Too Much Rule, Too Little Care
Luke 10:25-37
There is a story told of a woman in a rural community who had car trouble on the way to the grocery store one morning. Her car stalled at the town’s one stop sign, and then died. She tried everything to get her car started again, but to no avail. She pumped the gas. She checked to make sure it was in park. She tried holding her breath as she turned the key. She tried exhaling when she turned the key. She waited in case the engine was flooded, and then tried again. And then she waited to see if inspiration would come.
After a short while, a man in a pick-up truck came up behind her and, with obvious agitation, he started impatiently honking his horn at her. She doubled her efforts to get her car going. She pumped the gas, turned the ignition, but still no luck. The man in the pick-up truck continued to honk his horn.
It was then that the woman had an idea. Very calmly she got out of her car, and walked back to the pick-up truck. She motioned for the man to lower his window and then politely she said: “I’ll make a deal with you. If you will start my car for me, I’ll be happy to honk your horn for you!”
My hunch is that all of us, at one time or another, have been either the person with the stalled car or the impatient person honking the horn. And by this, I don’t necessarily mean literally a person in a stalled car, or a person honking a horn, even though there is a good chance of that being true, as well.
What I mean is that we have all either needed help or we have been annoyed with people who needed help. We have either been in a situation where nothing we try seems to work, or we have offered criticism which cannot help make things work. We have been on both sides of that equation, and yet we still have trouble figuring out what to do about it.
Part of our problem in figuring this out is that we think this is a story of two people with separate problems. One has a stalled car which won’t start. The other has a car in front of them which won’t yield the right of way. If this is two separate problems, then there are two separate answers. The first car needs to start. The second car needs to get moving towards their destination.
But this story points out there is really only one problem at this intersection. Neither person can proceed until the front car is either moved or fixed. Repeated futile attempts and repeated futile horn-honking have both been proven ineffective for solving their common problem, and yet, they are still the solutions of choice. Something else has to happen before their common problem can be solved.
In an individualistic world, we resist that there can be common problems. In an individualistic world, we want to be personally safe, personally satisfied, personally saved. In an individualistic world, we want personal accountability, personal recognition, personal achievements. In an individualistic world, we believe we should each get exactly what we deserve, both good and bad. Though we also tend to believe that we, individually, deserve second chances while others, collectively, do not.
All this is in the background for our reading today. We have a lawyer, someone who knows the rules, someone who lives by the rules, asking Jesus to confirm that he has personally done all that he needs to do in order to be in good standing as a member of the Chosen People of God on the Day of Judgment.
We have a lawyer who knows the #1 Commandment is to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. But we also have a lawyer who believes this commandment takes precedence over every other commandment as an organizing principle for living life. And because of this, we have a lawyer who honks his horn at everyone who gets in the way of his journey to his eternal reward, which he so clearly believes he deserves.
I imagine that if Jesus was anyone else, he would have been tempted to cringe at this lawyer's presumption, that he just deserves heaven because he is so good at following the rules. But then, this is Jesus, who has come not to condemn but to save the world. Still, I think Jesus wants someone to cringe. I think this because he tells one of the most cringe-worthy stories of all time in response to the lawyer’s question about who is his neighbor.
Jesus could have told an ordinary and inoffensive story – like one about a woman whose car has stalled and a guy who honks his horn – but instead we get the parable of the Good Samaritan. We have heard the story of the Good Samaritan so often that I suspect most of us miss the cringe factors. So let me briefly point out a few of the more cringe-worthy points.
It begins with a man on the road robbed, beaten, and stripped. The story quickly moves from unfortunate, to brutal, to humiliating. This man no longer has resources to help himself. He can't move because of his injuries. He is naked on the street. Put yourself in this man’s position, and I dare you not to cringe!
A priest, and then a Levite, come across this now destitute, possibly dead, and obviously naked person, and he is blocking their way down the road. They both know that it is a curse to look at a naked body. They both know it will make them unclean to touch a dead body. They both know that, according to their theology, something this bad could only be a punishment from God, so this man deserved what he got.
There is no good reason, under the law, according to the rules, for either of these men to stop and help. So they do not stop. They do not help. They cross over to the other side to avoid being brought down by something that is not their problem. They cross over to the other side to avoid being cursed by the problem. They have individually, and personally, done what is in their best interest, as allowed by law.
But this bloodied naked body in the middle of the road is not the cringe-worthy part of the story for the lawyer. It is sad, yes. It is unfortunate, of course. It is an inconvenient fact of life that people get robbed. But so far, the good guys in the story have acted the way the lawyer would expect good guys to act. And while bad things can happen in life, it didn't happen to them, so it is not their problem.
No, the problem that makes the lawyer cringe is when the Samaritan comes down the road.
In the minds of the faithful in Jerusalem, encountering a Samaritan was worse than being robbed, bloodied, and stripped in public. So, the person lying almost dead on the road is about to have his day go from really bad to the absolute worst – he is about to be touched by a Samaritan! For the lawyer hearing this story, this is a shuddering, cringe-worthy moment.
