Luke 10:38-42 and words about our prayers for the dead
Jesus told them a parable: One morning early in Santa Rosa near a church on Mendocino Avenue, a man was lying to the side of the sidewalk. He had blood on his face, and he looked half-dead. A woman came along on her way to church for the early morning service. She was a member of the altar guild, and when she saw the man lying by the side of the walkway, she was afraid. She took a step back, and quickly went the other way to get into the church from the other entrance. She said a little prayer for the man as she went. Not long after another person came rushing up toward the gate near where the man still lay, This fellow had a clergy collar on, and he was glancing at his watch and muttering under his breath, “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.” He didn’t even see the man, until he almost tripped over him. He glanced down quickly and realized that if he stopped the Mass would not be offered on time. So he thought perhaps he’d come back later. And he went on into the church. Sometime later another man came along, he too was dressed in black, and kept looking at the time on his cell phone. He didn’t have a collar around his neck, but there were some tattoos showing. He’d come to the courtyard by the church in hopes of making a sale, a deal—but the person he was expecting hadn’t been at the curb as he’d supposed. He looked down and saw the man, and went over and bent down and said, “Hey, buddy, you all right?” The man didn’t answer. So he wiped the blood off his face with his shirttail and saw that his wounds were pretty severe. He lifted his head and gave him a few sips of water, he tried to pick the man up, but realized he couldn’t support him alone. He took out his cell phone and called his friend who was waiting in a car just down the block. When he came they picked the man up, put him n the backseat and drove him to Sutter (it was still open at that time). The man in black got out and told the nurse to bring a stretcher. When the ER staff had finally come, the man and his friend drove away.
Wha-a-t? you say. It could never happen. No way. The Good Drug dealer?
You’ve gotta be kidding.
And, I am playing with the story a bit here. And please know that I just picked this person, this caricature of a drug dealer to try and bring the story out of its humdrum I heard this one a million times-ness. If you’re a person who has dealt drugs maybe you know the stigma attached to the way of life—at least in some circles. I wanted to invite you to experience a bit of the shock, disbelief and surprise that Jesus’ listeners felt when they heard his version of the story. The mercy shown to the half-dead man was mercy every good Jew would have expected to give—that it was shown by a Samaritan was almost incomprehensible. Samaritans were considered less than by Jews of Jesus’ day——outsiders, despised even. The last group you’d go to for help. The last person you’d imagine showing mercy.
I love Jesus’ parables. They are so open-ended and they invite us to enter in so many ways. With whom do you identify in the story? The altar guild member—have you ever been too afraid to get involved? I have.
The priest—have you ever been too preoccupied with your own stuff to even notice? Too busy to have time for another? I have.
The drug dealer?—have you ever reached out in mercy to another when it made no sense to do so?
Or how about the man lying half-dead on the side?—have you ever been hurt, wounded, exhausted, helpless to help yourself? Have you ever been vulnerable in your weakness? Maybe even unable to protect yourself?
The way Jesus told the story made it hard for folks in his day to identify with anyone but the victim really. His listeners knew they were called to show mercy to the stranger. They probably expected the Levite and the priest (the woman and the priest) to have compassion on the man, and maybe they would have judged them—but perhaps they would have understood their motives. If they were like me they might have anticipated being like the third man, the one who helped. It’s so easy to fall into feeling self-righteous, isn’t it? I’d do better than those two! But imagining myself as a Samaritan—or a drug dealer is more than I can handle. So, maybe the one I would most identify with is the man on the side of the road.
From whom will I accept help? Could I accept it from such a despised person? What if I had no choice? the parable asks these questions of me. (they make me uncomfortable).
A good friend of mine once told me about a time he offered to help someone in distress—but because of who he was his offer was rejected. Jerry was a very large (like over 300 lbs) man—an African American man. One night after hours at the university he came down a corridor and a young woman was trying to get her key out of the lock in her office. He came down the hall toward her and said, “Can I help?” She leapt back against the wall and screamed, “Leave me alone. Leave me alone. If you come any nearer I’ll have you arrested.” He drew back in fear, and quickly left the building. Perhaps God had come to her Jerry, but she declined the offer.
