Some of us have perfectionist tendencies. We like to do things right the first time. We like to complete the project on time, over spec, under budget, and get the gold star. I think Jesus asks something different of us. Give me your whole heart, he says, and keep moving toward a way of living and loving that you may never arrive at in this life. Recognize how broken this world is, and how you participate in that brokenness whether you intend to or not. Then bring your broken heart to God, and God will attend to it. And if we are willing, yes, Jesus has some big jobs for you. We will not do those jobs perfectly. He only asks that we do them faithfully.
Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
July 14, 2019
Learning to be Neighborly
Luke 10:25-37 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered: “‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
I love watching the different ways Jesus interacts with people in the Gospels.
Consider those who judge, who are busy telling other people how to lead their lives, and the rules they should follow. How does Jesus treat them? Not well! He has no patience for that kind of behavior. “Woe to you hypocrites!” Good reminder that it’s not our business to judge; we don’t need to tell other people how to be faithful.
Jesus acts another way toward those people who think they’re doing a pretty good job being religious and come to him, asking, well, how am I doing? I have my ticket to heaven because I’ve done all the right things, don’t I? Or do I need to check a few more boxes? The questioner in today’s story and the rich young ruler are in this category. To them Jesus says: You think you’re righteous? No, one more thing you have to do. And it’s a big one. To the rich young ruler: give away everything you own and follow me. And to the man in today’s reading: give care at great personal cost to someone you’re expected to hate. So if you think you are “justified,” you are doing everything right in your Christian walk, don’t tell Jesus about it. He’ll make sure to assign you something above and beyond.
Jesus acts a third way toward those people who approach him with humility, longing to be close to him, knowing their flaws, knowing that they need mercy and love in order to be right with God. Every time Jesus encounters such a person, his response is to reach out to them, forgive them, love them. Ah, humility. Maybe this is the approach we should try.
I found a little quiz on Facebook a while back. “How well do you follow Jesus?” The questions were very biblical, things like: Have you visited any prisoners lately? Do you eat with tax collectors and sinners? Do you love God with your whole heart, and mind and soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself? I didn’t complete the whole quiz. I got too discouraged about how poorly I was doing. Later that day I remembered: humility! Maybe that quiz had put me just where Jesus wants me.
Some of us have perfectionist tendencies. We like to do things right the first time. We like to complete the project on time, over spec, under budget, and get the gold star. I think Jesus asks something different of us. Give me your whole heart, he says, and keep moving toward a way of living and loving that you may never arrive at in this life. Recognize how broken this world is, and how you participate in that brokenness whether you intend to or not. Then bring your broken heart to God, and God will attend to it. And if we are willing, yes, Jesus has some big jobs for you. We will not do those jobs perfectly. He only asks that we do them faithfully.
In this parable, the obvious big job is to love: to show love to neighbor in a practical and extravagant way. Go beyond feeling loving feelings. Go beyond writing a check to a charity. Goout of your wayto help someone who needs help. Take a risk– stopping on the dangerous Jerusalem-Jericho road was a real risk. An injured man on the side of the road could have been a decoy: a trap set by bandits. People who really need help are often in risky situations, situations that we hesitate to step into ourselves. And they could be scamming you. Our hesitation is sensible. The Gospel: not so sensible. The parable invites us to give extravagantly: that Samaritan gave care with his own hands, he took a detour to a safe resting place, he took money out of his pocket for the injured man’s board and care.
To go out of our way to help a neighbor is the obvious big job in this parable. There is a less obvious big job. That is to love a neighbor whom we are expected to hate or avoid. Jews versus Samaritans, a brief summary: six hundred years before Jesus’ time they were the same people, with the same religion. When the nation was conquered, the upper class were deported to Babylon and became Jews. Those left behind, the poorest city folk and the subsistence farmers, became the Samaritans. Their religions were so similar that you and I probably would have trouble telling the difference, but Jews and Samaritans managed to detest each other anyway. Each could refer to conflicts in the recent past as proof of the untrustworthiness of the other. On a good day they just stayed out of each others’ way.
Jews and Samaritans, neighbors in conflict, an old, familiar story. As Christians, we follow a Teacher who told us to love enemies, to forgive, but that hasn’t kept us free of war or injustice or prejudice. Imagine how it grieves Jesus, what some of his followers have done.
