peace on earth

'Who is My Neighbor?" Given 7/10/16

It must have been in 1981, that the Davis family made their first solo vacation to Door County, Wisconsin. I had just returned to the local pastorate. We were at the Union Avenue Church in Chicago. Donna had not yet returned to the workplace, but had committed herself to do so in the coming Fall. So we knew this would be our last chance for a family vacation for a while.

We had been to Door County for a couple of days the Summer before with Donna's mom. But this time we were going on our own.  We had a very tired and decrepit  bright orange/yellow 1974 Pinto station wagon, which we filled with borrowed camping gear. In my wallet was a limited amount of money and a credit card that Texaco had given us in a fit of corporate extravagance and poor judgment. We were counting on the money to feed us, and the credit card to feed the Pinto.

Like many true-life scenarios, that one didn't work as well in execution as it had seemed it would in the planning stages.  What we didn't know was that the Texaco corporation was moving out of the state of Wisconsin. All of their stations were becoming something else—Shells, or Mobils, or Sunocos, or Citgos.

On the way to Door County we were able to find a total of one—cou     nt 'em--one Texaco station--on the Northern outskirts of Milwaukee.  We filled the tank there, and that got us to Door County. In Door County we were unable to find ANY Texacos.

Everywhere we went, we heard the same story. "Texaco's moving out of Wisconsin." So we paid cash for gas and for some minor repairs that came up, did  fewer things than we thought we would, and still had a great time.

On the day we left, we had less money than we were really comfortable with, but we had sandwiches in the cooler for the trip home, and knew we would be able to get gas at that station outside Milwaukee.

Then on the road just out of Door County, I convinced my normally sensible and frugal wife that we should stop at a pick-it-yourself orchard and get some delicious Door County cherries.  So we drove out of Door County with five buckets of fresh cherries, two very tired young ladies in the back seat, and a car full of dirty laundry and used camping gear.

In Sheboygan of course, I just had to stop at the Triangle Market for a couple of pounds of homemade smoked Brats. Donna by this time recognized that she couldn't control me, so she went along with this last extravagance. We got to the gas station outside Milwaukee all right and filled the tank. Life seemed pretty good at that moment.

We were on the last leg of our journey home. I had about $5 in my wallet.  It was a Friday afternoon. A paycheck was waiting for me back in Chicago. Life was definitely good.

About half-way between Milwaukee and Kenosha, Jenny and Gwynnie did exactly what every nine year old and five year old are supposed to do in the back seat of the family car on vacation.  You parents know what I'm referring to-- they decided that they had to go to the bathroom. There wasn't a gas station in sight.  The next exit sign on the expressway read "Cedar Grove, Wisconsin".

It was almost 5 PM on a beautiful, late Summer day. Why not get off here, use the first public rest room we see, buy some pop, go to a park and eat our sandwiches? Seemed like a plan at the time. We found a gas station- - it was a Shell. We used their bathroom, bought our pops and headed for the town park, which was across the street--as I recall. At that moment, it began to rain.  It escalated almost immediately from raining to pouring.

We parked, ate our sandwiches in the car and pulled out. I backed across the street to the Shell station, intending to pull out and head on down the road. The car however, had other ideas. The car wouldn't turn over. We were going nowhere that night.

So I got out of the car, which now contained one upset young woman and two semi-hysterical little girls and asked the guy at the Shell station if he'd take a look and see what was wrong. I should have known better. It was after 5 PM on a Friday night. He was closing up for the weekend. He had no interest in doing any repair work.  (Anyway, I asked myself, how was I going to pay?)

Wait a minute! The Texaco card! I had spent the whole vacation looking for Texaco stations all over Wisconsin. Was it too much to ask?  I breathed a prayer, and said to the Shell guy,

"Is there any chance a Texaco station in town?"

"Yeah, old Fritz, over at the other end of town. He's a Texaco--or he used to be. They're pullin' out of Wisconsin. I don't know if he's still a Texaco or not."

"Can I call him from here?"

"Okay, but make it quick. I wanna go home."

"Fritz's Gas" said a Germanically-accented voice over the phone.

"Do you do repairs?"

"Yah."

"Do you have a tow truck?"

"Yah."

"Will you take a Texaco card?"

"Vell, I tell you-- I been a Texaco for tventy-five years.  Now they gonna move outta Visconsin. Monday, I gonna be a Zitgo. But I take your card until then. Yah, why not? But I'm closed now. I vas yust gonna go home. Can you come by tommorra?"

