Erin Rouse
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: February 25, 2007

"How Then Shall We Love?"

One Saturday evening, about a month ago, my husband and I were on our way to Midway on Highway 421 for a surprise birthday party. It was dark and the wind was whipping, blowing in another one of those cold fronts that we have had plenty of as of late. In a surreal, almost slow motion sort of moment, we looked down the embankment on the side of the road and caught a glimpse of a very mangled car, stuck between a tree and the fence of a nearby horse farm, and in the car, out of the corner of our eyes, we could see a person, a body, in this car that had apparently just crashed moments before. . . Bill stopped the car, backed up and we got out. I called 911, as another person who had just stopped (and Bill) went to the door of the car. After making the call, I, too, approached the car and I have to tell you that in the few seconds I had to think, I thought, "Okay, what am I going to do, if this person is dying? What am I going to do, if she is critically hurt, bleeding, perhaps profusely?" (As I am not a doctor, or a nurse or the like. . .) Thankfully, for her sake, I did not have to deal with that, for she rolled out of the car, (hysterical and in shock) but with just a few cuts and scratches and the only thing that I needed to do was to help try to calm her, put my arm and the blanket around her that Bill got out of the back of our car, and silently pray. By the looks of the car, though, she should have been dead. . .

I can understand the hesitation of the priest and the Levite in this most familiar story that Jesus tells in Luke. . . Plus, all the ritual cleansing, and so forth, that they would have had to go through had they come in contact with a corpse and/or blood, not to mention just the inconvenience. The priest and the Levite were on their way somewhere, maybe even to do some good and this was a dangerous road. They were not bad guys. It’s just that, as we all know from the story, the Samaritan was the good guy - the radically good guy, especially considering how the Jews hated the Samaritans.

On the side of the road to Midway, one of the people who stopped to help this young 19 year old college woman (who had now totaled two cars within a three day period) was a woman who was a nurse, a woman whose face was severely disfigured, from what I could tell in the darkness of the night, most likely from being badly burned. The presence of this nurse, this woman in the midst of this crisis was very helpful and reassuring. . .She helped in calming our young driver and her faith in God was evident.

As I thought back on this event in light of our parable, I thought that perhaps this woman was a bit like the Samaritan. Here was this woman whom I’m sure has had her share of alienation from a culture that so values glamour and beauty, due to her severe disfigurement, and yet, there was a spiritual beauty that shown through - a spiritual maturity, as well. There was something about her, the way she cared, the way she quite frankly loved this young neighbor, that had depth and weight, a caring that sprang from something within her. . .

Those characteristics seem so opposite of the self-assured lawyer in our story today, the lawyer who seemingly knows it all, yet knows not the Son of Man right in front of him, this lawyer whose questioning and testing of Jesus propels Jesus to tell this familiar story that is found only here in Luke. This story shows us one part of discipleship, of what it means to be the disciples that our morning hymn calls us to be, and it shows us one part of the Great Commandment, the practice of which we hear, is the key to eternal life, the key to salvation.

Reaching out in acts of love, acts of radical love, to those we don’t know, in fact, to those whom we don’t even like, to those who are different from us, love that goes beyond what is expected, beyond the norm, beyond society’s standards is the message of this familiar parable. Cause’ you see this Samaritan should never have reached out like he did to a Jew, which was who the wounded man most likely was, and he should never have been elevated over the good Jews - a priest and a Levite. . . But, he was. . .

Radical love for others (especially the marginalized) is not an unfamiliar theme here in Luke. Just a few chapters earlier, Luke gives us the story of the sinful woman who washes Jesus feet with her hair and tears, kissing them and anointing them with costly ointment. It is an extravagant love we are told, one we are called to emulate. Sometimes reaching out, giving love beyond the norm may not look so radical or extravagant. It may be something as simple as the gesture of love shown to me that I shared with the children. What keeps us from doing those kinds of things more often is most likely our preoccupation with our own agendas, as well as our fear. We are preoccupied as were the priest and Levite perhaps, of being inconvenienced. We are afraid as I was of not knowing what to do if I encountered something for which I wasn’t equipped. Yet, love that is out of the ordinary is what we are called as Christians to practice, to all people - our neighbors - those we consider "in" and those we consider "out."

What follows this great illustration of how radically we are to love others, interestingly, is a story that shows us how radically we are to love God. It is a story that shows us the other side of discipleship- the inward side. It is the story of Mary and Martha, dear friends of Jesus, sisters of Lazarus, the man whom we might add Jesus raised from the dead in the gospel of John, and whom Jesus wept over at the thought of his dying. You may already be quite familiar with this story. There are books out these days, such as, "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World," which perhaps polarizes these two women, these two sides of discipleship more than is necessary. For you see, Jesus loved them both. In fact, some believe that Mary and Martha, together, were leaders of a house church, and not just leaders, but even "ministers" way back then. Our Bibles don’t say it that way, but you see, the verb that Luke uses to describe Martha’s "serving" is the same verb used numerous times elsewhere for the word, "ministering." Hmmmm. . .adds a bit of a different twist to the story. But that is not the point I want to debate today.

Of interest here, today, is that right after this great story of the Good Samaritan, right after Jesus tells us just how radically we are to love others, to SERVE, Luke gives us a story of distracted service, perhaps even distracted ministry. . . You see, Martha is complaining about doing all the work herself - "Get Mary to come and help me, Jesus," she says. Well, Martha in all of her buzzing around, in all of her service, maybe even in her "ministry," her good works, doesn’t see the whole picture. In all of her work for others, she doesn’t realize that she’s missing something.

