The Good (?) Samaritan

Here's the sermon I was going to preach today at St. Andrew's, but I left it at home. I said a lot of it, but not all.

THE SAMARITAN—“GOOD” OR GOOD CHOICE?

          In St. John's Church in Waterbury, where I was Rector for 21 years, there is a stained glass window up the the balcony, just to the right of the pulpit, of the Good Samaritan. I could see it, up high to my right when I stood in the center aisle to preach. It was beautiful. It was always there. And for all it's beauty, it never told the whole story.     

          When the ‘good Samaritan’ as we know him, shows up, the preacher scratches his or her head and wonders what to say.

          Everyone knows the story—our culture has even adopted the term “good Samaritan” to apply to laws that have been passed to prevent prosecution of people who were ‘just trying to help’ and may have caused harm instead. It is one of the most familiar stories in the Bible and most everyone knows ‘what the term good Samaritan means’ even if they don’t know the story.

          There’s simply no way to talk about this parable that hasn’t been done and redone dozens of times before. So the preacher is left scratching his or her head and wondering what to say. Yet the story is radical and remarkable.

          So, all else failing, let’s review, just so we are all clear about why this story is so radical and remarkable.

          When the Assyrians, under King Sargon, invaded Israel, some 250 years  after the time of King David, early in the 8^th century BCE, part of the population of the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity while the rest intermarried with the invaders. Thus were the Samaritans created. They were Jews who continued to read the Torah and follow Jewish law but did not accept the prophetic literature as scripture and did not think Jerusalem was the center of worship.

          In Judea, just south of Samaria, Jerusalem remained the holy city. But both Samaritans and Jews worshipped the same God and shared a part of what we call “the Old Testament”.  Yet, in spite of what they had in common, there was a remarkable antipathy between Jews and Samaritans.

          How can we explain it? The more like you the Other is, the more you hate them.

          Where I come from, the bloody feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys was the greatest example of this virulent kind of hatred. Anyone who has researched that great family feud realizes almost immediately that Hatfields and McCoys had been intermarrying for generations before the fighting started. The two families were all related by blood in some way before the first shot was fired. And, BECAUSE THEY WERE SO MUCH ALIKE, the hatred was hotter and the divide deeper.

          Jews and Samaritans, by the time of Jesus, were the Hatfields and McCoys of the first century. As ‘alike’ as they were, each was “The Other” to the two groups and they hated each other absolutely. You see, “The Other” is not just someone far away and foreign…”The Other” can be the one close at hand and profoundly related. Take the Middle East today: who are the Muslims in the Islamic State killing? Other Muslims of a different sect.

         

          Jerusalem was in Judea and Jericho was north-east and down-hill all the way and part of Samaria. It was a foolish trip to make alone because robbers and bandits were known to be waiting on that rugged terrain, hidden behind rocks to assault and steal. Few Jews took that road, but the man in Jesus’ parable did and, sure enough, was attacked and robbed.

          Let’s let the priest and Levite who passed by ‘off the hook’ just a bit. A devout Jew avoids coming in contact with blood because it is ‘unclean’. And since they were traveling away from Jerusalem into Samaritan territory, who knows where they could have washed themselves and become Kosher again? They were simply “minding their own business”, may have thought the injured man was a trap set by hoodlums to entice them near enough to suffer the same fate. AND…remember this: THEY WERE CAREFULLY OBSERVING THE PURITY LAWS AND HOLINESS CODE OF THEIR FAITH.

          But I’d bet most of you still think the Priest and Levite were wrong.

          (It’s not all that different today, is it? The Anglican Communion and the Episcopal church are in an equally silly argument about “Who is Pure and Who is Holy” that is tearing us apart….But I have better sense than to “judge” people on whether they keep walking or stop.)

         

          So, the Samaritan shows up. And if we demonize the Priest and Levite too harshly, we also elevate the Samaritan too much as well.

          Who knows if he was, as we call him, a GOOD Samaritan?

He was most likely just an AVERAGE Samaritan, who, when faced with a decision, made one.

