Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors

How many of you looked at the title of the sermon and found it familiar? Does anyone remember it? Yes, it’s from Sesame Street. Now there’s a diverse neighborhood….a big yellow bird, human beings of all nationalities, a homeless creature that lives in a trash can, two men who live together, and various creatures. Not many of us live in a neighborhood as colorful as Sesame Street; but maybe we do, our sense of neighborhood grows with the shrinking of our world through electronic media. Travel has made it possible for education and employment of people to cross borders….legally and illegally.

With the shrinking of the world, comes the discovery of new cultures that can influence and enrich our ways of dressing and eating, transportation and home life. The new cultures can create new opportunities for thought and experience, mentally and spiritually. But new discoveries can also threaten us. Sometimes facets of society can physically or emotionally threaten our way of living. And sometimes it isn’t even the new things that many times threaten us but our own responsibility to choose how we will experience new things. We can understand that diversity is always at home in our neighborhood.

This was certainly the case in our gospel story. Commerce was important for Israel which connected Egypt and the Mediterranean with the Far East. Israel thrived on the diversity between cultures and benefited from that exchange. Its roads were important and the commerce that traveled them made a difference to all of Israel. The road between Jericho and Jerusalem was a dangerous stretch of road. It was steep descending 3300 feet over the 17 miles between the cities. That’s descending 194 feet a mile! Because the terrain is so rugged, there aren’t a lot of alternatives, so this was a well-known, well-used road. Robbers would know how to use the terrain to their advantage in attacking those who held the most promise. And for me, that is one of the most interesting points in this story….the guy who is robbed and left for dead……well, he is not a nobody, a poor man, or a person of dubious worth…..who would rob them? He had to be someone who was worthwhile to the robbers! He was well off, carrying something of worth, and looked like he was of worth….they didn’t just rob him, they stripped him, his clothes were worth something, and he was beaten because he was healthy enough to fight back….he was a somebody! We like to ignore that idea. We want to think of him as some not-so-bright guy that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We would like to think that somehow it is his fault that this happened to him. But that isn’t the case. If you were a man doing business, you had to travel this road. If you were a successful merchant, you had to travel this road. If you were anyone at all traveling to Jericho from Jerusalem, you had to use this road. But if you were a man of worth, you were a target for robbers. Who knows; this poor guy left on the side of the road may have had a sword, or a sword and a dagger! He was just out numbered. Maybe he took out a few robbers before they overcame him, we don’t know….and why should it matter? He is anyone, he is the proverbial literary everyman. He is you and me.

So there he is….bleeding, dirty and unconscious on the side of the road. “Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.” That’s it. That’s all that is said, two sentences on these two passing the man by. Jesus doesn’t expand on the reasons for the two not going to the aid of the man. But for us, in this time, it does help to understand that both of these men were possibly upholding their duty. Both are required by “law” to not touch dead bodies. Dead bodies were considered unclean. As keepers of the faith, the Temple, they were only doing what they considered right, to stay away from the bloody man, for fear of contamination and a lengthy cleansing process. Luke’s readers would have probably known this information. They would also know that a Samaritan was despised by Jews. They were stereotyped as half-pagan descendents of mixed marriages between Jews and Canaanites. They did reject an understanding of the salvation history being centered in Jerusalem and worshiped instead on Mt. Gerizim in Samaria. We might consider the behavior of the priest and Levite as cold, but let’s put this story in a more modern context.

Let’s say that you are on your way to pick your children up at daycare. Daycare closes at 6 pm and there is a hefty penalty for every minute you’re late. You had to work later than usual today and you are running late. Fortunately for you the daycare is housed in the first floor of your building. You press the elevator button and wait. It finally comes and you press the first floor. In the back of your mind you’re hoping no one else gets on the elevator and slows down your progress to the first floor and the daycare. At the last minute a hand appears on the elevator door as it closes and you don’t reach for the door open button…..what if you recognized the hand as the boss who made you late…..

Sure, it wasn’t someone laying there half-dead, beaten, naked…..but could it have been just as dire a circumstance for the person you denied help? In the situation of either the beaten man or the closing elevator, if the person in need was our friend, we wouldn’t hesitate to help. It’s funny what a little information will do for our decision making process. Even visual information, they look like my sister, he walks like my dad, will put us at ease. But a person whose dress or looks is different, someone we don’t understand, in language or culture, well, we are hesitant.

