The Good Samaritan Story in One Word

 based on the readings for Pentecost 5 - Amos: 7: 7-17 and Luke 10: 25-37

Tell me- in one word- the point of Jesus’ story.  …

Compassion

Luke’s Gospel has Jesus in a precarious and highly charged situation. An expert in the Law stands up to put Jesus, Jesus’ teachings and actions, to the test  - perhaps the group has gathered in a Synagogue, the courtyard of the Temple, the grounds of the Sanhedrin- somewhere where religious and political men regularly gathered to debate the Law and the application of the Law to daily life. In response to the question posed, Jesus is not unlike the prophet Amos, who, preaching in a time of economic prosperity, criticized affluence, misdirected authority, self-serving systems, and abuses in relationship and covenant living. Amos’ preaching was self- alienating; friends were not made; authorities disgruntled. Jesus’ approach does not argue points of the Law, but rather, focuses on needling the listeners with a lavish story of compassion. Compassion in an unexpected place, through unexpected hands, in an over-the-top outpouring – compassion full of danger and risk.

 

Where does one start with this passage from Luke’s gospel?  The story draws us into Jesus’ teaching, a teaching that is dangerous and risky. Wherever one starts in the text discussions promise to be highly charged.  The text speaks to politics, race, religion, Law, nationalism, marginalization.

Compassion.

 

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote: “This is the kingdom of God - the kingdom of danger and of risk, of eternal beginning and of eternal becoming, of opened spirit and of deep realization, the kingdom of holy insecurity.”  

Amos. Jesus. Agents of God’s kindom through their words to the people and to the authorities of their time.  Life could have been easier, not so risky or dangerous, if they simply debated the Law like their peers. If they were particular about the dots and dashes, the politically correct wording, and philosophically approached kingdom living (not thinking about being agents of God’s kindom now).  If they closed their minds to notions of a better life for all, reduced their expectations of human action, and kept pipe-dreams of lavish compassion to themselves.

 

I read a meme where someone says, “I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around that.” Another responds, “Try wrapping your heart around it.”

Is this not the conversation, the debate, going on in the Gospel reading?

Luke sets the conversation in a group who is asking and wrestling with questions, debating, weighing thoughts, trying to wrap their minds around the point being discussed.

Jesus interjects, challenging the process, by suggesting this is not a puzzle for the mind, but an exercise of the heart.

 

Try getting your heart around it...   compassion.

The text from Luke has a lot for our minds to puzzle over. It is these points that distract us from Jesus’ focus. When we hear the text our minds go crazy! We judge the characters in the story: how could a priest…, why would they do that, how terrible... Our minds get riled up, and holy angst misdirects our attention; passion and anger gets in the way of hearing Jesus. Our minds direct our emotions –  we focus on injustice, wrong doing, point fingers, and think “I’m better than that.” That is the mind talking, creating perceptions of reality.

Jesus’ story is doing something else. The story is presented as reality, a reality to be lived into, and thus created.

What happens if we take the text to heart? Listen to the story through our hearts. We will find that the heart moves on from the details that the mind gets caught up in. The heart notices and is well pleased sitting in the lavish compassion bestowed on the traveler.

For decades the confession most ELCIC and ELCA churches used contained the words, “we are in bondage to sin and can not free ourselves.”

Our minds have a habit of putting our hearts in bondage.  When the heart is in bondage it can not act on compassion.  Compassion is clouded by debating the risks, arguing who is neighbour, making lists of what we should or could be doing.  In the confession, we say that we are in bondage to sin...how often is it the mind that is the prison, the shackles, that stop us from entertaining and acting with compassion?

Jesus’ story is weaving its way into hearts this morning. Let us practice opening our minds to let our hearts wrap around the core --- compassion.

 

Jesus’ story of compassion teaches us something about living dangerously by speaking in a risky way – meaning identifying and articulating a heart perspective to a world that is not practiced at hearing this perspective and not so open to receiving it.

 

In recent years, we have heard an opening of the mind to wrap hearts around the point.  Have you noticed in the past number of years that media outlets avoid repeating the names of mass shooters, domestic terrorists? Taking a stand to not be the source that sets a name on its way to infamy; infamy not brought by our mouths repeating names of those who have acted unneighbourly. This change is a big change! I remember a number of cases where the infamous perpetrator is remembered by name and the victims’ names are all but forgotten.

The preaching of Amos, Jesus is this kind of change! A choosing to change one’s language, story, interpretation, and expression to create fuller change; to upend the newsreel of the mind and turn matters over to the heart.

 

There was a shooting on the Commons this past week, along with other shootings and stabbings throughout HRM. This piece of news is hard to get our minds around and I won’t pretend to get my heart around it either. My heart though can be wrapped around the Commons and it asks me about everything else that happened that day on the Commons: the number of bees that played in the white  clover, the acreage aerated by tunneling ants, the story of one who rekindled a love for roller-skating, the child who learned to ride a bike, the young adult who played catch with a parent; my heart saw hook ups and hang-outs;  passing of hand waves, smiles, nods, dog-pats, laughter, conversation; people enjoying relationship, recreation, life. This is the dangerous and risky story that I can choose to tell about that day on the Commons, rather than focusing on the one thing that is so far from life-giving. I can practice changing the newsreel by identifying and articulating Gospel – that which is life – heart.

It is risky and dangerous to opt-out of conversations that speak about news of the day or taking the news of the day and emphasizing the COMPASSION pieces of the event; to always be looking for the Gospel in moments of chaos, for heart in the presence of evil, for kindom growing in unexpected places. Our stories, our conversations, can follow Jesus’ example and change the world by needling listeners minds to open-up and turn their hearts to compassion.

 

In the end – or rather in the beginning and in the becoming there is one word:

COMPASSION