Doing

Seventh Sunday of Pentecost - July 15, 2007

The old-time movie westerns made it easy for us to tell who was who:
the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats.
It was very simple, and we all know how things are going to turn out.

Last week we heard Bishop Main describe how one can tell who are the Lutheran school-children in Liberia– they are all wearing yellow and green clothing.

I've discovered that folks have a hard time recognizing who i am when I'm wearing shorts and a T-shirt rather than my customary black.

We know something about a person's identity by what they wear.

Did you catch the little detail in Jesus' story about clothing?
It was right in the first sentence:
“...and he fell among robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half-dead.”
Stripped, no clothing, and unable to talk.

How is he going to be identified?
One cannot tell if he was rich or poor,
Jew or Samaritan,
or some other Semitic tribesman.
Without their distinctive clothing, the populations had become so mixed together over the centuries that it would be very difficult to determine to what people he belonged if he himself could not tell the Samaritan.
Should it matter?

He is there, he has been badly treated, he needs help.

The first question for the day is: where do each of us locate ourselves in this story?
Our first reaction is probably to say that we should identify with the Samaritan.
But before we talk about him, I think that we will have a better appreciation of the story if we spend time recognizing ourselves as the one in the ditch.

How so?
For some, it may well be a physical hurt, but there are other kinds as well...
--some have been emotionally beaten up,
--others have been battered by illness and disease,
--some are barely going through the motions of living, hardly conscious of what is going on around them,
--others are naked with grief.
--Some may be numbed by the sameness of day after day of life without a dear spouse or beloved family member.

--And all of us have been hounded by sin and temptation of every sort;
it may be so pervasive that we think that this is the way life is supposed to be...
one thing after another to be endured, until death wins.

Our God is not satisfied to let things remain in this state.
The Lord Jesus is come to us,
--risking himself,
--not worrying about the reason that we are naked, vulnerable, and in a ditch
--determining what we truly need,
--giving us every good thing,
--bringing us into this hospital of souls,
--clothing us with a new white garment,
--and healing us.

It is a new start.
It is what we dare to hold close to our heart.
It is life.

Oh, what a joy to know this, to experience this, to anticipate its completion!
May we never forget it and think that we are back in the ditch again.
That would be the illusion that Satan gleefully would foist upon us.

But something has objectively changed;
Christ pulls us out of that ditch,
and promises never to let us slip into it again.
Don't be fooled by Satan's whispers to the contrary.

And because that is true, we have a different basis for living.
We have a new reason for life.
We can look with confidence at the realities of others still caught in the ditch that we have known, and can offer Christ's gifts to them also.

The lawyer expected Jesus to give a limited answer to his question about who was his neighbor, but Jesus refused any limitation.
Isn't that the best news in the world for us?
And also for those whom we touch?

This week I read a sermon in which the writer was agonizing over why the Samaritan stopped to aid the man in need.
He had 10 different possible reasons, rather ordinary, none of them particularly good.

But we don't have to fuss about it;
we are enabled to stop and render whatever kinds of aid are needed because Christ the Lord has stopped and aided us.
It is just that simple, and also that complex.

And Christ keeps at it with us; it is not just once-and-done.
--Week after week he gives the “medicine of immortality” as an early Christian thinker termed it.
--Week after week he feeds us a sip and a morsel at a time.
--Week after week we learn a bit more about who we really are and to whom we belong.
--Week after week we try to exercise this body of Christ by what we say and do.

What will it be for each of us today?
We will have individual answers, and also answers that we share together.
--One of our communion visitors has decided to return to the person visited and offer some further assistance.
--Who can help Becky prepare a lunch for the Habitat workers next month?
--Who can join Shirley some Thursday morning at the St. Anthony's Center?
--Who can telephone one of our shut-ins?
--Two of our bread and soup visitors, Louise and Gail, have had to retire because of their own illnesses. Who can take their places?
--If we're able to encourage 11 more congregations to join us, perhaps we'll get the Family Promise program underway to aid homeless families in our community.
And on and on it goes.

Clarence Jordan founded a community of black and white persons together, in the mid-1950's in Georgia.
You can imagine all of the hateful things said and done to them.
Clarence went to his brother, a rising star of a lawyer, and asked for aid in their legal troubles. Here is their conversation:
“Clarence, I can't do that. You know my political aspirations. I might lose everything. It's different for you.”
“Why is it different? It seems to me that you and I both were confirmed on the same Sunday. We both answered the same questions about our faith in the Lord Jesus.”
“Yes, I follow Jesus up to a point.”

“Could that point by any chance be—the cross?”
“That's right, it costs me too much.”

“Then I don't believe that you are a disciple, Bob. You're an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his. You need to go and tell your church that you are an admirer and not a disciple.”
“There are lots of others in my church who feel as I do about this.”
“Well, then the question is, do you have a church?”

The late English hymn writer F. Pratt Green says it well:
Then let the servant Church arise,
A caring Church that longs to be
A partner in Christ's sacrifice,
And clothed in Christ's humanity.
For he alone, whose blood was shed,
Can cure the fever in our blood,
And teach us how to share the bread
And feed the starving multitude. [LBW433]

The reason is clear: we can get busy doing what we well know needs to be done because Christ has pulled you and me out of the ditch. Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.