"Not really." I explained our situation. Fritz agreed to come out in the rain and tow our car to his station. When we got there, his wife was waiting for him. No doubt she had been wondering why he hadn't come home for supper.

Fritz looked at our car, while his wife eyed our family. She noted my harassed wife. She noted our bedraggled, moderately cranky daughters. Somehow or other, she and Donna got into a conversation about books. They were both delighted to discover that they were Louisa May Alcott fans.

By this time, Fritz had finished his examination of the car.  It was the timing chain, he informed us. He had the part in stock. He would replace it in the morning, he informed us. Fritz was not going to work on it that night. I explained that we had the Texaco card to pay for the repairs, but no money to spend the night in a motel.

"Vell, I tell you vhat. I see you got camping stuff. I got a nice, clean, dry qounset hut out back of the station. I used to use it for storage, but I haven't for years. You can pitch your tent there." I had no idea in the world how I'd drive tent stakes into a cement floor, but it was the best offer I'd had. So I was ready to take him up on it.

At that moment, Fritz's wife elbowed him gently in the ribs. They immediately went into a lowered-voice, husband and wife conversation. Fritz waved his arms and got agitated. But his wife just stood there holding her purse in front of her and looked stubborn. By the end of their conversation, you could tell from their expressions that Mrs. Fritz had won.

"I tell you vhat," he said to me. "My brudder-in-law, he owns the Cedar Grove Motel. I lend you thirty-five bucks and drive you over to the motel. You stay there tonight. Tomorra morning I fix your car. You sign a bill for the repairs, plus we add on the $35.

We tell Texaco its for a coupla new tires. Vhat the hey. Monday I be a Zitgo anyway.  Vhat they don't know don't hurt'em. That be OK?" And that's exactly what we ended up doing.

Now I'm sure that a number of you could tell stories about times when you were in a bind and a kind stranger helped you out. Anyone who's ever had to drive old cars must know one or two such stories.  What do we call people who do things like Fritz did for the Davis’? "Good Samaritans", right? But on reflection, I'm not sure that's quite accurate.

Make no mistake. I'll always think fondly of, and be grateful to Fritz the Zitgo man for the favor that he did us. He certainly didn't have to do all that. And there was a certain risk. If, the next morning when he called, Texaco would have rejected my card, Fritz would have been out the cost of the tow, and the thirty-five bucks.

But on the other hand, we were a pretty safe bet. We were a white, obviously middle-class folk. I had identified myself as a minister. We are a nice attractive couple, with two cute-- no, let's face it, two adorable kids. He had the car. We weren't going anyplace. Even if the card was no good, Fritz could have gotten his money out of us, one way or the other. His only real risk was his time.

He did us a favor. His wife pushed him to go a little farther. It was a heck of a lot more than the Shell guy was willing to do. But, despite all that he did for us, Fritz's risk was still acceptably low.

Was Fritz being "neighborly" in the sense that Jesus is talking about here? Is being a "Good Samaritan" no more than helping out distressed good looking young couples with cute kids every now and then? The lawyer asked Jesus what he needed to do to be saved.  Jesus asked that man what the Law of Moses said.

"Love the Sovereign God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself."

"That's correct," Jesus said. "So who is my neighbor?”

 What does that concept include Jesus? Is it only the other families on the block? Is it my fellow church members? Is it my fellow members of the professional and upper classes? Is it my fellow Jewish males? Surely it's no more than all of Israel, Jesus?"

And Jesus told the man a parable. And Jesus asked who-- which of these three was neighbor to the victim by the side of the road? Who befriended the Jew, lying wounded and broken in the ditch? Who truly showed the love of God, the compassion of the Creator in his actions. And the hero of the parable, the person who you were obviously supposed to emulate, was not a Jew at all.

It was a dirty, stinking, lowly, hated, heretical, unclean, damned to hell, nose pickin', armpit scratchin', toenail bitin',  spit-when-you-say- it  Samaritan, who was moved with compassion. Compassion was considered in the rabbinical tradition of Jesus' time to be the most godlike of all virtues.  This is the only place in the Gospels where that particular expression—“moved with compassion”-- is attributed to anybody-- except to God, or to Jesus.

