The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, 2016 – Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37
Why do we do this?
Why do we get up on a Sunday morning when we could be sleeping in and cajole our children into their good clothes and mess up our babies’ nap schedules and trek over here to church—even when a Canadian is in the Wimbledon final?
Why do we bring our babies here to be baptized?
The answer, in part, is that we want our children to be like the Good Samaritan.
We want our child to be the one who sees the person in need and turns aside not to harm, but to comfort and to help. Especially this week we want this.
The irony cannot have escaped any of you.
In today’s Gospel reading, the Good Samaritan sees the badly beaten man and stops, and pours ointment on his wounds, and puts him on his own donkey, and takes him to an inn so that he can live. In this week’s news, two policemen in the US pump two unresisting African-American men full of bullets so that they die.
The Good Samaritan is the story we long to hear. It is a story about what it means for people to be neighbours, to live together in peace. It is a story about mercy, which is another name for love.
Here are two men with a long history of ethnic enmity behind them, the Samaritan and the Jew. They were once one people, Israel. But they are no longer. The northern kingdom—now Samaria—was conquered long ago by Assyria and the people deported and otherwise mixed with non-Jews. So the Jew looks down on the Samaritan, considers him unclean and no true worshipper of God—and the Samaritans in their turn hate the Jews. But in the moment of the Jew’s need, it is the Samaritan, his ancient enemy, who stops to help. It is the Samaritan who doesn’t care about the man’s Jewishness, doesn’t care about the danger, doesn’t care about the risk of becoming unclean, who cares only that this man is in need, and stops to help.
This is the story we long to hear. This is the world we want. And it is so far this week from the world we have.
In the world this week we have the exact opposite, worse even than the priest and the Levite who pass by on the other side. We have the police officer, the one called to help and protect, not just passing by but killing these black men, their neighbours and countrymen, in cold blood.
There is tragedy in the juxtaposition of these murders—the long history behind them of oppression and prejudice and fear, the evil of slavery and race-hatred and its power to destroy—there is tragedy in the juxtaposition of these murders and the story of the Good Samaritan today.
There is grief at how far we are from being the people we want to be.
But there is also hope. Because the Good Samaritan is a story we know to be true. However sensible the priest and Levite might be, however pressed in the busy-ness of their own lives, however real the danger of stopping to help a man who has just been mugged man, we are cheering for the Samaritan. Our heart goes out to the man in his need and we are glad the Samaritan stops. We do not say he is foolish or irresponsible. We say he is good.
Our hearts are with the Good Samaritan. This is the first sign of hope. And what do our hearts say? They say that mercy is the most important thing in the world. “Who was a neighbor to this man?” Jesus asks. “The one who showed mercy to him,” the lawyer replies. Mercy—this care for the other who is in need—mercy is the truth at the bottom of all things.
Jesus calls us in his word to mercy. He calls us back to our own heart of hearts, to a world in which we are neighbours, to a world in which we do not harm or destroy, but stop and care and love.
But how shall we do this? How shall we live by the mercy we so long for?
For we know that mercy is true, but still this week we are weeping for the violence that has been done, for fear and prejudice and oppression, for the failure to be a neighbor, the failure to love the other as ourselves, the failure to care.
It is here that there is a second sign of hope.
For Jesus does not leave us alone. He does not just tell us the story—though he does do that, and it is important. We need this word, we need the Good Samaritan to hold up against the harm we do in our lives, we need this vision of a mercy that is true. Jesus gives us the vision. He calls us back to our heart of hearts. This is one reason we come to church. It is one reason we bring our children here instead of sleeping in, instead of reading the paper; we come here at some cost, messing with nap times, cajoling the kids into good clothes, helping them learn to listen and catch a glimpse of God. We come here to hear the word that is true, we come here so that our children can hear the word that is true, for ourselves and for our children the vision of mercy at the root of all things. The promise in Christ of a kingdom that is good.
This is a great hope, help to our hearts and challenge to our lives in the midst of a weeping world.
But this is not all. For Jesus does not leave us there. He does not leave us with the vision, with a story and a hope.
He takes our hand and leads us; he comes to us in our weeping and walks with us into the mercy that is true.
For who is it that has mercy? It is God who shows mercy; the word appears again and again, drawing his people Israel out of slavery through the Red Sea into the promised land; it is God who shows mercy when his people turn away, sending them prophets, drawing them back by his word, by his judgement, by his steadfast love, again and again. It is God who shows mercy in Jesus the Christ, who turns aside from his heavenly power and comes to us, to hear our cry and heal our wounds, heal this weeping we have inflicted on ourselves; Jesus who comes to give his own life so that we who are dying might live.
It is God who has mercy in Jesus the Christ. He is the Good Samaritan.
He comes to us in our need. And even as he offers us healing, the knowledge of the mercy that is true, he takes our hand and lifts us up so that we may live with him. Jesus is the one who lives mercy. And he takes our hand and calls us to live mercy with him.
I have called you by name, God says to his weeping people in Isaiah. I have called you by name, you are mine. In this baptism Jesus calls us. Name this child, we will say. Lewis and Nayla, Estella and Jonah, this child, each one, we name you in this baptism God’s own. Named Christ’s own forever, in this water and this cross. It is God who has mercy in Jesus the Christ. And he calls us, each one, to take his hand. Precious Lord, the old hymn goes, take my hand. Our Lord waits here today with hands outstretched. Here is mercy in the flesh, waiting to take our hand.
How shall we learn to have mercy? We shall learn in Jesus, who loved us and stretched out his hands to us; stretched out his hands for us so that we might through the nail-marks in his hands be healed. There is more than a story here; more than a hope. There is the thing itself, the man himself, the Good Samaritan alive and active, mercy abroad in the land. In our baptism he calls us. He claims us, and he walks with us, so that our children may live mercy in this world.