Drawing lines between “us and “them” has always been a convenient way to unite “us” by scapegoating and demonizing “them.” Our faith allows us no such lines. Right now immigrants and refugees are the “them” who are victims of government policies designed to create fear and to dehumanize. In recent weeks, we have received reliable reports of immigrants and refugees, including innocent children, being held by our government under conditions not fit for the worst criminal, conditions that can be argued to be concentration camps, conditions of hunger, filth, neglect, contagion and untreated illness, lack of sleep, conditions that will scar children for life, that have already killed children. How can our government commit such atrocities? Unfortunately it’s easy. Follow orders. Act in secrecy. But most effectively, do not see the people being harmed as people. Demonize them. See them as other, not like us, a threat and a liability. It’s easy to do this; we humans are wired for it. And our faith teaches us never to let that happen.
Who is my neighbor? The immigrant our government put in a cage. We have a voice; they do not. We have resources; they do not. We can vote; they cannot. So… a bunch of us were at the Lights for Liberty candlelight vigil this past Friday, and that is a beginning. Your Council will be exploring more opportunities to advocate for immigrants and refugees.
Witnessing these horrific actions toward immigrants is hard emotional work. Not only is the human toll painful to witness, but the cognitive dissonance, the gap between our nation’s stated values of liberty and justice and this inexcusable reality, this shakes our very identity. It is so much easier to look away, to pretend it’s not happening. Or to find some excuse why it’s excusable, it’s not that bad. It’s that bad. I thank you for having the courage to face this very painful moral issue.
This a time of soul-searching, searching for the soul of our nation that is threatened by cruelty and hatred. Let me suggest that we at Brea Congregational roll up our sleeves and get personal. Raise your hand if you personally know a refugee waiting to learn whether they will be deported. Do you know a person who doesn’t have papers to be here legally? How about a Dreamer, a DACA recipient? Maybe we need to get to know these people, hear their struggles, befriend them, make real investments in their freedom and their livelihoods. That’s a big job. That’s what a Good Samaritan would do.
Immigrants do have Good Samaritans here in Orange County. Friends of Orange County Detainees was founded in 2012 by some white church ladies at Tapestry Unitarian Universalist Church in Lake Forest. The Friends are about 75 volunteers who have been visiting immigrants and refugees in detention while they wait the months or sometimes years for their cases to be resolved. Some of these detainees hadn’t ever had a visitor and wondered if anyone even knew they were still alive. Sometimes volunteers speak the language, be it Spanish, French or Haitian Creole. Sometimes they use a phone app and fake it. These Friends contact families back home and let them know the refugee is still alive.
Immigrants and refugees seeking asylum are not criminals, so while they can be detained indefinitely, they are not entitled to legal representation. If they have representation, odds are in their favor to win their case. If they don’t have it, they are almost always deported. Friends help them find legal representation. Sometimes they pay their bail. And when detainees are released, they give them food and clothes, a bus ticket to relatives, or help finding a shelter. And followup. Help finding school, and jobs. Some of those detainees are transgender. Relatives wouldn’t take them in. Nor would shelters. So one of the Friends opened her home to them. She has temporarily housed twelve transgender women by now, and one of them has claimed her as an adopted mother.
My neighbor Betty is a Friend. It’s through her that our warm clothes found their way to detainees last Christmas. Betty pays detainees’ bail out of her personal budget. She also hits up our neighborhood email list, so now I’ve paid bail too. Betty is retired, but not retired, if you know what I mean. She is frequently gone for weeks at a time, staffing a shelter in Tijuana housing Haitian families waiting to claim asylum.
Talking to these detainees, Betty hears about the horrors they left behind. Death threats from crooked politicians; the people already murdered. The harrowing route to our border, the family members who died along the way. Spoiled food in jail. Loneliness and despair. And gratitude that somebody cared.
Orange County is getting out of the immigrant detention business. The last immigrants will be gone from Theo Lacy jail in a few days, relocated to the largest private detention facility in America, Adelanto, in the high desert northwest of Victorville. Despite Adelanto’s fearsome reputation, visitors are hearing from immigrants that they’re being treated better there than in Orange County. But they are more isolated. Friends are wondering what they can do now. And so are we.
Our religion does not ask of us success or perfection. God knows our society is very broken. We are asked to step up in the middle of brokenness, not to fix things beyond our lower to fix, but to witness to the love and justice of God, to show we care. It may break our hearts. It may break our hearts wide open, to contain more love than we knew was possible. May God guide us to reach out to make the other a friend. Amen.
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