Sermons

Jul 15 - Daniel Gutierrez - 7th Sunday of Pentecost

(Contact church office for audio recording).

The Road to Jericho is a challenging and frightening journey. It is where we find a story that many of us know by heart. So familiar, that anyone who performs an unusual act of kindness is called – “A Good Samaritan.”

The message of today’s Gospel seems like a straightforward appeal for Christian social action: Two men of faith ignore the beaten traveler lying by the side of the road. They keep on walking, leaving him for certain death. The outsider, the hated Samaritan stops, and with love and compassion assists his fellow man. This is a great message, but there is more to this story. The parables of Jesus always provide several different points of view at once, which is one reason they are so rich. So today, we are going to look at this parable differently, we are going look at it from the perspective of the man in the ditch.

To do so, we must start on the road to Jericho. Traveling on the physical road itself, a traveler leaves Jerusalem at 2500 feet above sea level and descends toward Jericho at 900 feet below sea level. It is a winding, meandering road where climate and landscape change dramatically from lush to desert in less than 19 miles. In the first century, the journey was fraught with bandits, breakdowns and the unexpected. It is not surprising Jesus uses this road for his parable. Why? Because we have all traveled this road, either emotionally, spiritually or mentally. How many times in our lives have we been going on our way and suddenly, from out of nowhere, life hits us right between the eyes.

We are ambushed by illness, marital problems, financial difficulties, depression, the death of a loved one. We are left by the side of the road, robbed of our dignity, broken, in pain. In the parable, Jesus does not say if the traveler was black, white or brown. Palestinian, American or African. We don’t know if he was a Republican or a Democrat, married or single, gay or straight, educated or uneducated, legal or illegal. Only that the traveler is a human being who is broken and wounded. The person Jesus is describing could easily be any one of us.

When we are in pain, lying by the side of the road, we have two choices: we can suffer alone and roll deeper into the ditch; or we can acknowledge our pain, accept compassion and experience transformation. Accepting help is not easy. We live in a society that does not value brokenness or weakness. We are conditioned to face adversity alone, with a steel jaw and a resolute demeanor. Many believe needing help from others is an acknowledgement of weakness; something to be ashamed of.

How many times have young boys been told to “be a man” or “don’t cry!” I have heard it and I have said it. Many of our daughters believe they have to be strong in order to compete and succeed. We are pushed to be strong and our weaknesses are ignored. We then entomb ourselves; put a veneer of hardness, and pretend we can face things alone. Even charity is skewed toward the mighty. Society tends to look at helping others from a position of the strong toward the weak, of the powerful toward the powerless, of the haves toward the have-not.

These attitudes extend to our spiritual life. As Christians, we are taught to be charitable.
We are not to be like the Priest and Levite; we are to be like the Good Samaritan. However, they are the only models we have; we focus solely on the people who are healthy and able to give aid – never the beaten one. We want to help the traveler on the side of the road, but we do not want to be him. We want to help the forgotten, but we do not want to be the forgotten.

Eventually we all experience pain. When we do, we are left confounded and lost – we mask our pain. Our wounds then become either a tender place that hurts too much or it becomes void of feeling. Either way, we are left cold, tired and rigid. Deep down we all know, we understand intuitively, that none of us is whole by ourselves. Frederick Buechner wrote that we should keep track of the events in our lives that bring us to tears. When we are moved to such depths, this is where God is at work. They are windows through which God’s light encompasses us.

Today’s gospel is more than stopping to help others; it is also about transformation. It is not only about reaching out to help one another; it is about reaching out to receive help from others. Many see Christ as the Good Samaritan; but Christ is also in that ditch, on the side of the road. Throughout the Gospels, each time Jesus speaks of being glorified and giving glory, he always refers to his humiliation and death.

In the same way, it is difficult to be truly compassionate for others unless we know what it is like to be wounded. It is only when we identify and find healing for our own wounds, that we become healers for others. When we openly share our pain, others can bring their wounds into the open for healing. Jesus did not say blessed are those who care for the poor, but blessed are the poor. Simple as it may seem, it offers the key to the kingdom.

In Judea of the first century, Samaritans were outcasts. It is probable that the Samaritan acted with pity and compassion because he, along with all Samaritans, lived his life at the side of the road. Samaritans suffered as a marginal group. Samaritans were hated because they practiced a different form of Judaism. Their religious beliefs were different than the majority. It is often said that you cannot be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. The Samaritan knew what it was like to be ignored, excluded, laughed at, and condemned. It seems he could not bear to see someone suffer, experience the same pain. He was able to lead the traveler out of the desert because he had been there.

We will never trade places with a homeless person, but our compassion is greater if we ever worried about having a roof over our head or if someone we love was homeless. We may never desire to suffer the pain of abject poverty, but our compassion for the poor is greater if we have to choose between electricity and food, the mortgage or medication. We never want our child to become ill, but our compassion for sick children in a hospital is greater if our child was once lying in intensive care.

We may never willingly subject ourselves to cruel ridicule, but our compassion is greater for the oppressed if we have suffered ridicule based on our race, economic status, sexuality or gender. We find it hard to trade places with the suffering, but that is exactly what Christ did. God deliberately chose to break through human history in the person of Christ, manifesting total weakness in birth, and dying on the cross in voluntary powerlessness. In weakness that we become unique instruments of God’s grace. In weakness we become a revelation of Christ among our brothers and sisters.

A Rabbi once said: "A religious person is a person who holds God and humanity in one thought, at all times, in all places, who suffers himself the harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion." Our time in the ditch allows us to become one with the oppressed. We begin to see the difference between charity and justice. Charity seeks to alleviate the effects of injustice; justice seeks to eliminate the causes of it.

It requires us to stand by our brothers and sisters in their pool of tears, and encourages us to challenge the structures that made them cry. When you have been on the side of the road, it allows us to see a person lying wounded by the side of the road, by the side of our culture, by the side of our economy, as a brother or a sister, a child of God, a neighbor. So in addition to feeding the homeless, marching against injustice or buying formula for a single parent, we demand to know why people are homeless, why our brothers and sisters are persecuted for how God made them, why a parent must choose between child care and keeping their job.

Our Gospel ends with the Samaritan bandaging the man's wounds. He pours oil and wine over them. He put the man on his own animal and walks them to an inn. He paid the innkeeper to care for him until he recovered, offering to pay whatever the cost, never asking for anything in return.

The Samaritan's compassion, our compassion, is borne through time at the side of the road. It has been said that those who really care, can receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their fellowman who are suffering and not know what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart.

Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken. We must allow ourselves to extend our arms upward to receive the loving embrace of compassion. We must reach out with loving arms and compassionately lift our brothers and sisters up from the side of the road.

When we accept love completely and give love unconditionally, we glimpse the infinite, we glimpse the divine. It is there we glimpse Christ. “Which of these was a neighbor to the man?” Jesus asked. “The one who showed mercy,” came the answer.

“Go and do likewise,” said Jesus.