NEIGHBOURS - MORE THAN AN AUSSIE SOAP! LUKE 10: 25 - 37

It was during the war in the former Yugoslavia. A reporter covering the violence in Sarajevo saw a young girl fall to the ground, hit by a sniper’s bullet. He threw down his pen and paper and ran to a man who was holding the stricken child. Seeing the gravity of the situation, the journalist guided the man and child into his car and then sped off in the direction of the hospital.
As they drove through the streets, the man holding the girl called out, “Hurry, my friend, my child s still alive.” Moments later he called out again, “Hurry, my friend my child is still breathing.” A little later with a voice that betrayed some desperation, he called out again, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still warm.”

Alas, by the time they reached the hospital, the child had died. As the two men sat together, the man who had held the child turned to the reporter and said, “Now comes a terrible task. I must go and tell her father what has happened.”

The journalist looked at the man with shock before saying, “But I thought she was your child.”

“No” replied the man “but aren’t they all our children?”

A 20th Century story that reminds us of our interconnectedness with one another, a message that is at the heart of the parable that Jesus told about the Good Samaritan.

Let us just for a moment look to the background of this parable. Jesus has been asked for the way to eternal life. He has reminded the man of the Old Testament Law. The man when asked what is in the Law, answers with words taken from the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, words in other Gospels attributed to Jesus but in Luke’s Gospel receiving the assent of Jesus - namely to love God with heart, soul, strength and mind - and also to love one’s neighbour as oneself. These are accepted by Jesus as summarising the Law and encompassing its spirit. In short, the follower of Christ is called to love God with all his or her being and for that to be expressed in the love of others. In a sense the two go together for the ways of God are ways of love and kindness.

I remember years ago hearing of a story in which a man arrived at a church to be warmly greeted at the door. Ignoring the warmth of the greeting, he muttered angrily, “ I came to Church to worship God, not to socialise with the likes of you!” In a real sense he had missed the point for the worship of God is not just expressed in as it were addressing the one who is on high. Surely it is also horizontal in its direction being directed to God whom we meet through what the Quakers call the ‘Divine Spark’ which is to be found in others whom we encounter.

But back to the story that Jesus told. The man wanted to know more and so we find him asking Jesus who is his neighbour. And at that Jesus tells this well known story. It is about a reckless traveller going on what then and even into the 20th Century was a dangerous journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. It was a journey which stretched for some 20 miles with a descent from 2,300 feet above sea level to 1,300 feet below sea level. It was rocky and full of sharp turnings which made it a happy hunting ground for brigands. So notorious was the road that in the 5th Century Jerome tells us that it was known as “The Bloody Way.” Only a fool would dare to travel it alone and it was about such a fool that Jesus tells his story about. Nobody listening would be remotely surprised to hear that this man received a good going over. After all he had earned it with his stupidity.

But the story moves on to look at those who later came down the road. The first such people were a priest and a levite, good respectable religious men. But for their own reasons, as they see the battered man, they decide that he is not their responsibility and so pass by on the other side. But then comes a third man, a Samaritan! I wonder if there was a groan from Jesus’ listeners at this. After all they would have seen Samaritans as the enemy. Five centuries of animosity between Jew and Samaritan had taken place and there was in the lifetime of Jesus, no sign of historic handshakes or the likes. The Samaritan had no reason to care for a battered Jew but there we find the rub! For amazingly the Samaritan far from administering another kicking actually administers first aid to the wounded man before taking him to an inn and paying for his convalescence there. The Samaritan, unlike the beaten man’s own people, emerges as the true neighbour of the battered Jew.

