Checked The Ditch Lately?
Sermon
Sermons on the Gospel Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
We were driving west on Highway 16 from Custer to Newcastle, Wyoming, when Pam and I spotted this magnificent bird along the road. It was feeding on a deer carcass, and as we approached, it sprang into the air and soared off to the south alighting on the branch of a ponderosa pine. It watched us. It waited for us to pass. Yes, it was a golden eagle with a wing span of at least six feet.
The next day, we were surprised and disappointed to see on the front page of our local Custer Chronicle paper a photo of a golden eagle that was found in a ditch along Highway 16 with a bleeding head and broken wing. It had apparently been hit by a passing vehicle. Then we realized, it was the same golden eagle we had seen, because they found it in exactly the same spot.
In Jesus' parable, it is a man that is found beaten and bleeding, lying in a ditch by the side of the road. A sharp lawyer had just asked Jesus in a series of questions, "Who then is my neighbor?" Jesus responds by telling this story: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers" (v. 30).
Jerusalem and Jericho are only seventeen miles apart. Jerusalem is the city set on a hill nearly 3,000 feet above sea level, whereas Jericho, at 840 feet below sea level, is the lowest city on planet earth. Both cities are safe places: Jerusalem, the Holy City, and Jericho, a desert oasis. To get from one city to the other is to travel a crooked and dangerous road. As this certain man travels, robbers leap out from the rocks and attack him. The robbers strip him, beat him, and leave him half dead in the ditch.
Some of us have had robbers invade and mess up our lives. When thieves break in we feel violated, vulnerable, insecure, and angry. We become less trusting and fearful.
One summer Monday morning, I got up to go to work at the engineering firm where I drafted blueprints in downtown St. Paul. I walked out of our apartment door and was shocked to see my car was gone. It was stolen. I had just paid for that beautiful 1955 black Chevy, and as a seminary student, I could hardly afford to buy another.
Car thieves and carjackers do that. Robbers and thieves live by the rule, "what's yours is mine."1 Pick-pockets, embezzlers, shoplifters, abusers, and rapists also live by "what's yours is mine!" Your freedom, your person, your possession, your body is mine. So we live our lives afraid, cautious, and mistrusting.
This Jericho-bound traveler loses his possessions, his security, and almost his life. But help is coming. Along comes a priest and later a Levite. They know Deuteronomy 30.
For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
-- Deuteronomy 30:9b-10
They know the law, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself." They teach it. They lecture on it. They expound on it. They represent the religious community of the time -- the Pharisees. But they pass by on the other side. They leave the bloodied creature in the ditch. They offer no help. Why? Perhaps they are afraid of lurking bandits or because they have appointments to make and because of their fear or busy schedules practice, "what's mine is mine!" My time is mine. My resources are mine. My money is mine. My work for God is mine. "What's mine is mine!"
The priest and the Levite are like the wealthy man driving his BMW who sees a poor, hungry family along a country road are eating grass. The rich CEO stops. "Get in, I will help you." The hungry family gets into the BMW. The rich man drives them to his own estate and says to them, "Here, the grass is taller for you to eat." No real help. What's mine is mine!
How long that golden eagle lay in the ditch, we do not know. How long the man lay in the ditch, we do not know, either. Presently, along comes a Samaritan, in Jesus' parable, a Samaritan despised by the Jews, but when he sees the man in the ditch, he is moved with compassion. He stops, goes to him, bandages up his wounds, puts him on his own animal, and takes him to an inn with the instructions, "Take care of him and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend."
Conservation officer Ben Chambers found the injured golden eagle we had seen and rescued it. Ben took the eagle to Gillette, Wyoming, where Diane Morse operates N.E.W. Bird Rescue and Rehab center. The bird was given electrolytes to stabilize her condition. Next a steel pin was inserted to fix her broken wing. After a recuperation time, the plan was to release the bird in the same area where she was found.
The Samaritan, we traditionally call "good," lived not by "what's yours is mine" nor "what's mine is mine" but the higher moral ground of "what's mine is yours."
