Living Mercy

The Rev. Margaret Watson

Deuteronomy 30:9-14 | Psalm 25 | Colossians 1:1-14 | Luke 10:25-37

 

Well, I am back. Did you miss me? I missed you too. For those who have also been gone, I was gone for nearly a month and now that I am back I can't tell you how much has changed. I have changed. There is so much in this community that has changed. New griefs and new joys. New faces, new habits. How have I changed? I actually feel rested. I have read seven books, not all of them good for me. I have had one hundred and thirteen dozen "Ah-ha" experiences. Some of them were joyful and some of them rather disconcerting. Like those blow up mats you put on top of a pool of water, that I, as a child, would step way back and take running leaps on to the pool and sail across the water. Do you realize how small those mats are now-adays? I rolled right off the edge.

During my time off I left my neighborhood for a while and walked among strangers, outsiders to American culture. I went camping with Indians. The Lakotas. Members of the Oglala band, commonly known in our culture as the Sioux. I experienced things that I am still, in my very western way, "processing," because I saw things and experienced things that I had no place to put in my brain. I had no name to call them or way to catalog them. So, it is good to be back. As different as it may feel and as different as I am, it is good to be back.

So you can imagine what a relief it was for me that my first preaching assignment turned out to be the Good Samaritan story. Something familiar. We all know this story well; even the state of California knows this story because it has Good Samaritan laws. They protect the "do-gooders" from lawsuits. So if the state of California knows this story, then I am sure most of us have the basics. This guy gets hit by a bandit. The so called good guys including the priest walk right by. The Samaritan is the only one who stopped and offered help. We know about the Samaritans don't we. Bad, impure people who worshipped the wrong God. We already know that Jesus takes this story and turns it topsy-turvy and makes that outsider the agent of grace and mercy, the true example of neighborness. We should all act like that Samaritan. So in the comfort of this story, in its familiarity is there an opportunity for an "Ah-ha" experience? Is there a tidbit in here we have not seen or heard before? Something that will change us and convert us to a closer walk with our Lord? I hope so.

For me it began with a reflection on our relationship with The Law. The law which the young man, the lawyer, quoted back to Jesus. Love God with all you've got and love your neighbor as yourself, neighbor meaning the one close and familiar to you. So Jesus took that familiar story about neighbor and made it unfamiliar by putting an outsider as our neighbor. He took The Law and trumped it. What do I mean? He gave us a new way of being Godly. Here was the priest and the Levite keeping the law. They were supposed to walk down the other side of the street. They were supposed to keep themselves pure for the benefit of the people. They had other things to do. They were following The Law. But, keeping The Law so passionately, they passed by this crumpled and damaged heap of mankind.

For me it was with a false sense of righteousness that I read this story as an affirmation of Jesus trumping The Law. By giving the example of breaking The Law by seeking radical inclusively. By loving and caring for the outsider, we have a greater law. Maybe it was precisely because I have spent the last few weeks with outsiders and I learned so many Godly things that I had to admit to myself that I was riding a high horse by naming insiders and outsiders: I was riding my high horse seeking radical inclusively. I was riding my high horse, joyful, that Jesus had trumped The Law. Because this Gospel is not about The Law; it is not about insiders and outsiders or any of that. If we are still worrying about The Law and who is on the "inside" or the "outside" we have missed the point.

This Gospel is about the Kingdom of God. Remember this story begins with the young man's question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Eternal life, unlike in the Gospel of John or the other Gospels, but most especially in Luke, Eternal Life is the code word for the Kingdom of God. What is this Kingdom? It is the realm or region, people, activity or place where God is. Which is everywhere and in all things. There is no place where God is not. The Kingdom of God is that ever present reality of God-with-us. Because God is with us, God rules already, right here in God's Kingdom. Living a Kingdom-life is about seeing the world, acting and being in the world the way God does.

One of my Indian friends that I made this summer said to me, "I stopped going to church because you Christians go around saying `I bless you, I baptize you.' Where do you Christians stop? It is only the Creator who can bless or do anything important." It made me think. On one hand he was very right. And then it made me think again, he is right, but the very body of which I am a member, Jesus, acted in the Name of God. It was obviously blasphemous and against The Law and it took him to the cross. We, as Christians, being members of that same body are called to act in the Name of Jesus. Which if you follow the line means we are acting in the name of God. That is blasphemous, very bold and presumptuous. But in the end, it is Christian. Everything we do, we do in the Name of God.

So how does God act? People will know who God is by how and what we do. So what are we to do? According to this story we are to live mercy. We are to go about doing mercy in ways that change the world around us and changes us, changes our understanding of The Law and the ludicrous lines we draw between those who are "inside" and "outside." Doing mercy changes our horizon. We are to go about being merciful in ways that change us and invite us to process everything we thought we already knew. It is to go about thinking mercy beyond product, beyond if-I-do-this, that-will-happen. It is about thinking mercy in ways that spurs us into that activity that we discover what comes next. Because spending all of our Godly inheritance without thinking about it will cost us dearly and will lead us to the cross, and by faith into all that follows.

So inside or outside of The Law, the trump, don't worry about it. In the name of God, be audacious. Live mercy.