He was moved with compassion. It didn't matter that the victim was a Jew. The victim's color, race, gender, religion, race, family status, profession, hometown, social status or language didn't matter a whit.  The Samaritan was moved with compassion. A brother, a sister, a fellow human being, a child of God was broken and suffering and lying in the ditch by the side of the road in desperate need.

The Samaritan did more than a good turn or favor. The Samaritan risked more than just his money or his time. He risked censure from his own people for helping a Jew. He risked rejection from the victim after helping the man. He risked ritual contamination if the man had been dead. He even risked physical attack from the robbers, who for all he knew, may have been waiting to ambush anybody who helped the Jew in the ditch.

But the Samaritan was moved with compassion. He understood that my neighbor is really anyone at all-- anyone who needs me. The Samaritan also understood the difference between charity and compassion.  Charity is fine-- as far as it goes. Charity is low-risk, relatively painless, and easy to do, so long as you bother to notice that other person in need.

Compassion, on the other hand, makes us feel the other's pain. Compassion calls forth our whole beings. Compassion makes us feel for the other and invest ourselves and care for them and accept them, and identify with them, and love them in Christ's name-- despite any risks. Charity is easy-- as easy as doing a good deed. Compassion is hard-- to really reach out and love the neighbor-- and minister to her. Charity makes us feel good when we do it. Compassion makes us feel uncomfortable until we do something about it.

Acts of Charity have gone on for the whole history of humanity.  And still much of the world lies broken and bleeding in the ditch.  Charity is no more than individual acts. Compassion could change the world.

Compassion includes the possibility and the vision of all of Christ's people one day acting together to change and remake the world-- so that thieves and lawyers will no longer be able to legally, or illegally victimize the innocent. Compassion calls us to join in building Christ's Realm-- a Realm in which no one will lie alone in the ditch ever again.

A member of this congregation told me once that most of the preaching they had heard for years could be boiled down to “be a nice person.”. That’s not the point of this sermon. The point of this sermon is “be compassionate.” Charity calls us to be nicer people. Compassion calls us to become more like God. In his parable, Jesus calls his church-- you and me-- to compassion-- to build His Realm.

Let us pray,

Almighty God, Maker of us all. You made the human race and called us to be brothers and sisters, that we might help one another in our time of need. Convince us in our minds, in our hearts, in our souls, in our attitudes to accept the great family that we are all each a part of, and give ourselves to the shared needs of humanity. In your Son, our Brother Jesus' own Holy Name, we pray.                                                                               Amen.

"You Never Know" given July 3, 2016

It's funny sometimes, the way that you and I can have a profound effect on someone else's life-- without our ever actually intending it. And often, we were never even aware of all that we may have done.  All it takes is a simple act-- a chance remark, a casual statement of faith, a well intentioned deed. Often very little is needed to radically alter someone else's whole way of living and being in the world.

            And we never in our wildest dreams, imagined that it would turn out that way.  We were just trying to do someone a good turn. We weren't necessarily trying to make a witness or convert them. We just thought it might do them some good-- just tryin' to help was all. But it was God who put those words in our mouth.

That's the way it was for that little Hebrew girl captured by the Arameans. She was sent to work as a maid in the household of the great general Namaan and his wife.  Maybe they had treated her well. Maybe she just had a good heart.  In either case, it was an act of kindness to even casually mention that there was a holy man back in Israel who could cure her master’s skin disease in no time flat.

That nameless little Hebrew maid didn't owe the great general Namaan anything. There was, after all, no good reason for a slave to do her master a favor. Throughout history, most slaves were more likely to spit in master’s soup than do him a favor. She had no good reason to make that caring remark.  But she did. She allowed God to speak through her compassion.  And what an effect that simple act of kindness must have made on Namaan's life.

            It must have been quite a scene when Namaan and his retinue pulled up in front of Elisha's house—up North in the sticks of Samaria. Generals don't usually tend to do things by halves. If Namaan was at all typical of that breed, he probably had a couple of companies of bodyguards, some staff officers, a couple of aides, some calvary and chariots, probably a band, some staff doctors, maybe his personal chaplain, and of course, assorted servants, slaves, cooks, orderlies, camp followers and other hangers-on. Maybe three or four hundred people-- not counting some of the local riff- raff who had seen the procession and followed the parade for the sheer novelty of it.

No doubt all those people who arrived that day at the prophet's house were expecting to see something of a show. How often, after all, do you get to see a holy man do a major miracle?  To see someone cured of leprosy would be something to tell your kids about.

