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July 15, 2007
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Amos
7:7-17, Psalm 82, Luke 10:25-37
“Exiled Within:
What About Justice Don’t We Understand?”
Steinbeck is coming, Steinbeck is coming! John
Steinbeck, my favorite non-poet author, will be at Chautauqua Tuesday night!
Our bulletin cover picture could be any one of us setting out on our kind of the
Jericho Road experience in this gospel. It could be any one of our biblical
ancestors setting out in faith. It could be any immigrant, any refugee, any
exile anywhere in the world today looking for safe haven, for work and a chance
give life to their family. Just picture ourselves in that car, by ourselves,
coming down that dark dusty road – Where are we? Where do we plan to go? Where
do we end up going? Life is such a trip.
This happens to be a picture from Texas during
the Dust Bowl. Migrants across our own nation then, fleeing lost farms, lost
jobs, for the “promised land” of California. They/we (How many of our
families?) were as subject to scorn and suspicion then as immigrants are today –
Okies, Arkies, and Exodusters! I plan to come back to Steinbeck to finish the
sermon. Strangers, by the side of the road or wherever, often are better to one
another and to us than we are to them.
Martin Luther King’s last campaign in
identification and solidarity with the garbage workers in Memphis was called
“Going Down Jericho Road.” (Singing “Mine eyes have seen the glory” always
brings out the Dr. King in me!) Dr. King calls this a story of “a dangerous
kind of unselfishness.” Jesus plucks this question about eternal life out of
the air and places it “on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho.” The
man who stops, says Dr. King, decides “not to be compassionate by proxy.” He
has the capacity “to project the ‘I’ into the ‘thou.’” Is that not our
life-in-faith, love-in-faith, art-in-faith journey?
Projecting our “I” into to as many “thous” as
our awareness, our consciousness, will bear? Without overlooking those closest
to us? Dr. King says he sometimes wonders if the priest and Levite were on
their way “to organize a Jericho Road Improvement Association!” If “they felt
it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get
bogged down with an individual effect.” Is that called not seeing the trees for
the forest? Our kids used to say to me, Daddy, we know you love the whole
world. What about us? Do you love us? . . .
The key to grasping (being grasped by?) the
story is reversing the question it asks, as Jesus so often does. Jesus so often
responds to one question with another, or with a parable – which is one big
unending question! Jesus puts his life back on us. The question is not the
priest and the Levite’s “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But
the Samaritan’s “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
And because Dr. King so often grasped the “big picture” as well as the “given
moment,” he would add –
On the one hand we are called to play the
good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One
day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that
men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their
journey on life’s highway.
Brothers and sisters, for us life-in-faith,
love-in-faith is a movement, a “freedom movement,” along many dangerous roads,
in the company of many strangers. Of course, there are times when the movement
requires us not to move – as in, We shall not, we shall not be moved,
We shall not, we shall not be moved, Just like a tree that’s planted by the
river, We shall not be moved. Think of all the good Artown we would have
missed had we moved! Think of all the movement that lies before us and all
around us just for our staying right here! It is important that we do not “pass
by” on some “other side” – that we do not let ourselves be “passed by!” Jesus
walking these roads is forever interrupted by those who will not let him pass
them by. Even Jesus so deeply attuned to each misses some. Even Jesus’
awareness expands, his consciousness rises. Think about ours!
And when Jesus gains new insight, new expertise
on his own experience, what does he do? He “parable-izes!” He puts what he
learns into parables, teaching tools – so long as we understand teaching as that
which invites self-exploration, self-discovery. “Aha” experiences (as our
Bishop includes in her book on creativity and spirituality) the steps of
“incubation” -- our consciousness growing deep underground -- followed by
“illumination!” We get it! Idea! Imagination! Insight! Inspiration! We see
with new eyes, hear with new ears! Parables someone has said are Trojan
horses. They sneak their way into mind, body, heart, soul – only to spring
surprises! To lead where we never thought to go.
Parables hold mirrors up to us in such ways as
we may find parts of our selves we never knew or lost long ago. We are a new
person at a new place in our lives every time we encounter a parable or any
other work of art, craft, or vocation. We cannot step in the same river twice.
