<html><body>This is a first draft, and part 1.<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE
EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">AMOS
7:17-17 PROPER
10 C<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">COLOSSIANS
1:1-14 10<sup>th</sup> JULY, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">LUKE
10:25-37
PSALM
82<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> He was lying down, straight out,
looking vulnerable and defenceless. I wonder how many people saw him. One, two,
three people walked past.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> I wonder how he felt. Was he aware
of anything – the light wind blowing over him? The sound of footsteps, some of
them quite close? Traffic?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> We’re over the hoopla now, aren’t
we? Two weeks ago, our Patronal Festival; last week, Independence Day weekend;
Wednesday last, a renewal of the vows of our ministry. Has the dust settled
yet? Perhaps. But if it has, what comes into focus is the question of being
neighbor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Such a seemingly simple task. Anyone
forty or older – maybe even younger – was brought up on Fred Rogers and his
artfully expressed question, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” Of course, most people
<b><u>DO</u></b> want to be neigbours. But
it’s never that easy. You and I – everyone – can lose sight of that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> So, even if the lawyer’s question <b><u>WAS</u></b> a trap, it’s one that’s not
hard to set up. It doesn’t take long to forget even the most ingrained custom,
ritual or law. That’s why we need reminders. That’s why we have to ask
questions, of ourselves as well as others. We need input in order to check
ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> But the curious thing about Jesus’
story, the thing that makes it like Fred Rogers’ invitation, is that no one is <b><u>BORN</u></b> to be neighbor. Jesus’
question at the end of the story, as Kenneth Bailey points out, isn’t who <b><u>IS</u></b> my neighbor but who <b><u>BECOMES</u></b> my neighbour. <sup>1</sup> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> “Becoming” is what Christianity,
what life, is all about. We’re always beoming, because everything around us is
changing. <b><u>WE</u></b> are changing. So
we’re finding new ways in which to become neighbor everyday, everywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> There’s far more to Mr. Rogers’
Neighbourhood than often we care to admit. It’s like the proverbial onion. We
peel off one layer of life and experience only to discover another, and
another, and another after that. And each neigbour looks different, talks
differently, likes different food, has different special ways of expressing her
and himself, of ways of finding satisfaction and fulfillment in her and his
life. It is <b><u>SO</u></b> difficult to
tell. It seems it’s not a matter of how a person appears. It’s all about what
the situation is, what’s impacting the person, what’s impacting others. It
doesn’t even matter who makes the move into the neighbourhood or why. “Won’t
you be my neighbor?” should be on the lips of every last one of us. It takes
precedence even over family members, yet family members <b><u>ARE</u></b> neighbours too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Vanderbilt University Professor,
Amy-Jill Levine, raised a point that, if I’d thought of it before, then I’d
forgotten it – very conveniently. She talked of how this incredibly well-known
story is quoted for political and other brownie points, not always out of
malice. For instance Elizabeth, the current Queen of Britain said, in 2004, “Everyone
is our neighbor, no matter what race, creed or colour. The need to look after a
fellow human being is far more important that any cultural or religious differences.”
<sup>2 </sup> Levine went on, “The
parable of the Good Samaritan has come to mean whatever we want it to mean. In
one respect, this inevitable appropriation is to be appreciated, Texts should
always take on new meaning as they are encountered by new readers from new
cultural contexts. However, (and here’s the important point) texts also have their
own original context.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> There are several issues about the
original setting. First, Jesus, a Jewish man, was talking directly to Jews who didn’t
need to be reminded about loving God and loving neighbor. This was ingrained
into their religious psyches. “The parable for them would not have been about
looking after a fellow human being, and the parable is not, finally, an answer
to the questions, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ It is more provocative than that.” <sup>3</sup>
And, sad to say, it’s <b><u>SO</u></b> relevant
to us today. The problem was that there could be absolutely no way on earth,
nor, in the listener’s opinion, in heaven, that there could be a “Good
Samaritan”. Put it in today’s language. One of the things that’s tearing our
society apart is the impossibility that some have to think of a “Good Democrat”
or a “Good Republican”. Today, just as in Jesus’ day, these terms have become
oxymorons. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> The first lesson we have to learn,
therefore, is not to describe, far less condemn, people or groups with a single
descriptor, especially if the implication is that such people are beyond
redemption, either as citizens of Albany or the United States, or as citizens
on God’s realm. No one, no thing, is beyond the power of God’s love to reach,
to transform, to draw out from them the response of compassion which is
supposed to be the defining characteristics of all who worship and love God, be
they Jews, Christians or Muslims. No one cannot be invited by God to reach out,
to touch, to pour healing oil on any and all who are in need of solace, of
rest, of shelter, of balm.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> It didn’t escape my notice on
Wednesday night that when Carli gave me a stole and an oil stock that she said,
“with prayer, companionship and laying-on of hands we bring the reconciling
presence of Christ to those who seek healing. Join us in this ministry by
calling us to repentance, and assuring us of God’s forgiveness and love.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> To which I replied, “Amen. Live without
fear: your Creator has made you holy, loves you eternally, and reconciles you
to one another.”<sup> 4</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> We were all reminded of the ministry
we share, a ministry which doesn’t label, doesn’t differentiate, and is always
incredibly compassionately generous.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> The Samaritans of Jesus’ day in the
reckoning of Jews were the enemy, and there were no half measure about
describing them. Accepted understanding in Israel was that they could do no
good, nor should they expect anything good from anyone in Jerusalem, even if either
one or the other had it within her or his means to provide comfort.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>