Sometimes now, we tame this story into being a rather nice story but I am sure that most of those who first heard Jesus tell it, heard it through clenched teeth because this was a story that challenged their prejudices and suggested that even those whom they most despised were the people whom the command, “Love your neighbour” brought them into contact with.
And heard truly today, it continues to be a story with the power to shock and discomfort. For its essential message is that our responsibilities are not simply to “Me and Mine” but to those whom we decidedly see as “Other.” Oh, I know that none of us gets worked up about the small community of Samaritans that still exists in the Middle East but I wonder if we too see some people whose beliefs, lifestyle or place of background discomfort us as being beyond the pale. Well, this parable challenges us to examine our points of prejudice and to see that those we find it hardest to see as our neighbours, are precisely that, just as us, children of God. And so, this parable rebukes us should we be tempted to dehumanise others in our hearts and challenges us to see in neighbourliness not the sickly niceness of the Australian soap, but a calling to work for fair play for those unjustly treated in life even when at times they are in part the architects of their misfortunes.

But how far does all of this go? Let me tell you about Michael Weisser a prominent Jew who moved to Lincoln in Nebraska USA. As he and his wife were unpacking, they received a phone call telling them they would be sorry to have moved there. Soon they received hate mail purporting to come from the Klu Klux Klan with sick racist and anti semitic pictures. The police when contacted, advised that it probably came from Larry Trapp who was the leading Klansman in that state. They warned that he had a history of violence, making explosives which were used against the Klan’s victims. Indeed they had reason to believe that he was plotting to blow up the synagogue that Weisser was called to lead.

Now Trapp despite all of this was confined to a wheel chair as a result of lat stage diabetes. So when he began a race hate TV series on a cable channel, Weisser rang his hotline phone number and reminded him that under his hero Hitler’s laws, Trapp would have been amongst the first victims.

Over time, Weisser continued to phone the hotline. One day, Trapp picked it up and responded aggressively in the end demanding to know why Weisser kept ringing. At that moment Weisser remembered a suggestion from his wife and so responded, “ Well I was thinking you might need a hand with something, and I wondered if I could help. I know you’re in a wheel chair and I thought maybe I could take you to the grocery store or something.”

Trapp gave a sort of gruff thanks. Weisser continued with the calls and eventually Trapp admitted that he was having to do some thinking. But in no time Trapp was back with the same old hate filled rants. Next time when they spoke there was a row and Trapp admitted that he found it hard to get out of his old ways. The next evening, however, he phoned Weisser and told him he wanted to give up his old ways. That night they met and amid many a tear embraced.
Ultimately, Trapp left all his racist organisations and wrote many a letter of apology. When his health deteriorated further, he moved in with the Weissers and Mrs Weisser gave up her job to nurse him. He even converted to Judaism.

Larry Trapp, a man who fro childhood experienced the violence of his own father had met his own Good Samaritan and been changed by the experience.

Most of us cannot imagine going as far as Michael Weisser. Yet there is no greater need to day than that we show value to those who are other than us. It is only commonsense for as Martin Luther King observed,

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Yes, in our world of diversity, we need to recognise that all who hurt are indeed our children.
This morning as we look to God who reconciles the world to himself, may we take seriously, the call of God made flesh that we should seek reconciliation and real love in a world where we all are NEIGHBOURS!

This sermon was preached at a service of baptism at Bideford Methodist Church on October 30th 2005 as the second in a series of 3 sermons from 'Parables of Jesus.'

FORGIVENESS UNLIMITED

When I left the Isle of Man, I suspected that there would be a number of people who I had met who I would never hear of again. One of those was Robin Oake who for much of our time there was the Chief Constable of the Isle of Man Constabulary. Before you get excited about a possibly colourful past, I had better disabuse you. My dealings with Robin Oake were strictly on areas of Christian activity. During my first year in Kirk Michael he was involved in supporting a number of meetings at the Methodist Church which were organised by a Christian body to whom we let the church out. I also served with him on Walk Isle of Man. I can’t say that I was close to him but I appreciated that he was a very sincere man who was as straight as a dye.

It was whilst in Cambridge that I heard of a policeman who had been stabbed to death in Manchester. Even the name Stephen Oake failed to register with me but what caught my eye was reading of Robin who turned out to be Stephen’s father, in a tearful interview spoke of how he was praying that God would help him forgive his son’s killer. In subsequent interviews, Robin Oake has spoken of praying for the killer of his sin, a killer who is now serving a life sentence. Had I never met Robin Oake, the cynic in me could easily have thought that what I read was just words but I know enough of this man to know that he who has suffered a terrible loss, is sincere in his belief that following Christ leads him to express forgiveness even to one who has taken from him a much loved son.

