July 10Th, 2016/8Th Sunday After Pentecost

July 10th, 2016/8th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture: Amos 7:7-17/ Psalm 82/ Colossians 1:1-14/ Luke 10:25-37

“It’s about the nearness of God”

Summary: The commandments concerning God and the story of the neighbor who showed mercy to a stranger aren’t merely about ‘being nice to others’-as important as it is. They highlight the importance of always walking with God so that grace is always near us and readily available to share. Scripture tells us that such is a true blessing.

Recently, I chanced upon a rather interesting article in an online newspaper. The title of this article said, “Surrey woman thanks Good Samaritans who saved her husband from heart attack.”1

According to the article, two brothers were driving along Highway 10 in Surrey, British Columbia, after a birthday dinner for Justin (who was then 23 years old) when they spotted a woman waving on the side of the road next to a truck. The driver of the truck was having a heart attack.

The brothers jumped into action along with an off-duty RCMP officer heading to work. “We took his pulse and it was basically not there so CPR was the next step,” Josh said. Josh and the officer pulled 66-year old Jerzy Brzozowski out of his vehicle and started CPR. Soon more people arrived bringing defibrillators. Brozozowski was rushed to hospital where he is recovering…

1 Global News, July 10, 2016.

1 The newspaper did not identity whether Jerzy and/or his wife were Christians, or Josh and his brother for that matter. What is salient in this article is the fact that the total strangers who had jumped in to assist a person in need were identified as “the Good Samaritans”!

For a person to utter this very biblical term, and for a national news outlet to print this term without any qualification, well, it speaks for its relative popularity and exposure in our current culture. Christians or not, lot of contemporary people are simply and overly familiar with this terminology, “the Good Samaritan.” Put another way, “the Good Samaritan” has come to be synonymous with ‘acts of kindness to total strangers in need.’ It has even found its place in the venerable ‘Oxford English Dictionary.’

It is a given, therefore, that many churches (of all denominations) are in overdrive to maintain their perception as the ‘keepers’ of this sacred way of ‘social-justice.’ If one were to randomly poll a confessing ‘Christian’ today, chances are the person would identify him/herself strongly with this phenomenon, or way of life. Some may even go as far as equating Christians as the archetypical Good Samaritans of this world.

In all fairness, the root of this phenomenon, my brothers and sisters, does stem from the Gospel lesson according to Luke (Lk.10:25-37). There indeed, the true neighbor, out of the three persons (the priest, Levite, Samaritan) that notice a man beaten and left for dead, turns out to be the least expected Samaritan. The Samaritan in those days was synonymous with a ‘distant’ foreigner with no vested interest in the welfare of Israelites – the beaten man being presumably an Israelite. Of the three persons, this foreigner/stranger, the Samaritan, was “the one who

2 demonstrated mercy” (Lk.10:37). So the term and euphemism of ‘the Good Samaritan’ was struck!

If not amongst Christians, but certainly within our current culture, the parable of the Good Samaritan has served as a ‘rallying cry’ to ‘to demonstrate mercy’ unto others, most especially to total strangers. In many ways, this has come to be understood quite clearly by the general public, Christians or not, as demonstrated by the news article earlier introduced.

Now, that’s all fine. But what is often overlooked is the frequency at which we all end up playing the role of the priest or the Levite. Without a doubt, like the young man in the news article, we have jumped into assist total strangers without counting the cost of the bill at a ‘Jericho road inn’ somewhere. But we have also walked on the other side of the road, for whatever reason, cost too high, or the urgency of our own situations,… Some of us have even benefited from someone else paying our bill at a ‘Jericho road inn’ somewhere. I suppose I could say that human beings are fickle, even when it comes to assisting our neighbors in need. But I think it’s more accurate to say that on our own volition, our internal reservoir of ‘grace’ is finite. People, generous people, do hit ‘kindness barriers’ time to time. It is not without reason that the terminology, ‘donor fatigue’ exists in our vocabulary.

What is also and often overlooked is that the parable of the Good Samaritan represents only part of the story-part of Jesus’ commandment- and must be understood in conjunction with something else; that something else comes from Luke 10:27.

3 “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” (Luke 10:27).

The commandments of God and the story of the neighbor who showed mercy-as important as they are- aren’t merely about being nice to others or doing the right thing! That’s only part of the story. More importantly, the commandments are about the nearness of God in our lives, the nearness of God’s grace in our heart, our hands and mouth each day of our lives.

The commandments begin, first and foremost, with where we stand in terms of our love for God, our relationship with God. It is as if Scripture is saying to us that our proximity with God must be the ‘plumb line’ against which all other aspects of our lives, including our behavior towards our neighbors are measured.

Speaking of the ‘plumb line,’ it is prophet Amos who uses this ancient tool of measurement to assess the faithfulness of Israelites to God. Amos uses this imagery to warn the Israelites to return to the ways that God had provided. God has held up a plumb line, Amos tells the people, and found the nation of Israel warped in their pursuit of other religions and worldly values, most especially the corruption of justice and equity for all people.

Israel has become corrupt, pure and simple, having moved far away from their original identity as the ones who walk closely with God. All the other ways that Israel had tried left it lost and further away from the true plumb line. The nearness of God, the nearness of grace in our hands and our mouths, is the plumb line against which all the other details of our lives will either be aligned or skewed. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one part of those details.

4 It may seem odd, but the two commandments really are not asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Instead, they are asking the faithful to ask themselves “Who are we?” What exactly is that thing we know so intimately about ourselves deep inside that prompts us to worship the living God, and thus abide by his commandments for us, especially “to 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” (Lk.10:27). That is, where do we stand against the plumb line of our nearness to God?

Through God’s gift of grace on the cross, we find ourselves to be inescapably God’s own sons and daughters, forgiven and free from the sways of this world. And we find with that identity the ‘responsibility’ to see our neighbors in whatever state of affairs they may be in.

So as those who find our identity in being near to God, we find our lives overflowing with God’s grace; because God’s grace overflows unto us, we have the ‘responsibility’ of ensuring that same grace flows unto our neighbors. Perhaps the word ‘responsibility’ is a poor choice; perhaps it would be better for us to think of it as ‘opportunities’ for us to validate God’s steadfast love for us, his grace unto us, by extending it to others! This, my brothers and sisters in Christ is what I believe the story of the Good Samaritan is about.

Folks, if I seem overly concerned with discovering our relationship with God, not just in this worship service but in most services, I probably am, but not in the sense that I am trying to dodge ‘social justice and social well-being of our neighbors.’ My prayer is that ‘the Word of God is very close to us, in our mouth and in our heart, just waiting for us to relish God’s grace and let it flow unto others-our neighbors’ (Deuteronomy 30:14). So when we end up with a bill at a

5 Jericho road inn somewhere, what we do unto our neighbors is a joyous opportunity more than anything else, and certainly not a grudging chore. And with ‘opportunities’ in life, we know that there just can’t be enough of them.

So who are my neighbors? I think the more important question is, “Who are we?”

~Amen.