That’s how St Augustine read this parable. You and me, that’s us by the side of the road. And, he said God is coming to us in this shocking way—help from the least expected source. God coming in surprise.
I think when Jesus first told this story he was about giving his listeners a taste of the kingdom of God. The shocking way it comes—crossing all boundaries, all our neat arrangements. That feeling of disjuncture—that’s a God feeling. The mercy of God drawing near to us when we’re most in need—how our weakness opens us to the surprising gift of mercy from someone we’d never consider speaking to really. Never consider.
The Good Samaritan or drug dealer as the case may be is disturbing because he breaks up our neat constructions. The ways we categorize people. Deep down we know, you and I, that those categories never hold up. Life is just NOT that neat and tidy: it isn’t good vs bad, the decent and the evil, the worthy and the unworthy. But we live so much of our lives pretending that our judgments are truth. From God’s perspective these are pretty much baloney. Oh, there is evil and there is good, there is righteousness and there is sin. But each of us is a mixture—and we are God’s own.
Maybe the Good Samaritan is a plumb line. God has dropped him into our midst, and like the words of Amos the prophet—the land cannot bear it. We can hardly bear it. God is love all right. No doubt about it. But love is sometimes hard to take—especially from people we’ve judged incapable of love—or not worthy to love me. Samaritans, drug dealers, you name them… Maybe the plumb line of the Good Samaritan is about measuring our willingness to be open to receiving love from the one we despise. Can we let God be God? God can and does come to us in the most surprising ways.
That’s the hard news and the Good News. God comes to us. Very Good News indeed.
I wanted to say a few words about our prayers for the dead in Iraq. Some in our congregation wonder about our motives, wonder if we are making some “political” statement, and others wonder why we are not praying for all of those who have given their lives for our country.
I should have spoken to you earlier about this reading of the names.
The reading of the names was my idea. It came to me after I read about the young men from our County who have died in Iraq. It came to me after a young man I prepared for confirmation when he was 12 was sent back for his third tour of duty. It came to me because I believe that our faith is worth nothing if it isn’t for our lives today. I thought, “this is the world in which we are living today—right now. This is part of our truth and we should dare to speak of it.”
We should have a chance to grieve. War is costly.
And I thought about all the dead in this war. Christ tells us to pray for our enemies. I’m not very faithful about that and I mostly don’t know their names. But I think a lot about the thousands of civilians, men women and children dying and living in fear. I don’t know their names either.
But these names of our American dead I do know, and so I thought to say them out loud here in this place. To pray for them so that we might respect their lives and grieve their loss, and let their names stand for those whose names we do not know.
By saying their names I never thought to dismiss or denigrate other soldiers—those who have gone before—or for that matter any of the others—the countless others we might name here on a Sunday.
The ones lying by the side of the road—here in our own cities and in countless other places. The people too afraid to reach out—the ones too preoccupied to notice—too filled with their own agendas—the ones who are our enemies—the ones we see as other. I never thought to name them all—but to let these names remind of the others. Let these names turn our thoughts to a reality that is painful.
My intent was never to make a “political” statement. I have my political opinions as do you. But this naming was for me more about a faith statement about the value of life. And it is a grief statement about the reality of life.
After all these years of reading the gospels and preaching them, I stand here and tell you honestly that Jesus’ way is the way of the Good Samaritan. It is the way less traveled—the way of love that overturns our divisions and categories, our “us and thems,” is cuts across the deep divides and seeks to offer mercy in surprising and shocking ways. It is demanding and it is life—the fullness of life. Part of the grief I feel when I read the names is grief at my own refusals to choose that path—it’s over our own refusals to choose Christ’s path. The hope I have rests in God—who I know and trust to be at work on the road and along the sides of the road.
You may use the reading of the names for prayers that seem best to you. And, I will be here after the service if you wish to speak to me about this.