Then, even more than now, leprosy was a frightening disease-- dramatic and disfiguring and horrible and mysterious.  There was no known cure. Little was known about its cause.  It was thought to be incredibly contagious.  Lepers were shunned and feared.  The fact that Namaan had retained his high rank in spite of this disease must have been testimony to his skill as a soldier, and his value to the king of Aram.

In any case, the whole atmosphere around Elisha's house that day must have been more reminiscent of a three ring circus than a worship service as we would know it. What with all the excitement and expectation, the actual event must have come as quite a disappointment to the crowd. Instead of making a dramatic entrance, the prophet simply sent his servant out with a brusque message to the foreign general.

            "You want to be healed? Go bathe in the Jordan River. Dip yourself in it seven times. That should do the trick."

            I recall when Donna and I visited the Jordan River. I was franky somewhat disappointed. As rivers go, it’s not very impressive at all. Just a little stream really. I understand that it nearly dries up at certain times of the year.  It was hard to realize that this dirty little brook was the mighty Jordan River that I read about, and sang about, and heard about and preached about all my life. It just wasn't very impressive.              

            Apparently, proud Namaan felt the same way.

"What! That's it? Just dip myself in that muddy little crick? For that I came all the way here? We've got better streams than that back home in Aram!  That's all?  Isn't this holy man gonna come out? Didn't you tell him who I am? Isn't he at least going to pray over me, or lay hands on my heard, or anoint me with holy oil?  No sacrifice?  No healing service?  That's it?  Some holy man he is! What a gyp!"

Obviously Namaan was enraged and insulted. But Scripture tells us that his servants finally calmed the general down and got the great man to agree to do it.  He had after all, gone to considerable expense and trouble to journey here. And it certainly couldn't hurt, could it? Who knew? It might help.

Then they threw in the argument that cinched it. If the holy man had commanded Namaan to do something really hard or dramatic in order to prove he was worthy of a miracle, wouldn't Namaan have done it? Climb a mountain, conquer a city-- he would have done it wouldn't he?

            Suppose Elisha had demanded a huge offering? Didn't Namaan in fact have ten talents of silver and six thousand gold shekels and ten brand-new Ormani suits loaded onto pack mules in anticipation of just that demand?  If the prophet had commanded a great task Namaan would have done it, why not do a small task? All that the holy man had asked was that Namaan would wash and be clean. He could certainly do that, couldn't he? 

            God waited patiently while a proud man muddled toward health, toward a restorative knowledge of God and himself. But he makes progress only by ragged fits and starts. He has a clear self-interest -- a cure for the disease that threatens his career, his place in human company, his very life. The people who care about him appeal successfully to that self-interest, but the pull of other passions almost derails him. Namaan craves respect almost more than he wants health. He is so sure he knows what he needs, he almost refuses what God wants to give.

            Almost. But not quite. While Naaman doesn’t get the attention he thinks is his due, God waits, letting him vent and strut. No lightning bolt consumes him

in mid-rant, no disapproving angel descends. God waits until Namaan acquits himself of our odd human propensity to work against our own good. And when, after stalking off, he relents, we see in this raging big shot what God had seen all along – a humble man of faith.

Because Namaan did indeed bathe himself seven times in the Jordan. And Scripture tells us that his skin was miraculously made whole, healthy, and clean. Because he finally obeyed God's command-- through the prophet-- to wash and be clean-- it was so. And Scripture tells us that Namaan was converted to belief in the God of Israel.

            By global and historical standards, you and I live in Namaan’s Aram. We live in the greatest empire in history, the only remaining superpower, the heart of the “First world”.  We enjoy the trappings of power and privilege-- cars, cell phones, computers, and all the other stuff that is supposed to secure our lives.             You and I are not so terribly different from Namaan, surrounded by all his power and prestioge. When he journeyed to the tiny, neighboring, third-world nation of Israel, Namaan made sure that he had a caravan of power and wealth in tow. But Naaman already knew that all that stuff was of no worldly use to him. It hadn't kept him from developing a dreaded disease, and it wouldn't cure it, or even purchase a cure. Something else was needed.

Christina Rosetti, the Victorian poet wrote:

Can peach renew lost bloom

or violet lost perfume?

Or sullied snow turn

white overnight?

Man cannot compass it yet...

