7th Trinity III, 2021, Here is Everywhere

7^th Trinity III

Luke 10:25-37 

On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

He answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;' and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself."

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this, and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

 In reply, Jesus said, "A man was going

Van Gogh

down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

"But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."

Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

7th August Trinity

September 5, 2021

Luke 10:25-37

Christ affirms that to love God with one's whole being and to love one's fellow human beings as well as oneself is the path to eternal life. Love directed outward, beyond oneself, overcomes the deadening effects of mere self-love. Yet there comes our somewhat defensive next question: which of my fellow human beings am I supposed to love? Christ's answer in story form is— Not just my family, not just my own tribe or those with whom I can identify. Any fellow human being whom I happen upon along the way can be the recipient of a love that expresses itself in concrete action. For it is our deeds, not our feelings, that live beyond the boundaries of this life.
The key here is to regard others with an attitude of mercy, of loving-kindness. And then we give and do what we can.

Corrine Vonaesch

It may be that in the story of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite felt that they could not touch the unclean man because they were on their way to do work that required their ritual cleanliness. The Samaritan, though despised by the Jews, was truly free to help (or not). He helps a stranger in both a personal, hands-on way and also by deputizing and paying the innkeeper to complete the work involved with the man's healing. He is thereby pulling in others to help. And he thus also maintains his own freedom to help the next victim he finds, to further practice his love for his fellow human beings.

Christ is saying that our neighbor is not necessarily one whom we know, the one who lives next door. It is also the stranger whom we meet along the way. It is we who are to act neighborly. The poet Wislawa Szymborska expresses the universality of this:

Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: "Somebody save me! I'm here. The ocean cast me on this desert island.

I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I'm here!" 

"There's no date. I bet it's already too late anyway.

It could have been floating for years," the first fisherman said. 

"And he doesn't say where. It's not even clear which ocean," the second fisherman said. 

"It's not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere," the third fisherman said.*

 

* "Parable," in Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, trans. S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh

 

7th Trinity III 2020, Avoid and Focus

7^th August Trinity

Luke 10:1-20 

After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him, before his face, to every town and place where he himself was about to go. He told them, “An ample harvest, and few workers! Ask the harvest master, therefore, to send out workers to help with the harvesting. Go: I hereby send you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a wallet or knapsack or sandals, and do not pause to greet anyone on the way.

 

“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If a person of peace is there, your peace will alight on them; if not, it will turn round and come back to you. Stay in that place, eating and drinking with them, because the worker is worth his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

“When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you, and heal the sick and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is close upon you.’ But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we are shaking off before your eyes. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is approaching. I am telling you, Sodom will be better off than that town on that day. 

“The worse for you, Chorazin! The worse for you, Bethsaida! Because if the deeds of the spirit that occurred in you had occurred in Tyre and Sidon, they would long since be sitting in sackcloth and ashes as a sign of their change of heart and mind. But Tyre and Sidon will be better off on the day of decision than you. And you, Capernaum, won’t you be exalted to the skies? You will go down to the depths. 

Dore

Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me, but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me." 

The seventy-two returned with joy and said: “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” 

He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Here, I have now given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and all the power of the enemy, and none of it shall ever hurt you. But do not be glad that the spirits submit to you; be glad that your true being is taken up into the world of the heavens (that your names are recorded in the heavens).

7^th Trinity

September 6, 2020

Luke 10:1-20

In the reading, Christ sends out a multiplicity of people into the world. He tells them that their situation is like a lamb being sent out among wolves. He also tells them three things that will protect them from being ‘devoured.’

First, they are not to hoard (no wallet or knapsack). Then they are not to lose focus and get distracted by pausing to greet others on the way. And further, they are to develop a peaceful equanimity. They are to radiate peace. They are not to worry about results—if they are not welcomed, they should move on.

We all have our task in life, and our karmic appointments to keep. Nowadays, it is tempting to accumulate ‘stuff’ as a hedge against the wolf of anxiety.  And it goes without saying that we are inundated by sales calls, emails, media posts that may be distracting us from our true task.

At the same time, amazingly, we are to send out our peace, and if it is not accepted or absorbed by others, it is meant to return to us; that is, we absorb it back into ourselves. We are meant not to lose our inner balance if people reject us, or to be disappointed if things don’t turn out the way we had hoped.

If we can succeed in the difficult inner tasks of avoiding accumulating, of avoiding distractions, if we can focus in peace and inner balance, then indeed the wolfish demons of fear and false expectations must submit to us, to Christ working in us. For this is the way Christ now works on the earth—in us, and through us.