So who, and how, and why are we in this most familiar of parables today? The
one who is attacked? Do we feel always vulnerable? Under pressure if not
persecution? Afraid? Or one who does the attacking? The best defense is a good
offense? Get them before they get us? Or either or both of those who pass by?
For all their good reasons?
Or the one who stops? Even without any “reason”
but that his being is moved that way? Or the donkey who just grins and bears
it? The innkeeper who has to act in the trust that he or she will be repaid?
Yeah, sure you’ll be back to pay for it all – I’ve heard that one before! So
who are we this time we hear and reflect upon it? With whom or what
parts do we identify? How are we called to respond? Walter Wink says we are
not compassionate as a matter of living by rules. Rather we are moved to see
ourselves in the place of the victim. Compassion means “suffering with!”
We call the Samaritan “good.” But what do we really know about him? What if he
just acts instinctively in his own interest? In the interest of others he
knows, who have been in that same beaten place?
Are we at ease in our own Zion, as Amos suggest
this morning? Neglecting our own exile within our own dominant culture?
Trapped in our own consumer comforts? Clinging to whatever assurances of
security and success? Not wanting to rock any boats? Letting events,
opportunities, challenges pass us by? What if instead we let ourselves be so
identified with, in solidarity with, all the victims? With all the suffering we
know is around, among us, and even within us? Starting with the extension of
our national powers in all the world? And the resources we take to sustain
ourselves? Coming back to those who lie by the sides of the roads of our own
communities? What is parabolic about this picture?
Parables, life-stories in which we discover
ourselves again and again, only begin the work we are called to do to recognize
and to realize who we are as freely and as fully as we can! The point of the
parables is not to establish who’s good and who’s bad, who’s right and who’s
wrong – not to condemn anyone for what they do or do not do. In fact, as we
will read in the Benediction by Stephen Mitchell, the one of these who is
attacked thanks all three who pass by. “It takes great humility to step aside,
for a parable’s sake,” he observes. “And without the parable, I would never
have been saved!”
Imagine the numbers of persons through the
centuries helped in some way, even “saved” in some way, by this story Jesus
first tells!! The point of the parables is to keep coming alive in us – as we
see ourselves each day, we open ourselves to all that happens, we learn from our
reason and our experience (brought to scripture and tradition), we change as in
response to the new thing the Artist of All does daily in each life-and-love
story of Jesus. As the Samaritan sees himself in this other, so Jesus seems to
see himself in all others! And all others see themselves/ourselves in Jesus!
For instance. Carol Barr just sent me this email entitled, “What ethnic group
did Jesus come from?” –
My theory is that Jesus was a white Cajun: 1.
He liked to serve fish to his friends. 2. He could make his own wine. 3. And
he was not afraid of water.
A black friend of mine had three good
arguments that Jesus was black: 1. He called everyone “brother.” 2. He liked
gospel. 3. He could not get a fair trial.
A Jewish friend had three equally good
arguments that Jesus was Jewish: 1. He went into his father’s business. 2. He
lived at home until he was thirty. 3. H was sure his mother was a virgin, and
his mother was sure he was God!
An Italian friend gave his three equally good
arguments that Jesus was Italian: 1. He talked with his hands. 2. He had wine
with every meal. 3. He used olive oil.
My California friends
[Watch out now!] also had three equally good
arguments that Jesus was a Californian: 1. He never cut his hair. 2. He walked
around barefoot all the time. 3. He started a new religion.
A good Irish friend had three arguments that
Jesus was Irish: 1. He never got married. 2. He was always telling stories.
3. He loved green pastures.
However, my wife had the most compelling
evidence of all that Jesus was really a woman: 1. He fed a crowd at a moment’s
notice when there was no food. 2. He kept trying to get a message across to a
bunch of men who just didn’t get it. 3. And even when he was dead, he still had
to get up because there was more work to do!
Such stories as this connect our experience with
all peoples, all cultures everywhere. In knowing ourselves we know others as
well. We connect at points those in power cannot touch us with their ideologies
that tell us what our “threats” and who our “enemies” are. As our Bishop says,
“we know more than we know we know,” and what we know – mind, body, heart, and
soul -- makes us dangerous to those who want us to leave all deadly decisions to
them.