Today is the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York. I guess that most of us can remember the moment when we heard what had happened. In my case I was popping into a shop to buy computer ink cartridges. My first instinct was to visit a nearby member of one of my churches and together we sat in silence watching as events unfurled.

In the years that have followed, there have been two wars, further terrorist outrages and we seem more ready to excuse torture than was the case in the past. Whilst there are those with whom it is difficult to envisage dialogue, I think that we are moving more and more to a polarised world in which polarisation are getting ever larger. A while ago I watched a short film which suggested that;

Terrorism is bred in
Fear
Anger
Hatred.

Terrorism creates in the people against whom it is aimed;
Fear
Anger
Hatred in otherwise peaceful people

Retaliation creates;
Fear
Anger
Hatred in innocent people who suffer from such retaliation

And of course terrorism is bred in such
Fear
Anger
Hatred

In other words, a cycle of hatred and violence is self perpetuating and it is an ever increasing circle in its scope. And I would add that what is true regarding nations is also true of families and communities.

No wonder Mahatma Gandhi expressed the view that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” originally devised as a means of keeping conflict within proportionality, ultimately leads to a world of blind and toothless people.

And so we come to the words of Jesus. Jesus is clearly in favour of breaking the cycle. His disciples want to know how many times they should forgive those who wrong them. Is seven times enough? But Jesus isn’t into their numbers game. He comes up with the unbelievably high formula of seventy times seven. In other words, Jesus suggests that there is no limit but that there is a calling to go on and on forgiving. In a sense Jesus turns upside down all our notion of common sense and the expert’s view of statecraft.

But we all know that forgiveness is at times a tall order. I think of my mother’s cousin who was a prisoner in a Japanese prisoner of war camp for a lengthy period of time. I am told that when he returned home after the war, neither his mother or girl friend recognised him at first. Having never talked about the war with him, I do not know if he ever forgave his captors or even the nation that did such wrongs to him. I can’t but think it would have been asking a lot of him.

And then I think of Simon Wiesenthal the Jewish prisoner of the Nazis who later became famous for hunting down Nazi war criminals. He wrote a moving book entitled “ The Sunflower.” It tells of his time as a prisoner and of his encounter with a dying SS soldier. He was brought to this man who had but hours left to live and listened to the man’s story of having been involved in a massacre of Jews. The soldier knew he had done wrong and wished the forgiveness of a Jew. Wiesenthal listened patiently to the man and even provided him with water. However, the request for forgiveness was something that Wiesenthal could not respond positively to in part at least due to the Jewish understanding that one can only forgive what has been done against oneself as opposed to others. So in silence he rose and left the man.

Some might take another view. An example is Bud Welch. He lost his daughter in the Oklahoma bombing. For a time he was consumed with bitterness. But then he recalled how his daughter had so passionately opposed the death penalty and had told him before her death that it never solved things for the victims. So he began to speak out against executions and even visited the killer Timothy Mc Veigh’s father and did everything he could to oppose the execution which ultimately took place.

For indeed one of the problems with holding on to grudges is that they can consume us. Nelson Mandela served 27 years in gaol. Some time after his release, he met with the then President Clinton. Clinton had one big question which he wanted t put. It concerned a look on Mandela’s face as he walked to the gate of the prison. Clinton saw upon Mandela’s face a look of anger and hatred which he couldn’t reconcile with the Mandela who he was now meeting and who he knew had taken great steps for reconciliation. In response to the question, Mandela explained that he thought of all that had happened to his family and friends in those years before adding;
Then, I sensed an inner voice saying to me, "Nelson! For twenty seven years you were their prisoner but you were always a free man! Don’t allow them to make you into a free man, only to turn you into their prisoner."

And in a real way we can learn from those words. For bitterness can only enslave us and prevent us from being the people that God wishes us to be, the people who reflect his love and peace.