Edgar Guest, the poet and writer, wrote this when his first child had died.
There came a tragic night when our first baby was taken from us. I was lonely and defeated. There didn't seem to be anything in life ahead of me that mattered very much. I had to go to my neighbor's drugstore the next morning for something and he motioned for me to step behind the counter with him. I followed him into his little office in the back at the rear of the store. He put both hands on my shoulders and said, "Eddie, I can't really express what I want to say, the sympathy I have in my heart for you. All I can say is, that I'm sorry, and I want you to know that if you need anything at all, come to me. What is mine is yours."
Years later, Edgar Guest thought about this experience.
Jim Potter, a neighbor across the way, the druggist, may long since have forgotten that moment when he gave his hand and his sympathy, but I shall never forget it -- never in my life. To me it stands out like the silhouette of a lonely tree against a crimson sunset.2
My friend, Charles, and I were driving home from Chicago, when we ran out of gas somewhere in Wisconsin. It was on the interstate, and I was not going to wait around for help to come with our raised hood, so I leaped over the barrier fence and looked for assistance. A man in the nearby community came up to me and said, "I'll help you. I'm a Mormon and I'll help you get gas." There is no religious group that I disagree with more doctrinally. The Church of Latter Day Saints claim to be Christian but fail to hold even one orthodox Christian teaching. Nonetheless, it was this kindly Mormon who helped my friend and I get enough gas to get to the next station. He said and acted out essentially, "What's mine is yours."
Who is my neighbor? Who is your neighbor? Helmut Thielecke said, "The road to hell is paved, not merely with good intentions, but with good reasons."
"Sin" reflected the priest in Shusaku Endo's book, Silence, "is not usually what people think it to be. It is not to steal and tell lies. Sin, is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind."3
We talk so glibly about loving our neighbor. If I love you and do not know anything about you, my statement about loving you is nothing else but hypocrisy. One of the neighbors that we have the greatest encounter of fear with right now is Islam. And unless we know who they are, we can't love them. We really are in a crisis. We don't know how to deal with Islam. Islam is not going to go away, and we can't continue to maintain hostilities and war. It just doesn't work. We need to transform our relationships so that we are no longer hostile with each other.
Who is my neighbor? "Of course," the lawyer says to Jesus, "the one who showed mercy!" The good news is that, in Christ Jesus we have received mercy and in turn get to show mercy to others.
I see good Samaritans all the time. I see Jim working and directing our Habitat for Humanity here in my hometown. I see Kim and Allen picking up Alice from the assisted living home and bringing her to worship every Sunday. I see soldiers in Afghanistan building schools and various projects in the presence of sniper fire and threats of IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) bombs along the roadways. I see my pastors offer listening ears to grieving and desperate folks.
I received mercy when my dear brother, Marlowe, died. He was my playmate and lifelong friend. I shall never forget the hugs, the stories, and kind words that helped heal my loss and utter grief.
Even though the parable did the trick and helped the lawyer see who his neighbor is, I have often wondered about the rest of Jesus' untold story. I would guess two possible endings. The wounded man got healed and went about healing others practicing, What's mine is yours, or the wounded man got healed and sunk back into the norm, What's mine is mine or worse, became a robber practicing, What's yours is mine! I would rather believe the wounded man, now healed, became himself, a healer and a helper.
The Monday I was robbed of my '55 Chevy, my roommate offered, that same evening, to take me for a drive in South Minneapolis in order to console me. Driving hundreds of blocks from our apartment in North Minneapolis, I looked down an alley and there was my car! I couldn't believe it. Nor could my friend. When we reported this miracle to the police they could not believe it either. One simply does not find one's stolen car in a metropolitan area like St. Paul and Minneapolis, by chance.
I began watching for that golden eagle west of town. I traveled to Newcastle for six months every week as an itinerant interim pastor. One day, sure enough, there she was, soaring again. Same place, same old bird, alive, healthy, and free. Like that eagle, you and I, healed, get to show mercy and compassion, too. Amen.
