Community
Church Sermons
Sixth Sunday after
Pentecost – July 11, 2004
One of the most important things we do as a church is participate in the ministry of the Good Samaritan Center. This is a collaborative effort on the part of almost all the churches in our area to come alongside people in need and to help address those needs. We think of it as providing people with “a hand up” rather than a “hand-out”, and the “Good Sam” – as many affectionately call it – truly does help hundreds of people every year. Dozens of members of this congregation are involved in the work of the Good Samaritan Center which, as you know, is named after the hero of our Scripture story today.
Well, ONE of the heroes.
Part of the difficulty we face when taking up a well-known story like this is that we are so familiar with its facts that we often overlook its details. And when we do that, we sometimes miss the story-behind-the-story where even deeper truths can be found.
I submit to you today that the story of the Good Samaritan is deeper than the simple account of that now-famous Samaritan man who took care of a stranger along the treacherous Jericho road. That’s a great story, to be sure, but its not the only one in that passage. In fact, the story-behind-the-story here is not about the Samaritan at all, but about another person – a young man who has lost his faith.
If YOU are someone whose faith has become shaky, or maybe has abandoned you altogether, or possibly has never even gotten off the ground, you’ll want to pay particular attention to this story. It all starts with a young 20 or 30-something year old lawyer.
I can picture him in my mind, can’t you? Use your creative imagination to see him strutting across the Yard with all the other crimson-clad young men and women on their way to commencement exercises at Harvard Law School. In just a few moments, he will walk across the stage at Tercentenary Theatre to receive the document certifying he has earned the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence. First in his class at Harvard! And, with sheepskin in hand, he will walk off that stage in just a while to pursue a lucrative job offer with one of New York’s most prestigious law firms. Corporate law – that is his specialty. Big money. Bright future. He has the world by the tail!
But as he walks toward that stage and toward the future, you’ll notice there is a troubled look upon his face.
It is not a look discerned even by his family which is in the crowd, cheering him on. His mother, Arlene (Radcliffe, class of 1955), and his father John (Harvard, ‘54), have long dreamed of this moment when their son will follow the family tradition – Ivy League School, successful law practice, perfect family, exemplary life. Like all parents, they want their son to have the best that life has to offer, and they have worked hard all these years to provide him with all those things. Good family morals. The best schools. Tennis lessons.
And, of course, religion.
From the day they enrolled him as a youngster in the Sunday School at the old First Church, they have steeped him in the values of faith. And though neither Arlene nor John realizes it as they celebrate the commencement exercises at Harvard, that very faith they instilled in their son is what’s at the heart of the troubled waters in his soul.
Faith will do that to you, you know. It can be a blessing, filling you with peace and comfort and joy. But it can also be a curse, causing your soul to become disquieted and troubled. I don’t know what your faith is doing to you these days, but I do know that this young man’s faith is causing him great turmoil.
You see, he has questions.
They had started way back in Middle School when he first learned about evolution. He went back to Sunday School the next week and shared with his class what he had learned at school, but his Sunday School teacher quickly hushed him up. The teacher said something about, “Well, we believe what’s in the Bible, and we don’t question that.” And from that day on, he wondered if he even belonged in Sunday School, because he had LOTS of questions.
About the Bible. About God. About the church. About life. He couldn’t help it. It was just the way he was!
Why were all the people in his church white people? Why did they sing songs about bringing in the sheaves when no one even knew what a sheave was? Why did they talk so much about money, and so little about mercy? Why did they think his best friend Meyer Goldstein was going to hell just because he was Jewish? And how could God have given his younger brother Tom cancer? Why did Tom have to die so young? That was a big question for him. What had Tom ever done to deserve that? And that question led to one even harder – why, if God is a good and loving God, is there so much pain and evil in the world?
They were just questions, mind you - not statements – things he was truly struggling with. But one of the things he learned about Christians is that so many of them seem to be much more comfortable clutching simplistic, ready-made answers in their hands than wrestling with the complex questions of their hearts. And, even worse, as he became older and went off to college, he realized that the answers they were providing were often to questions nobody was really asking anymore!
Least of all himself.
So despite growing up in the church, and in the faith, and in a home that valued God, he found himself abandoning the religion of his childhood. Or maybe his religion was abandoning him. It was simply irrelevant.
Lots of young people feel that way, you know. The faith they learned as children has nothing to do with their lives now as adults. And despite all the simplistic answers that were handed out when they were kids, the questions have never gone away. In fact, some of the questions have only gotten larger.
Why does the church protect sexual predators? Why do religious people talk so much about love but generate so much hatred? And why does my faith still leave me feeling unsatisfied and like something is missing from the center of my soul?
And like the young lawyer, many people discover that this thing that’s missing from the center of our lives can’t be found either in our careers, or possessions or successes. Those things may satisfy us for a time, but not forever.
And so we, like the young lawyer walking across the stage, find ourselves with a troubled spirit and asking the question, “How in the world can I find true LIFE???”
The lawyer Jesus spoke with that day long ago…was not a graduate of Harvard Law School. In fact, he was not a lawyer as we know lawyers. He was an expert in the law of Moses. His specialty was religious law. He was a religious leader in a very religious community.
