Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Luke 10:25-37
One of the pleasant surprises in these often unpleasant days is the growing awareness of just how cool ministers are.
At least, I’m enjoying this.
First we had those inspiring words of the Episcopalian bishop, Michael Curry, who became an instant television and internet sensation after his sermon at the royal wedding. Who knew a sermon could be so popular? Maybe Marilynne Robinson was onto something when she said in an interview several years ago: “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy a good sermon. People who are completely nonreligious know a good sermon when they hear one.”
They do, don’t they?
I’ve always been encouraged and challenged by Marilynne’s words about preaching. And when Bishop Curry spoke to both royalty and us common folk about the power of love, well, everyone recognized a good sermon.
And now we have the runaway hit of the summer, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?—the documentary about a Presbyterian minister: the Rev. Fred Rogers, better known, of course, as Mister Rogers. I haven’t seen the film yet, in part because it’s being shown to sold-out crowds over at Film Scene.
In this hot summer, ministers are cool.
People are saying that in this summer of animosity and incivility and, well, hatred—Fred Rogers is a needed and welcome reminder of the power of love. In this summer when lines are being drawn, when families are being separated, when children are being kept in cages, Mister Rogers once again invites all of us to see the beauty in each person and to love our neighbors.
Sometimes we do that, don’t we?
In his new book, The Common Good, Robert Reich looks back over the past fifty years and says: “As individuals, we are as kind and generous as ever.” He seems to be talking about people in congregations like this one when he says: “We volunteer in our communities, donate, and help one another. We pitch in during natural disasters and emergencies. We come to the aid of individuals in need.”
He adds: “We are a more inclusive society, in that African Americans, women, and gays have legal rights they didn’t have a half century ago.”
He’s right. We do many things that live out a love for our neighbors. And that all sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
“Yet…” There’s always that “yet.”
“Yet,” Reich continues, “Our civic life—as citizens in our democracy, participants in our economy, managers or employees of companies, and members or leaders of organizations—seems to have sharply deteriorated. What we have lost…is a sense of our connectedness to each other and to our ideals.” [i]
In these days, the question: “Won’t you be my neighbor?” is answered with a more ancient question: “Who is my neighbor?”
If we can just set some limits on who are neighbors are, if we can just put up a wall and say: “Love those on this side, not on that side,” it would be much easier, wouldn’t it?
But our scriptures and our faith remind us of what happened when someone tried to set limits on love and neighbors.
Look once as that lawyer approaches Jesus. He knows both the civil and the religious law. He is well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. He has a simple question. He just 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.
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.
I don’t know. Maybe this lawyer isn’t really looking for an answer. Luke says that he asks this question to “test” Jesus.
Now, you might remember that Jesus has already spent 40 days in the wilderness being “tested” by that great adversary, the devil. After that, this lawyer’s “test” couldn’t have been too hard.
Perhaps sensing that the lawyer isn’t looking for an answer, Jesus answers the question with a question—as he often does: “What’s written in the law? What do you read there?”
Well, the lawyer knows that answer: “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. Frederick Buechner famously said that “We think of Eternal Life, if we think of it at all, as what happens when life ends. We would do better to think of it as what happens when life begins.” 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 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.
Yes, Fred Rogers once said that “Understanding love is one of the hardest things in the world.” But he seemed to get at some of what love is about—and he helps us in understanding love—when he says: “When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful, the true mixed in with the façade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way.”
That certainly draws us closer to “eternal life.”
Do this, and you will live.
Maybe we’re getting somewhere. The mystery of loving God and loving our neighbor is connected to the mystery of loving even ourselves exactly as we are.
Love God with your whole being. Love your neighbor as yourself. The ancient Jewish wisdom tells us this is not too difficult or beyond our reach.
We know what needs to be done.
The lawyer, too, knows what needs to be done.
But he has just 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 retold so many times that we can easily forget how disturbing it is.
We call it the parable of the “good Samaritan,” and those two words have been linked together for so long now that 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 before we hear this parable in the Gospel of Luke, we first hear of ancient Samaritans snubbing Jesus as he walks through their village. And as far as devout Jews like Jesus were concerned, Samaritans did not worship God in the right way or in the right place.
It was unthinkable that a hated Samaritan would act in ways more admirable than decent religious people—clergy or laity. So 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.
The one who shows mercy is our neighbor.
When we listen to Jesus, we catch of glimpse of what it might be to do what cannot be done: 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. What was it that the subversive Mister Rogers said? “When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely…”
Do this and you will live.
Each time we hear the words of Jesus: “Go and do likewise,” we remember times when we have not done that.
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.
How do we do that?
We learn to love by being loved.
When Fred Rogers was inducted in the Television Hall of Fame in 1999, he gave a speech that still moves people nearly twenty years later. Maybe you’ve seen it.
He asks: “How do we make goodness attractive?” And that’s a really good question—not just for the TV industry but for all of us, really.
How do we make goodness attractive?
His answer was: “By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those who lives move near our own—by treating our ‘neighbor’ at lease as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.”
He continued by asking: “Who in your life has been such a servant to you…who has helped you love the good that grows within you?” And he gently invited all those often jaded Hollywood types: “Let just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and want what was best for us in life—those who have encouraged us to become who we are—just ten seconds of silence,” adding, “I’ll watch the time.”
Can we do that? Can we just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and want what was best for us in life—those who have encouraged us to become who we are—just ten seconds of silence?
I’ll watch the time.
After that silence, Rogers said to the audience, “No matter where they are now—either here or in heaven—imagine how please those people must be to know that you thought of them right now.”
When we remember being loved, when we remember those who loved us, it becomes just a little easier to love a neighbor. And when we love a neighbor, by God’s grace, it becomes just a little easier to love another neighbor, a just a little easier to expand that circle to include an ever-growing number of people in that neighborhood.
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.”
Sure, it doesn’t always feel like this. Speaking of some mishaps, Fred Rogers once said to David Letterman, “Sometimes things don’t go right in the Neighborhood.” We know that.
Even so, let us continue seeking to be neighbors and to love our neighbors.
Let us continue, especially in these often difficult and troubling, hot summer days.
It’s the cool thing to do.
[i] Robert Reich, The Common Good, pg. 3-4.