12 July 1998
Today we celebrate the story usually titled The Good Samaritan, a classic tale about the meaning and exercise of hospitality. A fitting celebration for the day after the feast of St. Benedict of Nursia. It is his sensible monastic rule, written almost 1500 years ago, which forms the basis for much of monastic life in the Western world today. One of the basic practices in the Benedictine tradition is hospitality.
Today let's look at some of the rest of the story about the Good Samaritan and others, in the light of the practice and attitude of hospitality. First, what was different about the Good Samaritan? Why did he stop when the others took care to pass by on the far side of the road and to avert their eyes from the need of the half-dead, naked, bleeding man?
Was he just "nicer"? Maybe he was, but perhaps there's something else at work here. Perhaps he wasn't clutching at personal goodness or "position" (or the attempt to get it, or to seem like he had it) as much as the others. A hand that is anxiously clutching its own possible treasures has a harder time opening to extend to another in need. If our view of the universe is that there is only a finite "pie" to go around, the tendency is to try to hold onto our piece. Then the other is not seen as our neighbor but as our competitor, and whatever we share is that much less for us. And then we miss the prodigious generosity of our God in God's provision not only for our neighbors but for ourselves.
As our Old Testament reading for today says, the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Is this just a bookkeeping deal an exchange system? No. It is another example of God's upside-down ways. To be filled, and to be able to give true hospitality, we need to be emptied out enough, to have our tight grip on what we think are the necessities of life loosened enough, to have space in our hearts and lives for others and for God. And that is a radical re-doing, especially in light of what our culture teaches us about "getting ahead". That is not just a matter of being conventionally "nice", but of being radically re-formed in and through our love of God.
In The Parables of Grace, Robert Capon, as usual, tweaks our assumptions about the parable. "Niceness", he says, "has nothing to do with the price of our salvation... our sinfulness cannot be broken by good examples, even if... we could follow them. Quite the contrary, the Gospel says clearly that we can be saved only by bad examples: by the stupid example of a Samaritan who spends his livelihood on a loser, and by the horrible example of a Savior who, in an excruciating death, lays down his life for his friends."
It's a different way of thinking about what seems a straightforward story. It's about grace more than about good works, although the one can lead us into the other. When Paul writes to the faithful at Colossae, he says, In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you... it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. It is the grace of God, the love of God, that bears fruit in our lives and in our generosity, not just our own initiative. Because God first loves us, we are freed to love others more fully.
Somehow, through grace, the Samaritan's heart opened to the man on the road. He was moved with pity, and then translated that movement into action to help the man. He gave a gift of compassion, mercy, hospitality. The life of the man on the road was saved and soothed. Perhaps the Samaritan had caught a glimpse of him as a son of God. Perhaps the man on the road, as he came to a cared-for consciousness, caught a glimpse of the Samaritan as a son of God, too. And in a way, the hospitality was mutual. Perhaps. There are no guarantees.
When we think of hospitality only in terms of niceness to someone in less fortunate circumstances (or what seem so), we miss what may be the other side the unexpected mutuality of hospitality. This week a member of the parish told a story about helping a homeless woman get a shower and clean clothes and of the clarifying effect of that act -- and the woman's response to it -- in her own life of faith. A priest from my home diocese told a story about sitting down on the curb next to one of society's cast-offs and simply asking him his name. The man turned to him and asked with tears in his eyes, "Do you know how long it has been since anyone asked my name?" That simple act of hospitality opened a grace-filled space for both of them.
In a beautiful little book called Can You Drink the Cup?, Henri Nouwen talks of spending the last ten years of his life in the Daybreak L'Arche community, where he and others lived as assistants and friends with people with severe disabilities. At first, he was afraid of the people he came to serve, but they became his friends and sometimes his teachers. He discovered a hospitality that was not about the "haves" giving to the "have-nots" but that was in fact mutual, that took on the shape of community.
Here is how he describes it: "As we lift up the cup of life and look each other in the eye, we say: "Let's not be anxious or afraid. Let's hold our cup together and greet each other. Let us not hesitate to acknowledge the reality of our lives and encourage each other to be grateful for the gifts we have received."
"We lift the cup to life, to affirm our life together and celebrate it as a gift from God. When each of us can hold firm our own cup, with its many sorrows and joys, claiming it as our unique life, then too, can we lift it up for others to see and encourage them to lift up their lives as well. Thus, as we lift up our cup in a fearless gesture, proclaiming that we will support each other in our common journey, we create community.
"Nothing is sweet or easy about community. Community is a fellowship of people who do not hide their joys and sorrows but make them visible to each other in a gesture of hope. In community we say: `Life is full of gains and losses, joys and sorrows, ups and downs but we do not have to live it alone. We want to drink our cup together and thus celebrate the truth that the wounds of our individual lives, which seem intolerable when lived alone, become sources of healing when we live them as part of a fellowship of mutual care.'
"Community is like a large mosaic. Each little piece seems so insignificant. One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold. Some look precious, others ordinary. Some look valuable, others worthless. Some look gaudy, others delicate. As individual stones, we can do little with them except compare them and judge their beauty and value. When, however, all these little stones are brought together in one big mosaic portraying the face of Christ, who would ever question the importance of any one of them? If one of them, even the least spectacular one, is missing, the face is incomplete. Together in the one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God. That's community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world." That is the grace and gift of mutual hospitality.
Let us pray for that grace and that gift today and in the days to come, as we meet each other as individuals, sometimes reaching out in love, and sometimes being reached out to in love, and often both. Let us draw on that love and grace as we walk through a week that brings the anniversary of the death of a much-loved companion and leader on the way, our former rector, Brad Hall. And let us pray for that love and grace on an international scale as the bishops and other leaders of the Anglican Communion meet together on matters of faith and practice beginning this week in the Lambeth gathering. In all of these places, we ask in faith that we may know and understand what things we ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.
[Deut. 30:9-14; Psalm 25:3-9; Col. 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37]
The Rev. Lois Hart
12 July 98