Dr. William A. Ritter
Bay View Assembly, Petoskey, Michigan
Scripture: Luke 10:25-37
In an increasingly secular culture, where churches are now printing the words to the Lord’s Prayer because it can no longer be assumed that visitors know them, I worry that fewer and fewer will know the basic Bible stories which, to me (over time), have become dearer and dearer.
There was a day when almost everybody knew a little something of the “Good Samaritan.” You didn’t have to be a Sunday school graduate to know that your town has a Good Samaritan Hospital….that your state legislature wrestles with good Samaritan legislation….and that somebody, going beyond the ordinary, to help anybody, with no concern for personal security, is commonly referred to as “a good Samaritan.” In church circles, good Samaritans are equated with good Christians. In other circles, good Samaritans are equated with good citizens. Meaning that a term born in the Bible has, long since, transcended the Bible.
I have preached the story before….four times, to be exact. I have visited the site before….four times, to be exact. I doubt it’s the real site. But it’s in the area. It’s also easy to find. You go down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. I mean, you go “down” the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem is 2700 feet above sea level (meaning that it snows there). Jericho is within hailing distance of a road sign beside which tourists like to have their pictures taken….a sign proclaiming that one is standing at the lowest spot on the face of the earth, over 1800 feet below sea level….meaning that, in Jericho, they grow oranges there. How far, you ask, from snow to citrus? Twenty miles, maybe….although crows fly it shorter, given that crows fly it straighter.
For the road winds down the mountain….20 miles down the mountain….4500 feet down the mountain….with lots of places to get in lots of trouble (then, and still) on the mountain. As late as the fifth century, Jerome called it “the bloody way.” And as recently as four years ago, Etan Ritov (my favorite Israeli guide) told a few of us not to wander too far from the roadside to take pictures of Bedouins, given that all of them like money and some of them have knives.
You know the story. Local Jew takes to the road….meets robbers….who rough him up….then run off….leaving him half-dead, all-but-dead (and, for all I know, wishing he were dead). Priest comes by….Jewish priest, not Catholic priest (same title, different era). Priest passes by. Levite comes by….same religion, lesser status. Levite passes by as well. Samaritan comes by (color him the enemy….disliked enemy….despised enemy….500 years of bad blood between ‘em enemy) and, lo and behold, does the right thing. How about that, sports fans? You never know when you’re going to need help or from whom you’re going to get it.
Sunday school teachers love this story because it can be acted out. Tommy, you be the victim. Mary, you be the priest (Mary, the priest?….whatever). Freddy, you be the Levite. Billy Ritter, you be the Good Samaritan. I don’t know what kind of signals I gave off as a kid, but my Sunday school teachers always gave me the goody-goody parts. In truth, there was a time when I longed for my Sunday school teacher to say: “Billy Ritter, you play the robber. And, when I point to you at the appropriate moment in the story, you come running from behind the flannel board and beat up Tommy, all but killing him.” But no teacher ever said that to me. So I never got to beat up anybody. Instead, I got to be the kid with the bandages. Which prepared me, in a way….I suppose. And isn’t that one of the things Sunday school is supposed to do….prepare preachers (and other Christians)?
Several summers ago, I retold this story under the heading “View From the Ditch.” In that sermon I suggested inserting ourselves into the story….not in the shoes of the robber….not in the shoes of the helper….not in the shoes of the bypasser….not in the shoes of the innkeeper….but in the shoes of the half-dead victim (who, after seeing two of his own spot him and pass him, suddenly sees one of “them” spot him and help him). What must it be like when you are hurting as never you’ve hurt before, to see your last chance represented by someone your people have hated, as never they’ve hated before? At the time, I asked my congregation to imagine what it would be like to be a Jew….lying in a ditch…. opening one oozing and swollen eye, just a slit….only to realize that the one bending over your broken body was Yasser Arafat. I suppose that today you might re-image that. Same Jew. Same ditch. Same eye. Same slit. Same gaze. New face. Whose face? Osama bin Laden’s face.
If that jars you….and I would expect it to jar you….you are beginning to understand how jarring this story was (once upon a time) when Jesus first told it, the lawyer first heard it, and Luke first wrote it.
Lawyer? What lawyer? Why, the one who, while not in the story, is very much in the text. I’m talking about the lawyer who wanted Jesus to tell him what he needed to do (in this life) to guarantee placement in the next. Jesus said, in effect: “Why ask me? That’s already been answered. You can look it up. Most likely, you’ve already looked it up. So what do you read?” Leading the lawyer to answer: “Love God with mind, heart, soul and strength. Love the neighbor, too.” “See,” said Jesus, “you did know.” Leading the lawyer to say: “Neighbor…. which? Neighbor….who?” In response to which Jesus told this little story….the point of which couldn’t be clearer….couldn’t be any clearer. Point being: “Your neighbor is anyone who needs you….or who responds to the need that is in you.” “Neighbor” is not defined by proximity, geography, nationality or theology. “Neighbor” is defined by need.