The Samaritan contaminates the man on the road by touching him. The Samaritan furthers the curse by looking at the nakedness of the man. The Samaritan pours non-kosher wine on the wounds, binds the wounds with non-kosher strips of cloth, and puts the man on his Samaritan-contaminated animal. The man is then taken to an inn where the Samaritan likely used Roman money, with its unholy graven images, to pay for his care.
By every rule of all that is good and holy, everything about this story would make a lawyer cringe. There is not one thing done right. At every step, by every action, things just get worse and worse for the man found on the road. But the biggest cringe-worthy moment is still to come.
If Jesus has asked, “Who followed the rules?” then the lawyer could have lifted up the priest and the Levite as those who did the right thing according to the law. The lawyer would be happy that he had understood the law properly, and that his ticket was punched for heaven.
But that wasn’t the question Jesus asked the lawyer. Instead, Jesus asked, “Who was neighbor to the man?” I think this may have been the moment when the lawyer cringed for the first time for the right reason.
Jesus shifted the question from “who followed the rules” to “who showed compassion.” The focus shifted from “how do I love myself” to “how do I love my neighbor.” The emphasis shifted from “what must I do to get what I want” to “what must I do to get what God wants.”
The lawyer, like most people, wanted there to be rules in life, and he wanted consequences tied to the rules. Rules keep us clean when we follow them, and justify the tarnishing of our reputation when we break them. Rules keep us in good standing when we follow them, and justify our punishment when we break them. Following the rules can declare that we are righteous.
And while Jesus said that he came to fulfill the laws, and not to abolish them, he also said that the laws are fulfilled through love. Holiness, which is righteousness in love, is less about keeping the rules than it is about moving towards perfection in love. Holiness is about connecting to God and our neighbors through the love revealed in the life of Jesus Christ.
Holiness is knowing when love needs to follow the rules, and when love needs to break the rules. In the parable, the priest and the Levite kept the rules, but they did not love their neighbor in need. The Samaritan, rule breaker that he is under Jewish law, showed compassion to the man in need. Showing compassion, Jesus said, is the way to inherit the kingdom of God and eternal life. Compassion determines whether we keep or break the rules.
This question is an ongoing struggle in the church, as well as in business and politics. There are those who think the rules are there to keep us clean – and this is true. There are also those who think the rules can keep us from showing mercy – and this is also true. And when both things are true, the stage is set for conflict between those who want to punish anyone who crosses any line, and those who think lines must be crossed in order to advance the causes of justice and mercy.
The path of holiness is found in that tension, in the midst of relationships. Much like parents dealing with bickering children, it is extremely rare, in life and in faith, that one side is always completely right and the other side is always completely wrong. And just like parents dealing with bickering children, resolution comes when the parent says to one child, “You need to share with those who have a need,” and then says immediately to the other child, “You need to ask and wait for them to share.”
The problems in life, business, politics, and faith are rarely as simple as “I can’t move” and “You are in my way.” The problems arise when we forget that we are in a relationship, and we are called to love each other as Christ loves us in the midst of those problems.
This is true in our families, and it is true in the family of God. It should be true in business and politics, but many have decided that this is not the way of winning. To live as if any side is absolutely right, and any other side is absolutely wrong, is to live as if there is no relationship which binds us together in love. It is to live as if there is no God, no matter how loudly a side may claim God is with their cause.
The Way of Jesus is about loving God and loving our neighbors, much more than it is about following the laws or relying on forgiveness and mercy. And we don’t always like the Way of Jesus because relationships are not as easy as having an absolute rule which must be followed or there will be consequences. We don’t always like the Way of Jesus because relationships are not as easy as having an absolute “get out of hell free” card so we can do whatever seems right and merciful to us.
Following the finer points of the law left the robbed and beaten man half-dead in the ditch. That’s where the law leaves all of us – that’s what Paul wrote to the church in Rome. Grace, revealed as compassion, is what saves the man who cannot save himself. Grace picks us up, cleans us up, and binds our wounds. Grace rode on the donkey to the place where the debt is paid for us by the One who shows us this grace. That’s what Jesus has done for us. This is also what Jesus calls us to do as disciples, when he said to the lawyer, “Go, and do likewise.”
We do have a responsibility to follow the law so that it may be fulfilled. But when we are broken down and unable to get going again on our own, we must also be absolutely clear that all the honking in the world isn’t going to get us started again. All the finger-pointing and self-justifying won’t make whole those who are beaten down, stripped, and left for dead. For that, we need compassion. For that, we need the grace of Jesus Christ. For that, we need the Holy Spirit to be at work among us and through us. The kingdom of God and eternal life are found where cross the crowded ways of life, where relationships are formed and we become the family of God.
UMH 427 “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life”
UM Hymnal 427 “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life”