If It'd a Been a Snake

I’m heading north today.  Back to a church I served some years ago.  They contacted me a while back and asked if I could come to share in a special celebration.  They built an addition to their building and finally have it paid off and wondered if I would come back and help them celebrate.  Now it wasn’t there, the addition I mean, when I served as associate pastor for a couple of years.  So, my first inclination was to say I’m honored, but why me?  But instead I just checked to see if Doug, my associate here at Southport would be back from his Disney vacation and able to preach at Southport, and then said yes.  I’ll go.  I’ll be a part of the celebration.  Of generosity.  Because I had been a recipient of that generosity.  See that’s where I was serving when we adopted Rhys, our son who turns 25 next week.  Yikes.  And this church blessed me.  Pass on the kindness, that’s what this is about. /it was right in front of me the whole time.

If it had been a snake it would have bit you!  I don’t know where that cliche first came from, but it fits me.  The truth is we all can ignore what is in front of our faces from time to time.  Sometimes we genuinely don’t see what is so obvious to everyone else.  Maybe we are distracted or occupied by deep thoughts of some kind and we simply miss it.  Other times we don’t want to see what is in front of us, we choose our blindness when what is in front of us is uncomfortable or ugly or seemingly beyond our capacity to affect.  We can only take so much of helpless, before we - out of self-preservation perhaps - turn away and try to convince ourselves we didn’t see what we saw.  Or convince ourselves that what we saw was not our responsibility, not our business.

Our cultural fixation on “live and let live” has driven us to turn blind eyes to all sorts of situations, all sorts of needs because we don’t want to “impose” - we don’t want to get involved.  So, we have learned to not see the snakes that are just waiting to bite us.

At least that is what I think is going on here in our Scripture text for this week.  This is a very familiar passage.  So familiar it has become a part of our language.  So familiar that I think we don’t see the snakes that might bite us in the story that Jesus tells us.  Listen again:

Luke 10:25-37  Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?"  27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."  28 And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."  29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"  30 Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.'  36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?"  37 He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." 

Of course we know the story.  Everyone, Christian or not, has heard of a “Good Samaritan.”  There is even a “Good Samaritan Law” on the books in Indiana and other states to protect someone who stops to help in a crisis situation.  So, it would seem there is very little that would need to be discussed here.  Everyone agrees on this.  Jesus tells the story in such a way that even a lawyer can see what is right!  Sorry, that was mean too.  Some of my best friends are lawyers.  Anyway...

Well, lets take a look at our friend the lawyer.  Which in this case might better be described as a religious scholar instead of what we think of as a lawyer.  Since there was no distinction between religious and secular law in Israel at that time, a lawyer was someone who knew the scriptures well enough to argue for right and wrong.  He was a scholar who had studied the Torah (which is Hebrew for “law”) and was called upon to settle disputes, or to represent the interests of someone wronged.

It is interesting that Luke’s lawyer asks a subtly different question than the ones in Matthew and Mark.  There the question is “what is the greatest commandment?”  Here it is “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  In the end it is the same question, but the approach is completely different.  The former sounds like a religious scholar/lawyer kind of question.  What is greater...? Or “what commandment is first of all,” in Mark’s version.  They might have meant most important or it might have been which is precedent setting - “which law is above other laws” that sort of thing. 

But Luke’s lawyer asks “what must I do?”  Which is the kind of question Luke would hear more clearly.  There is more than a legal issue here.  There is a participation, there is a connection, there is a life direction kind of issue here.  Some have argued that what he was really asking was “what is the least I can do and still get in?”  I don’t know if that can be inferred, but you couldn’t blame him even if it was.  It is a very human kind of question.  “Is this going to be on the test?”  That is how students ask the question.  “Do we have to know this stuff, or are you just talking?”  

He might have been trying to slide by with minimal effort, but I prefer to think that he really wanted to know.  I know Luke says it was a test.  Maybe it was a test with a hidden hope underneath.  Maybe he was put up to the test, but made it a personal quest on his own.  Whatever it was, Jesus took it seriously and turned it around to the questioner.  This was Jesus’ M.O.  He rarely handed things around on silver platters.  He always wanted us to work a little bit.  Maybe with interpretation, maybe with application, but there was always something left to do when Jesus stopped talking.

In this case it was the question itself that came back.  “What do you think?”  My kids hate that, but I do it all the time.  Here the lawyer answered with the Great Commandment.  Case closed.  Jesus gave him lovely parting gifts and it was all over.  

Except the lawyer wasn’t satisfied.  Luke interprets for us: “But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” It’s that “justify himself” bit that bugs me.  It bugs me because I do it too.  “I’d like to love my neighbor,” goes the thought process, “but I’m just not sure what’s safe.  I’m just not sure what’s needed.  I’m just not sure for whom I am really responsible.  I’ve got kids, I’ve got a wife, I’ve got my hands full.”  There are rules, you know, how to treat certain kinds of people.  Well, if not rules than expectations, standards.  Help your own first, goes one school of thought.  Charity begins at home.  The lawyer’s lawyerness kicked in here.  He decided to try and divert judgement on his behavior by asking a question for which there was no easy answer.  He wanted to tie this verdict up in court and avoid having to act on it.  At the very least he was hoping for a pat on the back and “well, do the best you can” from Jesus.  Instead he got a story.

You know the story.  You know the way Samaritans were viewed, especially compared to priests and Levites.  You know that Jesus was trying to move the debate beyond an academic justification issue into an “open your eyes” kind of issue.  He was trying to move it from a label and an insiders verses outsider kind of thing toward a taking responsibility for the need in front of you kind of attitude.  This isn’t about changing the world, but about healing the hurts.  In Micah’s words this isn’t doing justice, it is loving mercy.  Both are necessary.  But if we spend all of our time out trying to chase windmills, out trying to make the world a better place for everyone someday, we will miss the opportunity to make it better for one close by right now.  In fact we could argue that without acts of mercy, or kindness, there can be no move toward justice.  If we allow needs to go unmet then we are asking for trouble on a larger scale.  There are needs aplenty, just open your eyes.  If it had been a snake, it would have bit you.

Shalom,

Derek