Our hesitancy isn’t a bad thing. It is what keeps us safe and is a necessary part of our thinking mechanism. The problem lies in our choice after digesting the information. Or better yet, maybe it is because we’ve failed to add a step to our decision making…..about ten or fifteen years ago it would have been called, “What Would Jesus Do?” step. It is a thinking process that is highlighted many times in the Bible. It is what we would do if we were “alive in Christ” or “doing likewise”. We know what it means, putting ourselves last and others first. It means being Christ-like. That is why it is so important for us to understand that Jesus doesn’t qualify the people in the story because that’s just it, they are people. We are all the same. The fact of the matter is that the person in the elevator was deciding between being “polite” and holding the door and whether he wanted to pay the penalty of being late to pick up his children. Maybe the priest or Levite thought that their cleansing process would put too much of a burden on their coworkers, or that being killed by robbers would leave their families destitute. Just think what the Samaritan could have thought before getting off his horse and helping the bleeding man…..what if someone jumps me? what if the man hates Samaritans as much as the Jews and punishes me for helping? what if the man is diseased? how much is it going to cost me to care for him? But these factors were outweighed by his compassion for a man who needed help. The Samaritan’s compassion outweighed his prejudice, his ego, and his fear.

Slide If we were to make a chart and under “road to Jericho” we listed places near our home, like the grocery store, city streets, school, workplace and under “Respectable People” we listed persons like preacher, school teacher, computer analyst, doctor and under “Samaritans” we listed persons like immigrant, religious fanatic, Islamic storekeeper, gang member, runaway. How would those stories play out? We have had a number of movies lately that speak to who is our neighbor and how we act towards them. From movies like “Crash”, “Babel” and “Freedom Writers” who turn the tables on stereotypes from within the movie and the audience, to a movie like “Cars” in which the greatest of all cars foregoes his winning a race to help an old, worn-out winner over the finish line. Clip In none of these movies do we see survival of the fittest, but compassion of the vulnerable. Jesus teaches us that. Jesus, Son of God, greatest of all, denies his greatness to take on the sins of all, becoming human, vulnerable and suffering death. But that isn’t the great part of the Good Samaritan story or the movies. It is that these stories are resurrection stories. Remember what the lawyer asked Jesus that prompted the story? “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The question wasn’t, how can I live longer, or better or safer, but how can I come into eternal life? Just a chapter earlier, Luke records Jesus saying, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?”

What does it profit us to gain the whole world and deny our brothers and sisters bread, or safety, or peace? We have the opportunity every moment of every day to lose our lives for Christ’s sake. Every day we have the opportunity to say yes to Christ and no to the world. Each time we do, our true neighborhood comes closer to us. Each time we say yes to coming to the aid of our neighbor whether it be sustenance, sharing their grief or joy, or listening, we draw nearer to Christ. The lawyer answered his own question about eternal life. Slide He said, “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 you your neighbor as yourself.” We have the opportunity to love God by loving our neighbor because Christ, God gave it to us. It is God’s gift to us. It is Christ’s example to us. We can lose our life for Christ by loving our neighbor and in so doing; we recognize our true neighborhood, the kingdom of God.

Everybody take a coin out of your pocket or purse. If your neighbor doesn’t have a coin, share with them, they’ll give it back! I was sent a story via email this week about a man who got great joy out of finding a penny on the street. When he was asked why he received so much joy from finding a penny, he responded by pointing to what is inscripted on the penny, or any coin,

He was a rich man and certainly didn’t need the pennies he found. When asked, this is what he said, “The coin says, ‘In God we Trust’ and if I trust God, the name of God is holy, even on a coin. Whenever I find a coin I see that inscription. It is written on every single United States coin. God drops a message right in front of me telling me to trust Him? Who am I to pass it by? When I see a coin, I pray, I stop to see if my trust is in God at that moment. I pick up the coin in response to God that I do trust in God. I think it is God’s way of starting a conversation with me.”

That’s the other step we sometimes leave out of our decision-making process; to trust in God. Most of the time, we feel the responsibility that comes with our role in life. We take it very seriously and feel the need to be in charge. When faced with life’s decisions, possibly life-changing decisions like the Samaritan, do we say to ourselves, “I trust in God.” or are we spending too much energy on being in charge? There you have your reminder in your hand. Take a good look say a little prayer for humility. Way back in Proverbs 3.5-6, it says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.” Perhaps the Samaritan had taken this passage to heart more than most. One of the most responsible choices we can make is to trust in God when we do what we know is Christ-like; when we respond to our neighbor in love.

The kingdom of God is a place where there is no war, or hunger, no crying or sorrow. No homelessness and greed. Pretty much a place made for us as we were created in our original righteousness. It sounds like a place where everyone responds to their neighbor in love. It sounds like a beautiful world that trusts in God. That is what reveals itself every so slowly as we strive to follow Christ and respond to our love for God because God first loved us by loving our neighbor. Loving our neighbor doesn’t just make this world a better place; it makes the world the kingdom of God.

Who are the people in your neighborhood, you, the children of God, are the people in your neighborhood…..the people that you greet the people that you meet the people that you see each day. Respond in love for your neighbor and trust in God. What you say we hope, in that hope given through Jesus Christ, for living in the neighborhood of the kingdom of God?