The leper Namaan

shows what God will and can.

God who worked then is working here;

Wherefore let it shame,

not gloom betinge thy brow.

God who worked then

is working now.

God who worked then is working here.  God who worked then is working now.  Wash and be clean, Namaan's servants advised him.  But that proud general couldn't believe that the God of his enemy could or would bother about him.  He couldn't believe that the Creator could or would work in such a simple, straight-forward manner on behalf of an outsider. Wash and be clean.  Surely that wasn’t all all there was to being healed!

            But it was-- all along. We’d be wrong to regard Namaan’s healing and

   conversion as something completely new, an  unexpected miracle out of the blue. God  was waiting for Naaman. God had already begun the fitful progress of transformation in the great man even before he ever set foot on the soil of Samaria or wadded in the puny Jordan -- a slender opening, first apparent when the great warrior finally humbled himself enought to take advice from slaves and women and stiffled his disgust at needing help from an enemy’s god.

                Divine Grace had already kindled a spark  in the mighty General -- irregular, flickering perhaps, but the spark was not snuffed out by  Namaan’s unchecked rage. When Namaan finally gave up, lets go and lets God, and washes in the water, there isn’t a lot more healing for the river to do. All that remains is for Namaan to meet, knee-deep, the One who had been waiting for him, the One who engineered his victories and presided over his life. Awash in the revelation, Namaan, "a great man" from the start, becomes God’s man for good.

            I know quite a number of people-- and I’m sure you do as well-- friends, family,  neighbors, physicans, tenured professors,  CPAs, attorneys, business people,  teachers, fellow clergy--even ourselves, who have suddenly found themselves in a situation not unlike that of Namaan the General. They have struggled-- sometimes for years-- with a deceptive and tenacious adversaries –fears, or addictions, or inappropriate attitudes, or relationships. That personal struggle has eroded self-confidence and competence and messed up lives and cast them-- perhaps cast us-- into a pit of loneliness, fear, and deep self-despair.

            Just as Namaan  eventually had to come to a place where he had to leave behind power and prestige and walk humbly and courageously into the Jordan, so in order to begin recovering, each and every one of those people has had to leave behind power and prestige and walk into his or her own Jordan river.

That healing stream  may have been a treatment program, or counselor, a confrontation,  or a prayer service, or an intervention,  or a 12 step meeting-- or maybe just a regular old Sunday morning Worship Service—anyplace where God was waiting for them.

            The irony is that healing - whether of the flesh, or of the mind, or of the

spirit, has only begun--- can only begin when you and I finally come to acknowledge our vulnerability, our inability to be in charge. True healing can only come about when we encounter and acknowledge a grace and power beyond our own.

            We must yield--turn ourselves over to that topsy-turvy other kind of power.  Instead of denying our weaknesses, we must learn to acknowledge our frailties as part of our humanness. Instead of wallowing in our accomplishments and pride, we must learn to allow our failures and imperfections to teach us humility. 

Instead of always striving for autonomous mastery of our environment,  we must begin to learn to listen to unexpected guides – maidservants or people who have been to the pit themselves, people who have died and gone through hell and come to life again through programs, or counseling, or therapy, or small groups, or spiritual discipline, but above all, and always, through faith.

And when you and I acknowledge and open ourselves to that power, our own healing will finally begin.  And eventually we will find ourselves-- like that anonymous little Hebrew maid, allowing God to speak through our compassion—telling the broken that there is one who can heal them. That there are healing streams that can cleanse and cure.

When you and I dare to turn to someone in pain—even someone as unlikely as Naaman—and point to them the way out of the pit, then our healing will have penetrated beyond the surface into our deepest hearts Then our transformation into full wholeness will begin.

  . For all the gifts that counseling and psychotherapy and small groups can contribute to our growth, there is still an ultimate reality behind them all-- a truth, a power outside us, beyond us, coming at us, striving to make us whole - -the astonishing, unexpected power of grace and new life seeking us, waiting for us, surprising us, calling us, healing us. Call it exodus. Call it resurrection. Call it God. Call it the Spirit or Jesus. A different kind of power.

            To be vulnerable, to learn to trust God and others is not giving up. Not at all. It is, however, surrender. There is a crucial difference between giving up and surrender. Giving up is lying down believing there is no hope. Surrender is going forward not knowing what lies ahead, but trusting that God leads the way.             Amen.