There are more than 100 Saint's days in our liturgical calendar. As far as I can tell about what made them a 'saint', is this, just like our Samaritan in Jesus’ story, they were merely average people who, when it came time to make a choice, made one.

Everyone in Jesus’ story had a choice to make and they all made one. The Priest and the Levite chose to keep on walking. The Samaritan chose to stop and help the injured man.

I suggest we all have choices almost every day that are not unlike this. And sometimes we choose to keep walking and sometimes, God bless us, we choose to stop and deal with the brokenness of our world for a while.

In Kurt Vonnegut's novel, The Sirens of Titan, a robot named Salo, who is traveling the universe looking for 'the meaning of life', finds himself on Titan, one of the moons of Jupiter with an Earth woman named Beatrice Rumford. (What Beatrice is doing on Titan is another story!)

So Salo asks Beatrice, “What is the meaning of life?”

And she answers, “The meaning of life is to love whoever is around to be loved....”

          So this is what I suggest to you…and to me….Let’s be more attentive and present to the choices we get to make each day. Let’s take the story of The Good Samaritan out of the stained glass window and let it be something we all experience all the time.

          We get to choose who our neighbor is. If you are a McCoy, the neighbor you choose might just be a Hatfield. If you’re a Samaritan, the neighbor you choose might just be a Jew. If you are who you are, the neighbor you might be challenged to choose might just be “The Other”—the one you never suspected or imagined.

          And you get to choose…..You get to choose whether you'll love whoever is around to be loved...or not....

           You get to choose….Keep walking or stop and deal with the brokenness of life.  It’s really up to you.    So be it and amen.

I envy Bern and Sherrie

Bern and Sherri Ellis are going to NYC tomorrow for Mimi's baby shower given by her friends in the city.

I envy them.

But, no boys allowed.

I could get upset about the gender bias of all that.

But, hey, I'm a heterosexual, white male. I'm the poster boy for having bias.

I think I wrote something in the last month or so about acknowledging 'privilege'.

Given the political atmosphere today, that is even more important.

As a heterosexual, white male with 6 figures of income a year, I embody 'privilege'.

And that means I have to accept that everyone who isn't a heterosexual, white male with my bank account can 'bar' me from stuff, just as folks like me have barred them for all of American history.

And I do accept that. I heard a black woman say on radio that all the deaths of black men at the hands of the police is just "headlines" for people like me. For her, she said, 'it's my life'.

That is true. As true as true can be.

So, I won't go to Mimi's shower 'cause the women say I can't.

But she's my baby girl. So I envy Bern and Sherrie. I do.

White, male privilege has it's costs....

If you could know....

Something I've been pondering today (since it was cloudy and cool and I had not one thing I 'had' to do) is this: if you could know the date and time of your death, if some omniscient being could tell you...would you want to know?

I'm pondering this because I'm 69 and have outlived my mother by 6 years. My father was 83 when he died and I guess I could take heart in the old wives' tale than your age matches the parent of your gender. I'd get to be with my yet to be born 4th grandchild, Ellie, until she was in her teens. And I'd see Morgan, Emma out of college and Tegan graduate high school. That would be wonderful.

People who  have 'bucket lists' (things they want to do before they die) would probably want to know so they could time things better. But how about other folks...would they want to know?

I haven't come down on either side yet, but I'm wrestling with it.

What about you? Would you want to know?

Ponder it and see what you learn.

Irony I don't like

I am a big fan of 'irony'. I would use 'ironic' as one of the words to describe myself. "Irony Rules!!" in my book.

But the irony of Dallas is not something I like at all.

From all reports, the Police in Dallas are on the forefront of making reforms to make policing color blind in meaningful ways. Their chief is Black. Large numbers of their officers are Black/Hispanic. They are, it seems, a model for how to police in a diverse society.

There was a demonstration against police violence yesterday in Dallas. It was about the murders of black men in New Orleans and Minnesota.  It was totally peaceful. The police have been praised by the demonstrators for their helpfulness. The crowd--a real diverse group--even felt the police of Dallas by-in-large supported their peaceful march.