But he had lost his faith.
Just like some of us – with all our religious upbringing – who still end up asking the question, “How can I find life?” - this religious leader ends up asking the same question.
So he comes to Jesus, and poses it.
And in his encounter with Jesus that day, the lawyer finds that it’s okay that he has lost his faith because Jesus introduces him to a NEW kind of faith! Did you see what it looks like in the story?
First of all, this new kind of faith he finds in Jesus is a faith that welcomes and encourages questions! “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he asks at the beginning. “What is written in the law?” Jesus asks in return. “What do you read there?” “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer later asks. “Which of the three was neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” asks Jesus as the story draws to a close. Did you notice that the story is just twelve verses long, and yet it contains FIVE provocative questions?
How would you feel about a new kind of faith that not only welcomes the questions you have, but sees them as an instrument of growth? If you’ve ever studied the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, it was a relationship built around QUESTIONS – their questions to Jesus, and Jesus’ questions to them! And in the freedom of being able to use their minds, and freely exercise their curiosity, and express both their hopes and their fears, something sacred stirred inside their hearts.
And that’s important because the next wonderful thing we learn about this new kind of faith found in Jesus is that it flows not from a book, or a pulpit, or a law, or a set of doctrines – but from the heart!
Did you catch it in the story? In response to Jesus’ question about what the law of Moses requires to find life, the young lawyer answers:
I think one of the saddest things we do in the world of faith is to take that masterful teaching that we call the Great Commandment, and turn it to a meaningless guilt trip. Love God with ALL my heart? ALL my mind? ALL my strength? Who can possibly do that? Why, you’ve got to save some room to love other things, too – like your spouse – like your kids – like, Chinese food – and UT football – and the Lady Vols! I mean, WHO can truly love God with ALL their heart, mind, soul and strength? Well, religious FANATICS, maybe, but not me!
I think Jesus is showing us a new way to understand these beautiful words. You see, the actions of the Samaritan man in the story show us exactly what it means to love God with the heart, with the mind, and with the strength. Remember how it goes? He sees a man lying bruised and broken on the side of the road, and SOMETHING STIRS…where?…IN HIS HEART!
And make no mistake about it:
Jesus wants us to know it was God stirring up his heart! And the compassion
that arose in his heart for the injured man, gave birth to an idea…where?…
in his MIND! That was God at work, too! And the idea said, “You can do
something about this. Go and help this man by the side of the road.”
And that compassion in his HEART that came from God, now become an idea in his MIND that came from God, then becomes embodied in his hands and his feet and his resources, and he marshals all his STRENGTH to make it happen!
Jesus wants us to see in the Good Samaritan what it means to love God with all the heart, mind and strength.
Have you ever felt God stirring in your heart? I’ll bet you have! And the stirring gave you an idea of some good thing to do? And you went and did it, no matter the cost?
Well, you fulfilled the Great Commandment in that moment. You experienced true faith! With your heart and mind and strength, you loved God – just like the Good Samaritan did!
How would you feel about a new kind of faith that’s not really about going to church, or believing unbelievable things, or complying with some 6,000 year old moral code, but rather is based on letting God into your HEART, and responding to the stirring presence of God there? This is the new kind of faith the lawyer finds in Jesus.
And then one more wonderful thing.
“Who is my neighbor?”
The lawyer wants to know what comprises the neighborhood of God’s love. Lot’s of people – especially young people – are concerned about that in this world that is shrinking smaller by the day.
It’s an important question because all religions create neighborhoods. Some are “in”. And some are “out.” Some are included. And many are excluded.
Why do the people in our Harvard friend’s church believe Meyer Goldstein is going to hell just because he’s Jewish…and I forgot to tell you…he’s an agnostic Jew…and not only that, but…a Democrat, too?
We all create neighborhoods of the acceptable and the unacceptable. There is Judea where we live and the true faith is found. And there is Samaria where they’ve got it all wrong.
“Who exactly is my neighbor, Jesus?”
Well, how would you feel about a faith that sees EVERYONE as your neighbor – and the whole universe as your NEIGHBORHOOD? How would you feel about a faith that tells us to leave to God the ultimate destiny of others, and to occupy ourselves only with that stirring within our heart – to reach out to anyone who needs a friend, and to treat everyone as our neighbor?
It’s a new kind of faith the lawyer finds in Jesus!
He had lost his faith, but now he was finding a new one! And it wasn’t found in a church, because this new faith is bigger than any church. It wasn’t found in a law or a code or a doctrine or a book because this new faith cannot be contained in those things! And it wasn’t found at the seashore, or on a mountaintop, or in the beauty of a wonderful sunset because even nature cannot contain this new faith.
This new kind of faith is found in one place and one place only – in the life of the most alive man who ever lived and who – through his life and his death – demonstrated the power of this faith for all to see.
And even today, 2,000 years later, he invites you and me to leave the old faith behind, and to come into relationship with him to receive and learn a new kind of faith.
“What must I do to find life?” we all end up asking.
And that’s the question I hope you’ll take to Jesus today!