___________________
1. Frank Lyman, "Like Everest Without Oxygen," Pulpit Dynamics.
2. Jack R. Van Ens. Arvada, Colorado, Leadership, Vol. 8, #4.
3. Shusaku Endo, Silence (Tokyo: Monumenta Nipponica, 1969).
The next day, we were surprised and disappointed to see on the front page of our local Custer Chronicle paper a photo of a golden eagle that was found in a ditch along Highway 16 with a bleeding head and broken wing. It had apparently been hit by a passing vehicle. Then we realized, it was the same golden eagle we had seen, because they found it in exactly the same spot.
In Jesus' parable, it is a man that is found beaten and bleeding, lying in a ditch by the side of the road. A sharp lawyer had just asked Jesus in a series of questions, "Who then is my neighbor?" Jesus responds by telling this story: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers" (v. 30).
Jerusalem and Jericho are only seventeen miles apart. Jerusalem is the city set on a hill nearly 3,000 feet above sea level, whereas Jericho, at 840 feet below sea level, is the lowest city on planet earth. Both cities are safe places: Jerusalem, the Holy City, and Jericho, a desert oasis. To get from one city to the other is to travel a crooked and dangerous road. As this certain man travels, robbers leap out from the rocks and attack him. The robbers strip him, beat him, and leave him half dead in the ditch.
Some of us have had robbers invade and mess up our lives. When thieves break in we feel violated, vulnerable, insecure, and angry. We become less trusting and fearful.
One summer Monday morning, I got up to go to work at the engineering firm where I drafted blueprints in downtown St. Paul. I walked out of our apartment door and was shocked to see my car was gone. It was stolen. I had just paid for that beautiful 1955 black Chevy, and as a seminary student, I could hardly afford to buy another.
Car thieves and carjackers do that. Robbers and thieves live by the rule, "what's yours is mine."1 Pick-pockets, embezzlers, shoplifters, abusers, and rapists also live by "what's yours is mine!" Your freedom, your person, your possession, your body is mine. So we live our lives afraid, cautious, and mistrusting.
This Jericho-bound traveler loses his possessions, his security, and almost his life. But help is coming. Along comes a priest and later a Levite. They know Deuteronomy 30.
For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
-- Deuteronomy 30:9b-10
They know the law, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself." They teach it. They lecture on it. They expound on it. They represent the religious community of the time -- the Pharisees. But they pass by on the other side. They leave the bloodied creature in the ditch. They offer no help. Why? Perhaps they are afraid of lurking bandits or because they have appointments to make and because of their fear or busy schedules practice, "what's mine is mine!" My time is mine. My resources are mine. My money is mine. My work for God is mine. "What's mine is mine!"
The priest and the Levite are like the wealthy man driving his BMW who sees a poor, hungry family along a country road are eating grass. The rich CEO stops. "Get in, I will help you." The hungry family gets into the BMW. The rich man drives them to his own estate and says to them, "Here, the grass is taller for you to eat." No real help. What's mine is mine!
How long that golden eagle lay in the ditch, we do not know. How long the man lay in the ditch, we do not know, either. Presently, along comes a Samaritan, in Jesus' parable, a Samaritan despised by the Jews, but when he sees the man in the ditch, he is moved with compassion. He stops, goes to him, bandages up his wounds, puts him on his own animal, and takes him to an inn with the instructions, "Take care of him and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend."
Conservation officer Ben Chambers found the injured golden eagle we had seen and rescued it. Ben took the eagle to Gillette, Wyoming, where Diane Morse operates N.E.W. Bird Rescue and Rehab center. The bird was given electrolytes to stabilize her condition. Next a steel pin was inserted to fix her broken wing. After a recuperation time, the plan was to release the bird in the same area where she was found.
The Samaritan, we traditionally call "good," lived not by "what's yours is mine" nor "what's mine is mine" but the higher moral ground of "what's mine is yours."
Edgar Guest, the poet and writer, wrote this when his first child had died.