And then a sniper killed and wounded a dozen or so members of the Dallas police.

How ironic that at a peaceful protest against police violence in a city whose police are seen as a model for what 21st Century 'policing' should look like, someone would kill and wound the police.

Tragedy is bad enough--as in New Orleans and Minnesota--but 'ironic' tragedy, as in Dallas, is even more senseless and troubling.

Deep breath, everyone. We've got to figure out how to get this right.

We've got to. All of us.

doctor visits

So, tonight I went to see a 'sleep doctor' and he agreed I should get my CPath machine replaced without a sleep study (sleeping in the sleep center hooked up to stuff). The chip from my dead machine convinced him I was both using it correctly and needed to use it. They took my vitals and my blood pressure was 120/64. Bern's food choices are working beyond well!

I know I told you about my urologist yesterday. But hang in there, I have a kidney cat scan and a colonoscopy coming up next week.

When you're 69 you have lots of doctors in your life. Just the way it is.

I'm really feeling fine--a tad sleepy, but a new CPath machine will fix that.

I really do hope, when I come to die (as I will, beloved, though I dread it) that I'll be able to blog about my last days. I'd like to do that so I wouldn't be going through it alone.

But that probably consigns me to some long, drawn out death where I'll be in pain but able to type.

I don't fear Death, but I am concerning about the 'dying' part. I can handle being dead, I'm just not sure about the transition.

I remember a joke I like.

"I'd like to die in my sleep," the joke goes, "like my grandfather. Instead of screaming like the other people in the car he was driving."

I've gone back and forth between dying in my sleep and dying screaming.

I'm not sure which I would prefer yet.

Ponder that, if you have the time.

Urology

I know all about Urology.

I had prostate surgery, radiation and a round of hormone therapy. That was years ago now. But I still see a urologist yearly.

Today she looked into my bladder.

The two words in that sentence that should catch you are: 'she' and 'looked'.

My urologist is a woman--Dr. Wong. Dr. Kurz retired and it was easier to stay with the practice since Dr. Wong took over. She treated me in the hospital once--the only time I've been in the hospital since my surgery. It was for a urinary blockage (don't even think about it!) she cleared it right up.

Today she looked into my bladder.

There's only one way into a bladder from the outside. Obviously there's a way in from inside the body but only one from outside.

I commented while she had a camera 'up there' that it was hard to have thoughtful conversation in that situation.

She laughed. I like her a lot.

I don't like her looking into my bladder.

Or anyone for that matter.

I almost passed

Bea, at the Cluster Office got a call about a patient in Middlesex Hospital that we had never heard of. She said she was a member of Emmanuel, Killingworth though she was on no lists and people Bea had contacted from Emmanuel didn't recognize her name. The message also said she was 93.

Working in the Cluster I know more people 90+ than I think I've met in all my life before. My last 3 funerals were for people in the upper 90's.

Something in that country water, maybe.

I got lost looking for the hospital because the normal exit was closed for construction so I wandered around Middletown for a while. I almost gave up and went home. But I didn't.

I parked in a clergy spot since it was open though I don't have permission. A year or so ago I asked the Chaplain for a permission to park there. He asked me to prove I was clergy, since I'm never dressed like a priest. My offer to 'bless something' didn't cut it, so I still don't have a clergy sticker.

The hospital has North and South elevators and I took the wrong one and had to wander through a labryinth of hallways to find the room.

I almost turned back because the room had visitors and I didn't want to make a 'cold call' with witnesses. But I didn't.

Bea and I had found the woman on line and she was from West Haven, so I wasn't sure she really asked for a priest from the Cluster and almost left. But didn't.

She was delightful. Very alert and engaging. Her daughter and her daughter's husband were there and I soon learned she was the mother of one of the very active members of Emmanuel and was going to live in Killingworth when she got out of the hospital.

I gave them all communion and anointed her and realized how much I would have missed had I just 'passed' on the visit.

I've long realized that those 'uncomfortable moments' can be the best moments of all if you just move into them.

This was no exception.

Thank God for 'cold calls'--they end up warm and wonderful.