Proper 10

Behold, a white, upper-middle-class Protestant was driving through an inner-city neighborhood on a Sunday morning, enroute to his beautiful, well-endowed downtown church, when his Lexus broke down. He was then attacked and robbed by some drug addicts, who then vandalized his car and left him half-dead.

Now a black minister happened by on his way to church, but didn’t want to get involved, and didn’t want to be accused of being an Uncle Tom, so pretended he didn’t see. And a black singer came by, but he was already late for his church choir rehearsal, so he couldn’t, in good conscience, keep the people waiting at the church any longer, and he hesitated, but then went on.

But it so happened that a black Muslim (and one-time Black Panther) came by, saw the white, upper-middle-class Protestant, sprayed antiseptic and put makeshift bandages on his wounds, loaded him into his car, and took him to the hospital.

Now, who, in this case, was the neighbor, and who was being neighborly?

Or consider another translation. Behold, a certain black middle-class Pentecostal was driving through a sketchy working-class white neighborhood when his Chevy broke down.  He was then attacked by some skinhead hoodlums, who robbed him and beat him and left him half-dead in the gutter.

Now by chance, a well-dressed Republican businessman passed by on his way to Rotary, a most solemn assembly, where a speech on community betterment was to be heard. He already was late, already in danger of not fulfilling his attendance quota. He really couldn’t risk stopping. So, he pretended not to notice and continued on his way.

Then a nattily-attired Democratic businessman passed by on his way to a Lion’s Club meeting, also a rather solemn assembly, where he was to be the tail-twister. Since this was his first time in that honorable position, and since he already was late, he felt he could not stop. He did, however, give a moment’s serious consideration to calling Washington to see if there might be something they could do to help this poor fellow. But alas, he left his cell phone at home, so he continued on to his meeting.

But after that, there journeyed by a blue-collar, Independent, Polish/Italian Roman Catholic factory worker on his way to the tavern. And seeing the beaten, wounded, black, middle-class Pentecostal in the gutter, he stopped his old pick-up truck, administered first-aid, called 911, and followed the ambulance to the hospital, where the blue-collar, Independent, Polish/Italian factory worker paid for the black, middle-class Pentecostal’s room and care in advance.

Now, who was the neighbor and who was being neighborly? Where do you see yourself in this story of the Good Samaritan, the good neighbor?

Asking people to personally identify with the story of the Good Samaritan is a little like asking all the children of a little league baseball team what position they would like to play. Just as surely as you are going to end up with nine pitchers, you will find yourself with a congregation full of hypothetical Samaritans.

We tend to think of ourselves, depending on how we’re feeling on a particular day, as either the priest/Levite or the Good Samaritan. Thus, it is little wonder that the story of the Good Samaritan is both well loved and completely misunderstood.

 The Samaritan, as the one who is in control of his own life, wealth and well being, is actually the incarnation of all our self-oriented little dreams. Under our shallow perception of the Samaritan’s actions, we find comfort in seeing ourselves as willing to help others, offering aid and comfort to one in need. But Arthur McGill, a professor at Harvard Divinity School during the 1970s, proposed an idea that smashes this illusion.

In the Good Samaritan story in today’s Gospel, we are not the Samaritan. Nor are we the priest or the Levite. Rather, we are the anonymous, beaten, bloodied nobody lying helpless in the ditch. We are the needy, not the helper. At the conclusion of his Good Samaritan story, Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which of these three…was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (v.36)

The lawyer is being asked by Jesus to identify his neighbor – and the answer, of course, is the Samaritan. But the lawyer – the one seeking the way to eternal life – is the wounded man in the story, the one who receives aid from this Samaritan neighbor. And so it is with us.

Arthur McGill believed that many of us are caught up in a destructive “bronze people” myth living out a “bronze dream.” “Bronze” here serves as his image for people “so clean, so neat, so tanned, so buoyant and assured” that any trace of the frailties that are part of human life -suffering, fear, and death – seem not to touch them in any way. The over-riding ethic keeping us “bronze people” alive is an ethic of “success or avoidance.”

A falsely gleaming notion of “bronze love” is largely responsible for our notion that we are the Good Samaritan (or at least the priest or the Levite). In the neat and tidy world of the bronze dream, love is a well-ordered, one-way street. Bronze churches “speak of love as helping others, but they ignore what helping others does to the person who loves. They ignore the fact that love is self-expenditure, a real expending, a real losing, a real deterioration of the self.”

In other words, love costs.

This is why we must begin by seeing ourselves as the wounded man, for all of us are incapable of truly being the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan, in fact, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. Jesus’ entire existence was centered about bringing this kind of self-less, self-expending love into the world, into our lives. Jesus is our Good Samaritan, who picks us up, heals our wounds and provides for all our needs.

Yet Jesus does even more. He incarnated love so perfectly that he not only healed us. He died for us. While McGill’s “bronze people” are busy stockpiling and safeguarding their sense of self with possessions and the illusion of control, Jesus engenders true life, true love, true identity – by giving up all that he has, even his life, in order to save us – even though we don’t deserve it.

There is a story about a man who fell into a pit and couldn’t get himself out. A subjective person came along and said, “I feel for you down there.” An objective person came along and said, “It’s logical that someone would fall down there.” A Pharisee said, “Only bad people fall into a pit.” A mathematician calculated how he fell into the pit.

A news reporter wanted an exclusive story on his pit. A fundamentalist said, “You deserve your pit.” An IRS man asked if he was paying taxes on the pit. A self-pitying person said, “You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen my pit.” An optimist said, “Things could be worse.” A pessimist said, “Things will get worse.”

Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit.

The apostle Paul summed it up well when he wrote to the Corinthians: Jesus’ purpose in dying for all was that [people], while still in life, should cease to live for themselves, and should live for him who for their sake died and was raised to life. (2 Cor. 5:15 NEB]

Now, “go and do likewise.”