“Taking Time”

February 28, 2010

Luke 10:25-37

After we finished the public reading of the Gospel of Luke back in January, one of our members who had sat through the entire reading came up to me and said, “Well, you’ve got a lot to explain now.” I think she was getting at the puzzling and sometimes even troubling stories told about Jesus and told by Jesus in that Luke’s gospel. My job, it seemed, would be to sort it all out, to make some sense out of all the strange and disturbing things we had heard.

That is part of what I’m trying to accomplish in our study of the parables on Wednesday evenings during Lent: not to explain everything, and certainly not to try to do that all by myself—but to discover some new meaning for our lives in the parables by looking at some of them together with other members. That, too, is the task I’ve given to my preaching during Lent—to enter into a few of the parables, not to explain them, exactly, but to work on them as you might clean a battery so that the points of contact between those ancient words and our contemporary lives produce some energy—scraping away some old accumulations to allow for a strong current.

We take the time to do this, on Wednesday evenings or Sunday mornings, because we are convinced—or because we hope—that those stories still connect with our own stories, that as strange as the parables might be they are worth examining because they examine our lives at the same time.

It would, of course, be good to have some other help. There are times when I think it would be quite helpful to be able to ask Jesus some questions—even one question: to get an answer—maybe the answer—to one of those thorny problems that nags at my mind and heart. Maybe you’ve thought that occasionally—wanting to ask, “Well, just what did you mean by this?”

I think it would be quite helpful until I start to read the Bible and see once more how Jesus generally responds to those who ask him questions. It’s not that he lacks compassion or patience. It’s not that he doesn’t like to be questioned.

It’s just that Jesus generally answers a question with a question—or even worse, with a parable. He doesn’t do what so many of us do—especially so many of us ministers. He doesn’t give an answer to show off his knowledge. He doesn’t give an answer to smooth everything over.

Jesus responds to questions not by giving us the final word but by inviting us to look further, feel deeper, and think more than we had.

Listen to that lawyer who comes to Jesus. This is someone who knows both the civil and the religious law. He is well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. The lawyer simply wants to know: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now that’s a good question. That’s the kind of question I’d like to ask Jesus. Maybe it’s the kind of question you’d like to ask Jesus. There are so many people ready to tell us about the love of God or warn us about the judgment of God. There are so many who would say “Do this,” or “Don’t do that.”

But what needs to be done? What needs to be done in order to find life in the realm of God? What needs to be done—can anything be done—so that we find ourselves caught up and carried along by all that it means to be alive?

Tell us, Jesus.

Luke says that the lawyer asked this question to “test” Jesus. Now, remember, Luke has already told us—and we ourselves heard the story last Sunday—that Jesus had spent 40 days in the wilderness being “tested” by that great adversary, the devil. So this lawyer’s “test” couldn’t have been too hard after that.

As he often does, Jesus answers the question with a question: “What’s written in the law? What do you read there?”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Those words are found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and speak of the deepest values of Judaism.

“Do this,” Jesus replies, “and you will live.”

It’s that simple. It’s all about love. We seek a wholeness of life that is called salvation. We long for the sense that who we are and what we are doing fit together as they should and fit into some larger purpose as well. Certainly such salvation, such eternal life does not come without a cost, but something tells us that if we apply all of our mind and heart and strength and soul to the task, by God’s fathomless grace we might be those who love God and neighbor. The words of Moses that we heard this morning encourage us: “This commandment is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach…It is a thing very near to you, on your lips and in your heart ready to be kept.”

Do this, and you will live.

What’s that phrase in the Hy-Vee ads? It’s that simple.

Do this, and you will live. It’s that simple. That should have been enough.

But it wasn’t. And we know it isn’t. Love God with your whole being. Love your neighbor as yourself. How often those words do seem difficult and beyond our reach!

The lawyer knows what needs to be done. We, too, know what needs to be done. So the lawyer has one more question. And it is our question as well. Where does this all end? Where can we draw the line?

Who is my neighbor?

In response Jesus tells that story that has been told so many times that we forget how disturbing it is. When I told one person that I was preaching about the good Samaritan today, the response was: “Why?” Many of us learned this story as children in Sunday school. Haven’t we heard everything that can be said about this parable? Is there anything new here, let alone any good news?