The Samaritan does simple justice, no more, no
less than anyone should expect just for being alive. That goes for any one of
us at any time – We are entitled (yes, entitled!) to love and respect – just
because we are alive! A child of God! Any time I am approached for money, and
I have it, and the other does not, I ask, in effect, what is parabolic about
this picture? Would I want to find myself in that person’s place and position
in life – no matter how they got there? We are so hung up on how they “got
there!” Notice in the Benediction how easy it is for “the victim” to take the
blame on themselves! The Samaritan doesn’t even ask.
It is not even an instance of, “there but for
grace go I” -- so much as instance of, “here by grace of God I am!” I am in
that person! That person is in me – even as the communion of God – whom we
call Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier and Sustainer lives in us each and all. We
are all in this life together. How we relate makes a difference even in
passing. We are connected, we are related – saved and set free, healed and made
whole! It feels good, to be sure, to be thanked and appreciated for what we do
with and for one another. But we are only doing justice, doing what needs to be
done, what has “got to” be done if all are to live.
Once we have seen, once we have heard, we are
always a part of the picture. We cannot pretend away what we want to avoid,
escape, deny, ignore. We are world-aware, world-conscious today in ways we
never have been before. We know we are responsible – that is, response-able,
capable of responding. We are accountable for our ideas and imaginations, our
insights and inspirations -- our thoughts, our feelings, our words, our deeds,
our arts, our crafts, our dances, our songs. We are here to give life to the
world – starting right where we are, with whomever we are, and with whatever
we’ve got. We “got to,” she said.
Here’s the end of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of
Wrath. Rose of Sharon, daughter in the archetypal Joad Family, has been
pregnant all during the trek from Dust Bowl to Promised Land. The family has
not found the home, the work, or the life. Rose of Sharon’s baby has been
still-born. They seek shelter from rain in a barn where they find a boy with
his father “starving to death” –
The pounding of the rain decreased to a
soothing swish on the roof. The gaunt man moved his lips. Ma knelt beside him
and put her ear close. His lips moved again.
“Sure,” Ma said. “You jus’ be easy. He’ll
be awright. You jus’ wait’ll I get them we clo’es off’n my girl.”
Ma went back to the girl. “Now slip ‘em
off,” she said. She held the comfort up to screen her from view. And when she
was naked, Ma folded the comfort about her.
The boy was at her side again explaining, “I
didn’ know. He said he et, or he wasn’t hungry. Las’ night I went an’ bust a
winda an’ stoled some bread. Made ‘im chew ‘er down. But he puked it all up,
an’ then he was weaker. Got to have soup or milk. You folks got money to git
milk?”
Ma said, “Hush. Don’ worry. We’ll figger
somepin out.”
Suddenly the boy cried, “He’s dyin’, I tell
you! He’s starvin’ to death, I tell you.”
“Hush,” said Ma. She looked at Pa and Uncle
John standing helplessly gazing at the sick man. She looked at Rose of Sharon
huddled in the comfort. Ma’s eyes passed Rose of Sharon’s eyes, and then came
back to them. And the two women looked deep into each other. The girl’s breath
came short and gasping. She said, “Yes.”
Ma smiled, “I knowed you would. I knowed!”
She looked down at her hands tight-locked in her lap.
Rose of Sharon whispered, “Will – will you
all – go out?” The rain whisked lightly on the roof.
Ma leaned forward and with her palm she
brushed the tousled hair back from her daughter’s forehead, and she kissed her
on the forehead. Ma got up quickly. “Come on, you fellas,” she called. “You
come out in the tool shed.”
Ruthie opened her mouth to speak. “Hush,” Ma
said. “Hush and git.” She herded them through the door, drew the boy with her,
and she closed the squeaking door.
For a minute Rose of Sharon sat still in the
whispering barn. Then she hoisted her tired body up and drew the comfort about
her. She moved slowly to the corner and stood looking down on the wasted face,
into the wide, frightened eyes. Then slowly she lay down beside him. He shook
his head slowly from side to side. Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the
blanket and bared her breast. “You got to,” she said. She squirmed closer and
pulled his head close. “There!” she said. “There.” Her hand moved behind his
head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently in his hair. She looked up and
across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.
Amen.
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