I have seen this in the church - not necessarily this church, but in the church in general - The practice of serving others, ministering, if we are not careful, can become nothing more than social activism. Much good can still be done, yes. But, there is a fire, an ember even from which our work is to come if it is to grow into its fullness. There is a fire which is meant to ignite our work, to propel us forward out into the world, to enable us to love others fully, to serve them faithfully, to really see the face of Christ in them. It is a fire that was present in the overwhelming service given by Mother Teresa as she picked up the dying on the streets of Calcutta and gave them a place to die with dignity. It is a fire that gave her, her passion - a fire that was nurtured when she would pray sometimes four or five hours a day on busy days. It is a fire that must be stoked and tendered lest it go out, a fire that Mary was so tendering when she sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to his Word, learned from him, gazed up at him, was discipled by Him, and quite frankly, just loved Him. . . And Jesus says, that is the better part. . Why this is so radical, we see again by looking a bit at the context. You see, Mary, as a woman is seen here in the role of a disciple, sitting at the feet of the Master, ignoring the call to help her sister in the more typical women’s role of serving, as it is translated. . .All that defies convention. That is radical! And Jesus praises Mary for it. He praises her because he knows that it is not always about the doing. It is about the being - just being there with Him. And in our day and time, being, simply being, is radical!

This story is an illustration of just how we are to love God - to love Christ - to stop and take time to sit at his feet, to learn from Him, to hear his words, to meditate, to pray, as we are shown how to do in the Lord’s Prayer, that follows in Luke’s chapter 11. Loving neighbor like the Good Samaritan, loving God, Jesus, like Mary. . Two sides of discipleship - Two illustrations of the love of the Great Commandment. We really can’t do one without the other.

Luke did it all this way for a reason. In fact, to really understand the words of scripture often times you have to look where the story fits in the whole - what comes before and after - sort of like these two back-to-back stories of today. . .

When I was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, we were fortunate to get to participate with Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity one evening during their nightly "Adoration." Now for those of you who were raised Catholic this may be more familiar. But, it wasn’t for me. And it was especially eye-opening given our surroundings. In the midst of this poor country, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, we sat on a concrete floor in the back of the room as the sisters kneeled, their attention focused on the crucifix (and the eucharist) in the front of the room. We sat for an hour in the midst of that place with the smells of the city in this developing nation wafting in from the open window, the smells of tires burning, of garbage and sewage in the streets, smells mingled with third-world sounds of dilapidated cars trudging up the hill, of people always on the move and roosters crowing at all hours of the day. . . We sat there in the midst of all that as the sisters kneeled and quite simply "adored" Jesus; loved him. You see they know that you cannot give away what you do not have. You cannot do the incredible work that they do at their Home for the Destitute and Dying or the Orphanage or the Wound Clinic. . .They know that it becomes hard to see the face of Christ in others if you haven’t gazed up at him yourself. . .so, thus, their hours in prayer with him, adoration of him, study of his Word, literally their own sitting at his feet, that is perhaps radical, or at least so by our standards today. . .But this is the message that Mary gives us. . . Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

We Presbyterians probably do a good job with the mind part. And quite frankly I am glad that we don’t have to check our brain at that back door when we come in here! But these other things - heart, soul, strength (Eugene Peterson in "The Message" calls them, "passion, prayer, and muscle") - those things speak of a passion which we "frozen chosen" sometimes think is too emotional. . . A passion and a perseverance, a determination, a depth, all of our selves! Perhaps then is when our love becomes radical, when we allow all of our being to love, when we abandon our fear and let loose that which is in us that has longed to love all along. Sometimes that can get a little messy, but I think that it’s worth the risk.

In Thomas Merton’s book "No Man Is an Island" he says that love for others is desiring what God wants for them - that we want their good. This love he says is connected to our love of self. For "love can be kept only by being given away." He reminds us that we are all a piece of one another and that as John Donne says "No man is an island, entire of itself; every one is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. . ." We need each other and we need to love. . .

Robert Greenleaf, in his famed book "Servant Leadership" tells of the twelve ministers and theologians and twelve psychiatrists of all faiths who convened for a seminar on the theme of healing. The chairman opened the conference by saying, "We are all healers, why are we in this business? What is our motivation?" After only ten minutes of intense discussion, all the doctors and ministers, Catholics, Jews, and Protestants agreed. . . "We are in this, for our own healing. . ." This "search for wholeness is something [we] share."

We are called for our own sakes, if for nothing more, to love, to reach out, to share, to help heal this world around us and ourselves. If I had to boil things down to the most important message of the gospel, this would be it. It is about love - love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. . .radically! This is how then we should love.

And so I leave you with these thoughts about the Greatest Commandment. The church is full of issues that abound. . . here and everywhere. There is much that isn’t right, much that falls short of the glory of God. . . And yet, there is so much that is right. There are incredible stories of God’s love acted out - of those who love the Lord in ways I can’t fathom. . .Radical ways, perhaps. . . And simple but profound ways, too. . . When things go awry, when it isn’t going the way we want, when it seems that minutia occupies the church’s conversations, remember these stories and remember what it is we must do. It’s really simple; it may not always be easy. Don’t get caught up, like the lawyer, in the legalities of it all. . . Just love. That is the bottom line - It is Lent, perhaps instead of giving up something, we can try to do something - love God and reach out in love to our neighbors. . .radically, passionately, with our whole beings. This is how then, we should love. . . May we do it today and in the days ahead. Amen.