is a fairly recent hymn - written in 1987 - it usually takes us a long time to let hymns become our favorites - congregations tend to prefer the 'golden-oldies' of church music. Second, it's not typical - it's a Spanish language hymn translated, meaning the rhyming scheme doesn't quite fit in English, and the melody isn't traditional - no-Amazing Grace style basic tune to follow. But here it is on our list. I suspect that in part, its high placement has to do with it being one of the hymns sung at Don Perling's funeral last year. Don was a man beloved by the church, and if he loved this hymn - by gosh, we would love it too. But how, I wonder, did it end up on Don's list?
It's not that I don't like this hymn - in fact, I can put it on my own personal favorite list. I have a specific memory of hearing this hymns sung at my home church in Rome when I was in junior high. My then-pastor Rev. Bruce Webster was hosting a young Mexican man who was traveling with the "Up With People" music program, and Bruce invited him to sing this hymn as a solo in Spanish one Sunday. It was beautiful and moving. The hymn was written by a Catholic priest, Cesareo, who died in 1991, at age 55, 32 of which were spent in the priesthood. A friend wrote of him that Gabaraín ministered toward all classes of people, without distinctions of creeds or situations. (1) Listen to the words: "Lord, you have come to the lakeshore looking neither for wealthy nor wise ones; you only asked me to follow humbly. O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me, and while smiling have spoken my name; now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me; by your side I will seek other seas. You know so well my possessions; my boat carries no gold and no weapons; you will find there my nets and labor. You need my hands, full of caring through my labors to give others rest, and constant love that keeps on loving. You, who have fished other oceans, ever longed for by souls who are waiting, my loving friend, as thus you call me. O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me, and while smiling have spoken my name; now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me; by your side I will seek other seas."
Today our scripture is perhaps one of the best known parables of Jesus: the story of the Good Samaritan. The story of the unlikely character who helps the robbed-and-beaten man-in-need is so well known that it has become a phrase in pop-culture. When you call someone a Good Samaritan, you are giving them a compliment, indicating that they go out of their way to help a stranger. In fact, we have laws called Good Samaritan laws, that protect people from charges of wrongdoing if they are acting to volunteer aid in crisis situations. But, as I often warn, our over-familiarity with Bible stories sometimes prevents us from examining them as carefully as we should. Bearing the label Samaritan in Jesus' day was no compliment, at least not from a Jewish perspective, the perspective of most of those with whom Jesus interacted. But we'll return to that.
A lawyer stands up after Jesus has been teaching to 'test' him, we read. He wants to know what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Any student of Mosaic law would already know this answer, as Jesus indicates. The man replies appropriately: Love God and love neighbor. Right, Jesus says, so just do it, and you will live. The man seems unsatisfied. "But who is my neighbor?" Jesus responds by describing a man who is robbed and beaten and left for dead on the roadside. Two religious men - a priest and a Levite - see the men but pass him by on the other side of the road. Finally, a third, a Samaritan, sees the injured man, helps him, provides him shelter, rearranges plans for him, and generally goes out of his way to help this stranger. "Who is the neighbor?" Jesus asks. "The one who showed mercy," the lawyer admits. "Go and do!" Jesus repeats.
This story is so simple it's deceiving. Of course we're supposed to do as the Samaritan did! What is so surprising about that? But in truth, the priest and the Levite were obeying their religious laws! To touch the man who was bloodied and beaten would have made them ritually unclean, something forbidden to them in their positions by the very laws God had given to Moses centuries earlier. They were just doing what their own scriptures - scriptures still in our Bible - told them to do. How could they be in the wrong? And the Samaritan - his actions might have been good for the man, but in the eyes of the law, he was acting out of order, crossing boundaries that weren't supposed to be crossed.
Why a Samaritan? Isn't it funny how they are always popping up in Jesus' ministry? The Samaritans, who were slightly different in racial/ethnic background, were a people who emerged as a result of the exile the Jews faced at the hands of their enemies in Old Testament times. The Samaritans and the Jews were neighbors, geographically, even inhabiting some of the same areas of land. And their customs and practices were very similar. Samaritans, for example, also held the Torah, or the first five books of our Bible, as scripture, as did the Jews, with only slight variations. They differed, however, in where they thought God was to be worshipped. Jews would not allow Samaritans to sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem. Jews and Samaritans could not intermarry, and Samaritans were called "half-Jews", an insulting label. (2) So, for Jesus to have the good neighbor, the one truly following God's law in this story, to be the Samaritan man, was shocking to his hearers. Samaritans were despised; they worshipped in ways that were wrong and even heretical to Jews. They were deviants. But, said Jesus, if they acted in the spirit of God's law, they were neighbors, good neighbors, better neighbors, even, than those who would be blinded by the letter of the law.
The story of the Good Samaritan asks us to rethink the labels that we've put on who is good, and who is bad, who is friend, and who is enemy, who is neighbor, and who is stranger. Rev. Richard Fairchild writes, "It has been suggested - and I think rightly so given some of the teachings of the time and the reality of human nature at all times, that the lawyer is really asking Jesus: 'Who is NOT my neighbor? Who is that I am allowed to ignore or to neglect? Perhaps even to hate? What is the minimal thing that I need to do to keep God's law of love - and what can I safely get away with not doing... 'That is a horrifying approach to keeping the law of God isn't it? Who must I love - and who can I get away with not loving..." (3)
I think sometimes we are perhaps guilty of taking this approach with God. Who do we want to get away with not loving? Terrorists? Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden? Are they our neighbors? Someone closer - a family member? A friend? Who in your life has wronged you or hurt you or affected you in such a way that you wish that somehow God's grace did not apply to them? Or at least that you would not have to be the one called to share that grace with them? It doesn't take a long and careful look at our world to suggest that we are too often not good neighbors. Each day, we are confronted with news of more lives lost abroad, American lives, lives of other soldiers, loss of Iraqi lives, loss of innocent bystanders. We are a world divided. In our own country, divisions seem heightened as the presidential election draws closer. And we only need read our local paper each day to learn of the divisions and conflicts that constantly confront our own communities here in Central New York. Can we get away with a failure to be neighborly? Can we follow the law to the letter, and still be righteous in the sight of God? Jesus tells us - better luck next time if you're trying to get off the hook. In your hearts, you know the difference between the spirit and the letter of what God commands. Go, and do likewise.
Our hymn focus for today suggests to me a person who is preparing to journey with God. Somehow, this person has finally figured out that God doesn't want anything from us but us. So, trusting in that knowledge, this person can pack up, and head to the other seas, other seas where God has souls who are waiting for someone to be a neighbor - other seas, where God needs faithful disciples to give rest to those who are so weary and weighed down. The kind of journeys that God calls this one to are not journeys that get tangled up in the letter of the law, and they are not travels of discipleship that involve getting by with as little-as-possible sharing of grace and love. God needs us, loving, as even the lawyer knew, with all of our hearts, our of our souls, all of our mind, all of our strength. Lay down your grudges and your fears. Lay down your lists of those you'd rather not serve and love. Leave all this on the shoreline here. God has searched you, and smiling, has called your name to journey to other seas. The Samaritan in our story took God up on the call. "Go, and do likewise." Amen.
(1) ciberia.es/musica_sacra/espagnol/page3.html
(2) http://www.bible-history.com/Samaritans/index.html
(3) Rev. Richard Fairchild http://www.spirit-net.ca/sermons/c-or15smsu.php