But it is inevitably hard. Corrie ten Boom knew how hard it was. She spent years in Ravensbruck Concentration camp where unspeakable horrors took place. There her own sister Betsy was among those who died. In 1947, whilst speaking in Munich, one of the cruellest guards at Ravensbruck approached her. He told her how he had become a Christian and that he knew he had God’s forgiveness but he wanted to hear hers as well. In that moment she just could not reach out to this man and so she prayed for God’s help and ultimately she was able to fully forgive this man who had done such wrong to her and so many others.

So are there limits to forgiveness. With God, the answer is No! But what of us? Well, surely forgiveness to be real has to be sought by the wrongdoer. It is not about our forgetting what has happened or our assuming that the person couldn’t have done better. It is about recognising the wrongdoer as someone capable of moral actions even if they have acted immorally. It is necessary that they sincerely seek forgiveness and it is that sincerity rather than the scope of the wrong done that should be the gate to forgiveness. For nations I suspect that what is needed is the resolve for reconciliation and an ability not to simply demonise as increasingly is being done against the wider community of Islam. We certainly need to desist from judging others by their worse moments or we might be judged harshly on the same basis.

More and more I sense that in our world there is a tendency to dehumanise others with all the horrible consequences that such involves. Against such a background, I suggest we need to treat seriously the countercultural teaching of Jesus.
AMEN

This sermon was preached at the evening service at Northam on September 11th

SHOCK AND GRACE LUKE 15:11-32

The film “Amadeus” tells the story of the relationship between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. The music of Mozart is amongst the greatest music ever written and it is close to impossible to imagine a time when it becomes forgotten. Salieri was also a distinguished musician, the Court Composer of the Austrian Emperor no less. However, his music was no match for that of Mozart and Salieri knew it. His earnest desire to write great music of praise to God was eclipsed by the ill mannered brat of a delinquent that was Mozart. Salieri just cannot cope with God so gifting the obnoxious Mozart that he becomes consumed with bitterness, eventually turning on a crucifix to utter his pain;

From now on we are enemies. You and I. Because you choose for Your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me only the ability to recognize the incarnation.

In these words, Salieri as many have done since finds the grace of God unfair.

Perhaps at this stage we need to look at a few simple definitions. When we talk of justice we talk of getting what we deserve. When we talk of mercy we talk of being spared what we deserve. But when we speak of grace we speak of getting what we do not deserve, the generous kindness of God.

And it is such grace that is at the heart of the Parable of the Prodigal Son or as perhaps it is better described, The Parable of the Loving Father.

In this story, Jesus uses the Father figure to teach us something of the nature of God. Sometimes, we struggle to appreciate just how wronged the Father is by his younger son. Sometimes, we simply see the younger son as a man in a hurry. However, the New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey who lived in the Middle East for many years points out the uniqueness of the son demanding his share of the inheritance. It simply does not happen in the countless Middle Eastern stories of two brothers where often the younger brother is a rascal. Why? Because the request is so extreme that it would be understood as expressing a desire for the father to die. In short the younger brother is telling the father to “drop dead!” And yet rather the beat his Son for his callous request as the hearers would expect, the Father gives him his inheritance and his freedom. For this Father is not acting as a Jewish father would be expected to act. Instead, he is the Father who gives his child the chance to explore in freedom.

This surprise gets added to later for when the Son returns with precious little repentance but rather the actions of self interest, the Father responds not with chastisement but with instant forgiveness and generosity, restoring the Son to all the joys of being a Son, the very status that the Son had so abused.

Think back to what grace is, the giving of what we do not deserve and here you will find it in full.

And in this we see the grace of God to you and me. Here we see God not as a stern monarchical figure as so often the Church has portrayed God as being but as a parent filled with the extremities of love, crossing even the boundaries of gender by running to kiss the Son and later by remonstrating with the sullen older Son in a way that would normally be the conduct of a mother rather than a father. No wonder that Rembrandt is his painting of “The Return of the Prodigal Son” goes out of his way to portray the Father with feminine as well as masculine characteristics. It is in the merger of the two that we are able to see the immensity and the self giving that is the Father’s love. And God made flesh in Jesus shows us how much that grace is for us. Not for nothing does the Requiem Mass write of Christ’s Passion and journey to the cross with the moving words;

Remember, merciful Jesus, that I am the cause of your journey.

