8
Pentecost, Cp10, July 14, 2013
Deut.
30:9-14 Ps.25:3-9
Col. 10:25-37 Luke 10:25-37
Have
you ever experienced in a time of need the kindness of strangers?
In 1975, I decided to make my Journey East, to
the walk the Razor’s Edge, in a Passage to India. (My apologies to Hermann
Hesse, Somerset Maugham and E.M. Forrester whom I happen to be reading at the
time).
I
had gone through Afghanistan, Herat, Kandahar and Kabul (saw the Bamiyan Buddhas….the
one destroyed by the Taliban). I had
passed through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan and then into the Punjab region of
Northwest India; I spent several days in New Delhi before arriving in
Agra. One goes to Agra to see the Taj
Mahal and it was all and more than I expected.
I also took day trips to Fatehpur Sikri to a complex built by the same dynasty
and I returned to Agra in preparation to leave to go to the north through Darjeeling
of tea fame, toward Nepal. I left my hotel with my back pack in tow; got
a ride on a rickshaw to the train station to wait for the train. Sudden I was overtaken by fever and the worst
feelings of nausea imaginable. I decided
to take on some fluids because the weather was hot and humid. I purchased two bottles of orange Fanta and
sat on a bench to wait for the train. I
weakened, so much so that I begin to lie on the bench. And then I vomited; what a sight, here I was
on an island train bench in an incredible large puddle of bright orange Fanta (I’ve
never drunk an orange Fanta again in my life). I had been struck by the infamous Delhi
Belly. Alone in a train station with thousands
of unknown Indians. Too weak to even get
up and I knew I could not take the train.
As I lay there, my eyes were drawn to the area underneath the opposite
train platform and what did I see? It
was teeming with rats. How’s that for an
image of helplessness?
A young man saw my situation and asked me if
I needed help. I told him that I
probably had a very bad case of amoebic dysentery and that I would need some medicine. This young man from Calcutta, helped me get
up and get into a rickshaw; he asked about a local doctor and took me to a
local doctor who gave me some medicine.
This young man took me back to my hotel where I spent several days recovering. I tried to give him some money for his
trouble but he would not take it; after I insisted he finally took a few Rupees
for his train fare back to Calcutta.
The kindness of a stranger. This is the parable of the Good Samaritan
that Jesus told when a young lawyer had recited to him the ancient summary of
the Law: And love your neighbor as yourself.
The young lawyer interested in getting some legal qualifying information
from Rabbi Jesus, asked a very dangerous question. “And who is my neighbor?”
Behind this question was really another
question. Who am I required to
love? The hated Romans? The Samaritans?
The lawyer was assuming like we often do a
very limited meaning of the word “neighbor.”
Neighbor often means those who live closest to us in our immediate
vicinity. Neighbor is mostly used as a
passive concept; we get designated as a neighbor because of where we live. In the passive notion of neighbor we do not
have to do anything to be designated as a neighbor.
The parable of the Good Samaritan explodes
the passive notion of being a neighbor.
And who is my neighbor? Wrong question. The question is: Am I a person
who acts in a kind and neighborly way to the people who are brought into close
proximity with me in my daily life?
Jesus changes the word neighbor from being a
noun into being a verb. Yes, you are a
neighbor by being in proximity to other people but neighbor is also a verb and
let conjugate this verb. I neighbor, you
neighbor, he or she neighbors, we neighbor, they neighbor. Past tense:
I neighbored. We neighbored. Future tense:
I will neighbor. We will neighor.
With the parable of the Good Samaritan (maybe
that would be a good name for a hospital)
Jesus also expanded the meaning of being a good neighbor. When is it the most difficult time to be a
good neighbor? When it is terribly inconvenient. Exigent, arising emergencies
are very inconvenient; they happen on no one’s schedules. Accidents are not planned; they just happen
and they are very inconvenient.
The story of the Good Samaritan has the added
dimension of the challenge of the inconvenient.
The notion of the suddenly random inconvenient event is the ultimate
test of being a neighbor. Ironically,
people often are heroic in event of emergencies. In fires, accidents, hurricanes, tornadoes,
often people will be neighborly in heroic ways.
Let us remember today the very dynamic notion
of neighbor which we learn from the parable of the Good Samaritan. The notion of neighbor is defined on a
continuum of being a recipient of acts of compassion and empathy and being the
one who performs acts of compassion and empathy.
When you and I are in need of acts of
kindness, we want to be regarded as neighbors. And we want someone to be an active
neighbor towards us. And we need to be
ready to receive kindness from people who may not be our normal every day
acquaintances. And we too need to be active neighbors and
be willing to respond in emergencies when it is inconvenient. We need to know that anyone who is in need is
our neighbor and respond accordingly.
Let us learn from Jesus regarding this very
expansive notion of neighbor. Let us
know that as disciples of Jesus we live today to have our hearts and lives be
educated toward greater love and compassion. Amen.
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