We call it the parable of the “good Samaritan,” and those two words have been linked together for so long that now any number of charitable and caring organizations call themselves simply  “Samaritan,” with the understanding that they are, of course, good. Any Samaritan is “good,” right?

But hadn’t those ancient Samaritans only recently snubbed Jesus as he walked through their village? As far as devout Jews like Jesus were concerned, they were heretics, not worshipping God in the right way or in the right place.

The idea that a hated Samaritan would act in ways more admirable than decent religious people—clergy or laity—was unthinkable. And yet we find ourselves in this parable, watching the care that this outsider shows to the person who fell among thieves, watching as he brings this beaten victim to an inn, paying for food and lodging, promising to come back and make good on any other expenses—and we begin to think differently.

When we listen to Jesus, we begin to think the unthinkable: Good—Samaritan. The outsider, the rejected person is our neighbor.

When we listen to Jesus, we catch of glimpse of what it might be to do the undoable: loving not only our neighbors but loving those who despise us, those whom we despise as well.

Stories like this are dangerous. We find ourselves thinking and doing things that we might never have expected or experienced.

Do this and you will live.

It’s that simple. And yet each time we hear the words of Jesus: “Go and do likewise,” we remember times when we have not done that.

My favorite “Good Samaritan” story is about a psychology experiment that involved students at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian school out in New Jersey.[1] Several students were asked to prepare a short, extemporaneous talk on a given biblical theme and then walk over to a nearby building to present it. Along the way to the presentation, each student ran into a man slumped in an alley, head down, eyes closed, coughing and groaning. The question the psychologists were trying to answer was: “Who would stop and help?”

Before the experiment began, the students filled out a questionnaire about their motives for studying theology. Were they looking for a means of personal, spiritual fulfillment? Or were they looking for a practical tool for finding meaning in everyday life?

Some of the students were asked to talk about the relevance of professional clergy to religious calling. Others were asked to reflect on the story of the Good Samaritan.

In some cases, as the students were sent to the other building, the researcher would glance at his watch and say, “Oh, you’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. We’d better get moving.” Other times, he would say, “It will be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head over now.”

Which seminarians helped the man slumped in the alley?

Almost everyone who hears this story would predict that the students who were entering the ministry to help people and those who were reminded of the need for compassion having just read the story of the Good Samaritan would be most likely to stop.

But it didn’t work that way. In fact, on several occasions a seminarian on the way to give a talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim while hurrying to the next building.

When I first heard of this experiment years ago I took some false pride in the fact that at the time Robin and I were both at Harvard Divinity School instead of Princeton. We as a congregation can have a similar sense of self-congratulation that Elissa Johnk and Nathan Willard, with such a good upbringing here, also chose Cambridge over Princeton as the home for their theological education. And perhaps we can all find unwarranted comfort that we are members of the United Church of Christ instead of, well, Presbyterians.

But before we start to sound any more like the Pharisee in the parable we heard a couple of weeks ago, who stood and prayed thanking God that he was not like that miserable tax collector, however, we need to hear the rest of this story.

What made these seminarians act as they did?

The only thing that really mattered was whether or not the student was in a rush. Of the group that was told, “We’d better hurry,” 10% stopped to help. Of the group who had some time to spare, 63% stopped.

The truth of this experiment hits all of us where we live. Let’s face it. We are—all of us, clergy and laity, men and women—often just too busy to love, to be a neighbor, to do the right thing.

How many times have we been so busy, so pressed for time, that we fail to see not only our “neighbor,” but also our student, our client, our patient, our son or daughter, our spouse or partner? How often have people simply vanished before our eyes because in our rush we have lost the ability to see and therefore ability to love?

One of the good things that happen when we worship together is that we slow down. In this space we learn to take our time, to pray, to sing, and be fully present in the current moment. The hope is that we will carry this with us into the world and so have time to love God and love our neighbor in spite of the frenzy around us.

A Samaritan who cares and helps invites us into a new and different life. This unlikely role model stretches our ideas of what it means to love and what it means to have a neighbor.

This story gives voice to Jesus’ protest against the rules and boundaries set by the culture in which he lived. It exposes the injustice of social barriers that categorize, restrict, and oppress various groups in any society.

We must often reject society’s rules in favor of the rules of the realm of God. The rules of that society are just two—love God and love your neighbor.

Do this, and you shall live.