And so in a world in which people are written off for their failings, the grace of God reveals that the God of the Universe, values us in full knowledge of our shortcomings and offers to each of us value and love beyond anything we deserve. So when we feel as nothing, written off by others, God in love longs to embrace us with the arms of absolutely unconditional love. And God has that feeling for us not because of any illusions as to how good we are but in full knowledge of our shortcomings. And that is what grace is about.

Sometimes, today, I hear Christians wonder what the followers of Jesus have to offer to the world today. We have no monopoly on great music, fine literature or beautiful art. We have found that whilst in the 19th Century it was the Church which opened up the possibilities of education and provided much health care, the public sector can now do this much better than we can. When it comes to working with the young, other organisations can provide much better equipment particularly with regards to the likes of computers. Yes, in most fields, we have precious little that is unique to offer. And yet we have one precious thing to share which people need- grace! That is the news of God’s grace and the potential to be a means of God’s grace to others.

Phil Yancey tells an appalling story of a friend. This friend was approached by a prostitute who was in a terrible state. Homeless, sick and hungry, she came to Yancey’s friend and revealed a dreadful story of how her drug addiction had taken her so low that she was renting out her own daughter to her clients so that she could afford drugs. Yancey’s friend felt intense anguish knowing that he would have to report this woman to the authorities and so had few means of helping her. In despair, he asked her if she had thought of going to a church for help. A look of panic came over the woman before she answered,

“Church! Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

And in those words we find a challenge, for during the life of Jesus, people who had hit rock bottom ran towards him rather than away from him. The whole background to this story is that the Pharisees were complaining that Jesus was sharing meals with undesirables. And of course that is how in our story the older brother saw the younger brother. He saw only the bad in his younger sibling and so felt no desire to welcome him back and on the basis of justice he was probably right but he had missed out on grace.

I get a feeling that today, the older brother is representative of mainstream attitudes in our society. We give up on people, freeze them in their worst moments and see them as lesser. The modern day High Priests of media preach a message of judgement without mercy. How utterly contrary to the message of Christ in which people are restored out of timeless love.

During my time in training, I spent some time in prison chaplaincy often with a minister who found Circuit work stressful and unrewarding. His work in bringing hope, giving time and showing value of prisoners seemed to be what kept him going. And whilst I do not share his unhappiness at Circuit life, I think I can see where he was coming from for behind those imposing bars where dwelt many who were whatever the wrongs they had done, themselves casualties, chaplaincy was so often a sign of grace through which the incarcerated men were able to begin discovering what it means to be valued, an alien experience for all too many.

Increasingly, I feel that our society has a choice of the way ahead. We can self righteously write people of when they foul up. It may seem like commonsense to many people even though it ultimately leads to ever increasing cycles of shame, broken lives, hatred and violence. Or we can dare to let ourselves be dominated by grace with all the counter cultural implications of such a choice.

Struggling for a title to this sermon, I came across the example of a minister who provided a sermon title of “Murderers, Criminals, Prostitutes Welcome.” And rather than have it put on a Notice Sheet as I do, he had it put on the church sign out in front of the church. In no time, the complaints began, telephone calls were made to members of the church council condemning the minister and demanding that the sign be pulled down. They had not understood grace.

But for me my mind when back to the days before the Iraq War when we were told that “Shock and Awe” would be unleashed. Overwhelming military power, we were told was the way to change things. Judge for yourselves the consequences of such a notion. This morning I just want to leave you with the suggestion that ultimately grace changes more than overwhelming power can ever do. For this gift of God transforms our lives and has the capacity to change the world beyond. And it is hardly for us to refuse for each of us has received of God more than we could ever deserve. For his grace, his love for us has changed everything even at cost to Christ

Remember, merciful Jesus, that I am the cause of your journey.

I am sure he remembers. But do we?


This sermon was preached at a baptism service in Bideford on October 16th 2005. It was the first in a series of 3 sermons on 'Parables of Jesus.'