About which we Christians have never disagreed. I mean, we “get” this story. Many of them, we don’t get. But we get this one. We may not always like it. And we certainly don’t always do it. But we do get it. Pardon me, but you’ve got to be a little bit dumb to miss it.
No, the thing that trips us up (here) is not so much theology as strategy. How is it that one best loves the neighbor? Do we love him best by the words we say to him….or by the things we do for him?
I mean every word when I tell you that, even after all this time, the ministry excites me as much as it ever did. Maybe more. But I will admit that there are things about the ministry that weary me and have gotten “old” for me. Still, it would probably surprise you to learn that those “things” have less to do with tiresome tasks than with tiresome debates. I have reached the point where I am tired of fighting the same old battles. And, at the very top of my list (far above the second place battle) is the one that pits the would-be evangelists among us against the would-be activists among us (the evangelists being energized around the issue of the neighbor’s conversion, the activists being energized around the issue of the neighbor’s care). Save the neighbor? Serve the neighbor? Save the neighbor? Serve the neighbor? Save the neighbor? Serve the neighbor? Most of us know it’s not an either/or thing so much as both/and thing, and that God can use us, wherever (on that spectrum) we care to participate. Some of us will lead the neighbor into the Lord’s house. Others of us will take hammer in hand and build the neighbor his own house. And 37 years have taught me that our leaning (whichever way we happen to lean) is primarily an outgrowth of our nature rather than our nurture.
Several years ago, a pastor announced (via the sign board in front of his church) that, come Sunday, he was going to preach on “The Member of This Church I Would Most Like to See in Hell.” What excitement he caused. What a crowd he drew. The church was filled with people who hadn’t been there in ages….kids who usually walked home after Sunday school….the C and E crowd….and a bunch of curious Presbyterians who wandered over from next door. Everybody was there.
Well, when he finally called a name….he really did call a name….it was the name of everybody’s favorite Sunday school teacher. Then he went on to say that the reason he most wanted to see her in hell was because he was sure that, in two or three weeks, given her saintly nature, hell would be converted and emptied. He didn’t say whether her primary means of accomplishing this would be by holding altar calls or by handing out cups of cold water. But he left no doubt that her love of God and neighbor would not allow her to rest comfortably in her place while the rest of us fared miserably in ours.
Earlier this year, at a seminar in Sea Island, Georgia, I was privileged to sit under the tutelage of Jean Bethke Elshtain, who teaches both divinity and graduate students at the University of Chicago. In the course of her lectures, she added a third slant on the save-the-neighbor, serve-the-neighbor discussion. Growing out of a decade-long study of family and culture, she told us that an interesting set of statistics are emerging. In any given neighborhood, if there is a family of practicing Christians (including school-aged children) living in one house, and a similarly-constituted family of non-practicing anythings next door, the children in the home with no religious orientation will, over time, have deviancy, truancy, and out-of-wedlock pregnancy rates that are lower than the norm in that community. Moreover, when compared to their peers, they will not only get higher grades but will take fewer drugs. Which does not mean that they are being pressured, proselytized or instructed by their church-going neighbors, so much as that their church-going neighbors are modeling their faith and practice in ways that produce benefits in those nearby. In fact, Dr. Elshtain suggested that such studies are generating increasing interest in what is often referred to as “the spillover effect”….which goes beyond what the neighbor says or what the neighbor does to consider who (in the world) the neighbor is.
If anybody should understand this, it should be those of you who summer in Bay View. For never have I seen a community quite like this one where the prime selling point has more to do with community than with geography, activity, or even theology. One might even call it associational evangelism (or “meeting Jesus” by hanging out where a lot of his friends do).
Over the years, I have heard it said: “Always remember, you may be the only Bible your neighbor ever reads….the only Jesus your neighbor ever meets….the only God your neighbor ever sees.” Which is trite. But which may just be true.
Back when I wore a younger man’s clothes, Harold Stassen (sometimes referred to as the “boy governor of Minnesota”) sought, as a political gadfly, the Republican nomination for president at eight separate conventions. Never got it. Never came close to getting it. But he never stopped going for it.
In later life, having missed out on the presidency, he settled comfortably into his role as a grandfather. In fact, so close were he and his grandson that every time the boy’s parents missed the mark….in speech or in deed….the boy would remind them: “Harold wouldn’t like that.” They thought it odd that their kid would refer to his grandfather by his first name. But they had to admit that the point was often well taken. Then, one night, they overheard the boy saying his prayers. Which, after the “now I lay me down to sleep” part, he continued with: “Our father, which art in heaven, Harold be thy name.”
Now, I ask you, how could an otherwise bright and intelligent kid fail to make a distinction between God’s name and his grandfather’s?
Unless….
Unless….