There came a tragic night when our first baby was taken from us. I was lonely and defeated. There didn't seem to be anything in life ahead of me that mattered very much. I had to go to my neighbor's drugstore the next morning for something and he motioned for me to step behind the counter with him. I followed him into his little office in the back at the rear of the store. He put both hands on my shoulders and said, "Eddie, I can't really express what I want to say, the sympathy I have in my heart for you. All I can say is, that I'm sorry, and I want you to know that if you need anything at all, come to me. What is mine is yours."
Years later, Edgar Guest thought about this experience.
Jim Potter, a neighbor across the way, the druggist, may long since have forgotten that moment when he gave his hand and his sympathy, but I shall never forget it -- never in my life. To me it stands out like the silhouette of a lonely tree against a crimson sunset.2
My friend, Charles, and I were driving home from Chicago, when we ran out of gas somewhere in Wisconsin. It was on the interstate, and I was not going to wait around for help to come with our raised hood, so I leaped over the barrier fence and looked for assistance. A man in the nearby community came up to me and said, "I'll help you. I'm a Mormon and I'll help you get gas." There is no religious group that I disagree with more doctrinally. The Church of Latter Day Saints claim to be Christian but fail to hold even one orthodox Christian teaching. Nonetheless, it was this kindly Mormon who helped my friend and I get enough gas to get to the next station. He said and acted out essentially, "What's mine is yours."
Who is my neighbor? Who is your neighbor? Helmut Thielecke said, "The road to hell is paved, not merely with good intentions, but with good reasons."
"Sin" reflected the priest in Shusaku Endo's book, Silence, "is not usually what people think it to be. It is not to steal and tell lies. Sin, is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind."3
We talk so glibly about loving our neighbor. If I love you and do not know anything about you, my statement about loving you is nothing else but hypocrisy. One of the neighbors that we have the greatest encounter of fear with right now is Islam. And unless we know who they are, we can't love them. We really are in a crisis. We don't know how to deal with Islam. Islam is not going to go away, and we can't continue to maintain hostilities and war. It just doesn't work. We need to transform our relationships so that we are no longer hostile with each other.
Who is my neighbor? "Of course," the lawyer says to Jesus, "the one who showed mercy!" The good news is that, in Christ Jesus we have received mercy and in turn get to show mercy to others.
I see good Samaritans all the time. I see Jim working and directing our Habitat for Humanity here in my hometown. I see Kim and Allen picking up Alice from the assisted living home and bringing her to worship every Sunday. I see soldiers in Afghanistan building schools and various projects in the presence of sniper fire and threats of IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) bombs along the roadways. I see my pastors offer listening ears to grieving and desperate folks.
I received mercy when my dear brother, Marlowe, died. He was my playmate and lifelong friend. I shall never forget the hugs, the stories, and kind words that helped heal my loss and utter grief.
Even though the parable did the trick and helped the lawyer see who his neighbor is, I have often wondered about the rest of Jesus' untold story. I would guess two possible endings. The wounded man got healed and went about healing others practicing, What's mine is yours, or the wounded man got healed and sunk back into the norm, What's mine is mine or worse, became a robber practicing, What's yours is mine! I would rather believe the wounded man, now healed, became himself, a healer and a helper.
The Monday I was robbed of my '55 Chevy, my roommate offered, that same evening, to take me for a drive in South Minneapolis in order to console me. Driving hundreds of blocks from our apartment in North Minneapolis, I looked down an alley and there was my car! I couldn't believe it. Nor could my friend. When we reported this miracle to the police they could not believe it either. One simply does not find one's stolen car in a metropolitan area like St. Paul and Minneapolis, by chance.
I began watching for that golden eagle west of town. I traveled to Newcastle for six months every week as an itinerant interim pastor. One day, sure enough, there she was, soaring again. Same place, same old bird, alive, healthy, and free. Like that eagle, you and I, healed, get to show mercy and compassion, too. Amen.
___________________
1. Frank Lyman, "Like Everest Without Oxygen," Pulpit Dynamics.
2. Jack R. Van Ens. Arvada, Colorado, Leadership, Vol. 8, #4.
3. Shusaku Endo, Silence (Tokyo: Monumenta Nipponica, 1969).
