C
Proper 10 15 Ord BFC 2016
Luke 10:25-37
July 10, 2016
One
of my favorite comedians used to be Stephen Wright—he of bushy hair and a bald
spot, crooked nose and deadpan delivery.
He would say things like, “I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and went
back in time.” For just a minute, your
mind would think, “Is that really possible?”
Then his next joke would be, “I have a to-scale map of the United States
at home. One mile equals one mile.” He would then help you visualize the map by
showing what trouble he had folding it in his living room.
Wright’s
humor was built on taking common expectations and experiences and twisting and
turning them until your mind was open to the possibility of a different
reality. One connected through instant
coffee, microwaves, and map folding, then ended up in some kind of mental limbo
after he delivered the punch line. In
the punch line was something outside of our experience or expectation which
asked us to continue the story, expanded the world of the listener, even
changed the listener’s perspective on what was possible.
A
priest, a rabbi, and a Buddha walk into a bar.
So begin many of the religious jokes I receive through e-mail. Just reading the joke’s opening line,
expectations are built that suggest a punch line is on the horizon. Humor is built on these common expectations,
often a common set of experiences that then has twists and turns to amuse and
sometimes open us up to an entirely different reality. A priest, a rabbi, and a Buddha walk into a
bar. Three spiritually devout people
starting out a joke is such a common experience, such a prototype for the
expectation of humor, that the last joke I heard went like this:
“A
priest, a rabbi, and a Buddha walk into a bar.
The bartender asked, ‘What is this, a joke?’”
Parables
serve the same function. Jesus took a
common set of peasant experiences and expectations, told them in such a way
that people believed they knew the ending.
Then he would deliver a punch line that would ask the listener to expand
their heart and mind, open themselves up to a reality not yet contemplated.
With
many good jokes and parables, we start with our common experience. We all know how dangerous the Jericho Pass
is, a desolate and cave-lade area, perfect for a hiding bandit. We can imagine robbers preying upon the
common Jew, someone just like us, stripping us, beating us, and leaving us
half-dead. Banditry was common. That person lying half-dead along the road .
. . that could be any one of us.
So
along come three people: a priest, a
Levite, and a Judean. Those were the
common three, the telltale triumvirate.
Though the priest and the Levite might, upon seeing this poor Jewish
person, pass by on the other side, the person just like us, the Jewish
layperson, much like one of Jesus’ listeners, would certainly be the hero, save
the day. Upon seeing this poor Jewish
person, the Judean would have compassion and stop to offer aid.[1]
Jesus
delivers the punch line of the parable by replacing expectation with
surprise. Though the hearers might
expect one of their own as the hero of the story, Jesus opens up a different
reality by making a Samaritan the savior.
For Samaritans and Jews were bitter enemies in first century Rome. Josephus, the Jewish historian, records that
in the year 52 C. E., Galileean Jewish pilgrims were attacked and killed when
they crossed the border into Samaria. In
retaliation, Judean guerilla forces raided Samaritan towns, murdered the
inhabitants, and burned their homes to the ground. The Romans quelled the in-fighting by
crucifying and beheading a number of leaders on both sides.[2]
So
the punch line of the parable is that a Jewish teacher might even consider
putting the word “good” and the person from Samaria in the same sentence. New Testament scholar, Robert Funk, made this
clear when he wrote that Judeans considered Samaritans a “bastard race.” To call someone a Samaritan, from a Judean
perspective, was an insult.[3]
Over
the years we have domesticated the good Samaritan story and made it over into a
parable about neighborliness. Beyond an
example of neighborliness, the Good Samaritan story is a parable that opens up
our hearts and minds to seeing our enemy as the arbiter of God’s compassion and
hospitality. So though we might find it
difficult to imagine ourselves to stopping and helping someone stripped,
beaten, and lying half-dead along the road, I believe the story asks even more
of us. The story has us identifying
ourselves with the person lying half-dead along the road. Our mortal enemy is the one who stops, comes
to us offering the compassion and hospitality of God. The story is not about what good we can do,
but our ability to see the capacity for God’s blessing and goodness in others.
For a
moment, Jesus is trying to suspend the common experiences and reinforced
expectations of Jewish peasants. While
Jewish peasants may have expected to hear the good Judean, Jesus is trying to
expand the listener’s world, change the listener’s perspective, make the
listener imagine something they could not even have, heretofore, imagined. Jesus told parables to break the expected
cycle of violence and poverty experienced by exploited and oppressed Jewish
peasants in first century Rome.[4] That cycle of violence continued as long as
Jews and Samaritans saw each other as a “bastard race.” Jews and Samaritans, exploited and oppressed
by Rome, both needed to be able to receive the compassion and hospitality that
the other could offer.
So we
are stripped, beaten, and left half-dead along the road, maybe in the alley
just behind our building, or on the south side, or maybe just outside of Busby,
or a rural, racist community in the hinterlands of Montana? Maybe Missoula? How would we fill in the blank? With what individual or group would we never
put the word, “good?” Maybe it is even
an individual or group to whom we have spent our whole life serving, to whom we
have donated our time and money. We are
more than willing to give “to them.” We
just bristle at the notion that they might give to us. We cannot possibly imagine having gifts,
compassion and hospitality, offered to us from people we normally serve.
Some
years back, the United Church of Christ identity campaign promoted a poster
that had the words Good Samaritan printed out and the word “Samaritan” crossed
out. In its place, the word “Iraqi” was
inserted. Maybe we would take it a step
further to use “ISIS” or “Taliban” or “Al-Quaiada” today. To me, however, that seems a little too easy
and a little too far away. After all, to
update this parable, we need two groups that share boundaries, chafe at those
boundaries, and might even cross into each other’s territory every so often.
The
challenge is to leave the comfort of seeing this story as a hero’s tale about
neighborliness. The challenge is to have
the courage to listen faithfully so that our world might be expanded, our
expectations transformed, and our perspective on what is possible changed. How do we fill in the blank? The good _____?
Late
at night, a carload of people from Billings First Congregational Church returned
from their mission trip. It was late at
night and they were surprised by some people who sought solace from the wind at
their back door. While asking for
directions, this group robbed them, destroyed their van, and left them for dead
in the back alley. Now Mike had not
finished his sermon at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday morning so he came into the office
to make some changes, but he knew something was up and entered by the front
door. The Conference Minister, Rev. Marc
Stewart, realizing he had to drop off some promotional material, passed by the
church, saw the commotion, and dropped off the material at the front door.. There was another person who came by these
lovely Billings First Congregational people, someone we would have never
imagined. And that person was _______?
To
end the cycle of violence we do to each other, the hatred and bitterness we
harbor, we need to fill in the blank, figure out the punch line. And maybe, just maybe if we are open to
hearing the parable told again, our world expands, transforms the nature of our
relationships, and our perspective remembers that we were all made in the image
of God’s love, compassion, and hospitality.
And in so doing, we are open to receiving more love than we ever
imagined possible. Would that it be so. Amen.
[1] Bernard Brandon Scott, Re-Imagine
the World: An Introduction to the
Parables of Jesus (Santa Rosa, California:
Polebridge Press, 2001), pp. 56-63.
[2] http://www.beliefnet.com/story/31/story_3100_1.html, Robert Funk, “What’s Good
about the Good Samaritan: A scholar
explains that the Samaritans were actually a hated ethnic class.”
[3] Ibid.
[4] William R. Herzog II, Parables
as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue
of the Oppressed (Louisville, Kentucky:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), pp. 25-29. Using the teach of Paulo Freire, Herzog
interprets the parables of Jesus in a way that makes the parables gritty and
real.
No comments:
Post a Comment