RCL Proper 15C
14 July 2013
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Focus text: Luke
10.25-37
One
of the cultural differences I had to get used to after we emigrated to Canada
in 1987 was the different academic terms Canadians and Americans use. For example, American kids go to first grade,
while Canadian kids go to grade one.
American students enter their freshman year of university, while
Canadians enter first year. Canadian
theological students are in their first year and then, after some time, enter
their final year. An American
theological student in a traditional seminary enters her or his three-year
programme as a junior, then becomes a middler and finally a senior.
These
names are actually quite accurate descriptions of my experience as a
theological student. During my first
year I really was a ‘junior’; it was a whole new world for me and every day was
a discovery. When I reached my final
year, my ‘senior’ year, I had established myself within the college and truly
felt on the cusp of my new life as an ordained minister. But my ‘middler’ year was something entirely
different.
For
me the ‘middler’ year was just that: the
excitement of the first year had worn off and the excitement of my final year
was still in the future. It was during
my ‘middler’ year that I experienced what some people might call a ‘burn out’,
others a depression. No one seemed to
notice that something was wrong. Since I
was a good student, I managed to plod along without arousing the concern of the
faculty. Most of my friends within the
student body were married, so we only saw one another in class or in worship,
so their alarm bells were not triggered.
Only two people recognized that something was going on.
Both
were women, one a Canadian preparing for ordination to the priesthood, the
other an American who was preparing for ordination to the diaconate and the
exercise of an educational ministry. Now
you need to know that I entered seminary opposed to the ordination of women and
that I held very traditional views about sexuality. So here I was in the midst of a depression
and the only two people who stepped to the side of the road were two woman, one
a misguided seeker after the priesthood, the other a lesbian.
Since
that time I have never been able to hear the parable of the good Samaritan
without thinking about the two ‘Samaritans’ who stopped to tend my wounds. My views on both the ordination of women and
the place of gay and lesbian disciples of Christ have changed considerably and
I have no doubt that Barbara and Anne played a significant part in changing my
views. They did not reach out to me as a
‘project’, someone to be ‘converted’.
They reached out to me because they saw a need and chose to respond as
Christians who share in the same ministry that Jesus of Nazareth embodied
during his earthly ministry.
Today’s
parable is a familiar one and, because of that familiarity, it is easy for us
to let its words flow over us as we move on in our lives. But we cannot afford to let its familiarity
lead us into complacency. So let me
offer a few reflections on what this story means to us, here and now.
First,
let’s pay attention to the series of questions and answers. The lawyer begins with the right question,
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
In both his question and his answer the lawyer indicates that he and
Jesus are on the same page. Eternal
life, both the lawyer and Jesus know, is not found in a series of religious
beliefs but in action: Love of God and
love of neighbour. Despite the debates
that rage around us about belief and non-belief, what God is really interested
in is whether we love. Love, in the biblical sense, is not about how
one feels but about what one does.
‘But
who is my neighbour?’, asks the lawyer.
This is not a question arising from a desire to dodge responsibility but to
know how far-ranging the obligation to neighbour extends. To this question Jesus gives an answer which,
quite frankly, is frightening to me: My
neighbour is anyone who is in need.
Children who are denied education, people who are starving, families who
are homeless, middle-aged men who find themselves out of work and unemployable,
women who are treated as property, the list of who are my neighbours grows
infinitely large and the risk is that I am rendered powerless in the face of
the enormity of human need.
But
just before the despair sets in and leaves me in passivity, the good news
enters and shows me the path forward.
The first glimmer of hope is in the character of Luke’s gospel. In Luke’s understanding of the good news,
‘one is not a disciple alone [but becomes] one of the people of God who live as
citizens of God’s kingdom’. [1] We are not alone in the work of loving our
neighbour; the burden does not fall on the shoulders of one but upon the
shoulders of many. What is important is
that each one of us takes up the share that falls to us.
Steve
Godfrey asks, “Where do [our] gifts, vocation and avocation create
opportunities to bless the lives of others with the steadfast loving-kindness
of the gospel of the kingdom of God?
Where does [our congregation’s] time, talent and treasure offer . . .
opportunities to do the same? Where
these answers lead is where we can validate God’s steadfast love to us by
extending it to others.” [2]
And
these answers often lead us to simple and concrete acts of steadfast love. Alan Brehm writes, “[it] seems to me that it
is when we are engaged in the most mundane activities that we make the most
difference in another person’s life.
When you get right down to it, that’s the only place we can really make
much of a difference in the life of another human being. . . . Christian life
is ‘nothing special’ --- it’s a mater of simply living out the grace and mercy
and compassion of God.” [3]
My
friends, what must we do to inherit eternal life? We must love God and we must love our
neighbours. And the love we offer to God
and to our neighbours will often be unspectacular. We will love by showing people compassion
when they are in crisis. We will love by
reaching out to the clients of our pastoral resource centre with food, empathy
and practical assistance in obtaining the services they require. We will love by boulevard sales that provide
funding for various agencies serving in our communities.
But,
my friends, we shall also be loved by others, some who share our faith and some
who do not. We shall receive compassion
when in sorrow, discover hands reaching out to us just as we think we are lost
and we shall find unexpected gifts that meet as yet unknown needs.
For
we are not alone. We are surrounded on
every side by neighbours, known and unknown.
And with them we shall inherit eternal life, abundant life, not only in
God’s future but in this present time.
[2] Steve
Godfrey at http://churchintheworld.com/2013/07/who-is-my-neighbor
accessed on 8 July 2013.
[3] Alan
Brehm at http://thewakingdreamer.blogspot.ca/2010/07/nothing-special-col.html
accessed on 9 July 2013.
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