Neighbors
“But the expert on the Law, seeking self justification, pressed Jesus further: ‘And just who is my neighbor?’” — Luke 10:29.
Those of you who know me really well know my sense of humor leans heavily on the verbal and on satire. By way of suggesting how hard satire is to pull off, the great American playwright George Kaufman, said this: ‘In theater, satire is what opens on Friday night and closes on Saturday night.’ [1]
Kaufman was, of course, the premier playwright and the premier satirist of his day. He was also one of the writers who wrote material for The Marx Brothers.
Unlike some other Vaudeville acts— acts like The Three Stooges who relied on physical humor— The Marx Brothers heavily relied on verbal humor and satire. The humor of The Marx Brothers, hence, lines up quite well with my sensibilities.
And though not written by Kaufman whose work I greatly admire, one of my favorite pieces of Marx Brother schtick is a song sung by Groucho Marx. It’s found in the film Horse Feathers. The song is Whatever It Is, I’m Against It!
This is part of the lyric: “I don’t know what they have to say, / It makes no difference anyway, / Whatever it is, I’m against it. / No matter what it is or who commenced it, / I’m against it. // Your proposition may be good, / But let’s have one thing understood, / Whatever it is, I’m against it. / And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it, / I’m against it.” [2] (Slight pause.)
Blogger Deana Nall recently posted a piece about some Christians who seem to start with the premise of being against things and therefore being angry about things. Among the items she listed were these: some Christians are against and angry about gay people having rights, about abortion, evolution, feminism. They are against and angry at Muslims, at people needing government assistance. [3]
She also says some Christians even seem to be against and get angry about things that aren’t real. People, for instance, express anger because prayer is not allowed in schools. However, prayer is allowed in schools.
Prayer can’t be organized by the teachers or the administration but take my word for this: any High School Senior who, in order to graduate, needs to pass a single Regents exam in a subject at which and in which they have not excelled knows about prayer in schools. They fervently practice prayer in schools.
Also among the things which are not real but at which people express anger is the so called ‘War on Christmas,’ an idea drawn up by a publicist. There’s another phony one going around: that the Pledge of Allegiance is somehow being taken out of schools. Some of you may have heard about that one and some may not have heard about it.
If you haven’t heard about it, there’s a good reason. It’s simply not true. But there are so many posts on Facebook making the claim that the pledge is being banned you would think it’s a fact.
All of which is to say even when an item is false it seems to be hard to convince those making the false claims that they are untrue. Frankly, the speed with which these kinds of falsehoods spread leads me to think people enjoy being angry and therefore invent things about which they can be against.
In other words, it seems to me we have an epidemic in America. There is an epidemic of Whatever It Is, I’m Against It. (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work know as Luke: “But the expert on the Law, seeking self justification, pressed Jesus further: ‘And just who is my neighbor?’” (Slight pause.)
When this reading from Luke was introduced you heard it said that (quote): “Hospitals, helping groups and civic awards are named after the so called Good Samaritan.” And there is no question but that the Samaritan did good.
But is doing good the point of the story? (Slight pause.) I want to suggest there is a more important point to the story than that the Samaritan did some good. You see, the Samaritan did not just do good. The Samaritan also did well.
I maintain nearly everyone can do and does do some good, whether it’s rescuing a stray cat or watering a thirsty plant or giving directions to a traveler lost in an unfamiliar town. Put another way, nearly everyone does some random act of kindness over the course of time. We all do good.
Doing well is a very different issue. In order to do well, one needs to have and to practice discipline. One needs to practice the discipline of acceptance, the discipline of self control and the discipline of... love.
Please do not mis-understand me: there is such a thing as justified anger. I am not discounting that. I am discounting unjustified anger. Unjustified anger is simply undisciplined.
Further, people do make up things they can be against and at which they can be angry. That action clearly lacks discipline. Now, I feel compelled to point out several interesting aspects of how undisciplined this really is.
For starters, if you’re against something, angry about something which is made up, you do not have to do anything real or constructive to rectify the issue. After all, it’s bogus. It does not exist.
Next, being angry at the imaginary both allows reality to be ignored and allows doing what is constructive to lay fallow. Needless to say, failing to do what is constructive and helpful means that which is in desperate need of action is left totally undone. Last, isn’t refusing to be constructive nothing more than a tacit approval of anarchy? (Slight pause.)
Coming back to the reading, I am sure over time most of you have heard that Samaritans were considered to be outcasts by Jews in New Testament times. And so, Jesus, in telling this tale, turns the world of those who hear the story upside down by using an outcast as an example of someone who does good.
I think our culture understands this is, since the lowly cultural outcast does good, we need to do good also. But what our culture does not seem to understand is this story is not just about doing good. The story also says we need to do good with someone and for someone who, like the Samaritan, is an outcast in our culture.
And that’s where we come back to the concept of doing well, the concept that we need to have the discipline to do well. And this is where the three disciplines I mentioned earlier come into play: the discipline of acceptance, the discipline of self control and the discipline of love.
It is not easy to engage in practices of acceptance, self control or love, especially with those who our culture considers outcast— especially the poor, the working poor, the homeless— those who for whatever reason we don’t believe belong in our group, in our tribe. It is, in fact, much easier to be against, easier to be hostile, easier to be angry at those with whom we do not want to be associated.
But it is clear this is not what we are called to do by Jesus. Perhaps the point Jesus seems to make can be phrased this way: we are not just called to do good. We are called to be good.
That brings us back to the first question, the one the expert on the law asked: ‘Just who is my neighbor?’ I think a key point of the story is our neighbor is not only or simply the one in need.
Our neighbor is also the outcast. Our neighbor is also the person who might live just down the street, the one with whom we are not sure we would want to have dinner or shake hands or (dare I say it) sit in the same pew in which they are sitting.
So, I think the question Jesus really poses is not the easy one. The easy one being: ‘are we willing to do good?’ Yes— we are willing to do good. Everyone is willing to do good. The question Jesus really poses is ‘are we willing to do well— to be good— while we are doing good?’
And doing well— being good while we are doing good— that’s what I call the discipline different than the ones I’ve already mentioned. This is he discipline of discipleship. Sp maybe the real an deep question is: are we called to be disciples? Are we called to discipleship? Amen.
07/14/2013
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Congregational Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “Pastor and theologian Brian Mclaren says this (quote): ‘I spent many years as a card-carrying Calvinist. I understand its appeal... because it’s a highly coherent... self-reinforcing closed system and it gives its defenders a feeling of true superiority, in a humble yet exclusively privileged sort of way. But I believe Calvinism... rests on some erroneous assumptions. One of those assumptions is... the greatest heresy of monotheism, namely, a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Election as being for exclusive privilege rather than for... service for the common good.’” [4]
BENEDICTION: May the face of God shine upon us; may the peace of Christ be among us; may the fire of the Spirit burn within us as we scatter into the world. And may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much. May we be so in awe of God, that we are in awe of no one else and nothing else. Amen.
[1] Yes, I do know that the real quote is this: “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But I felt for a general audience (meaning a congregation not comprised of all theater people, an audience filled with people who are unfamiliar theater references) I needed to be a little more precise and, thereby, illustrative in conveying meaning.
[2] Written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.
[3] You can find that blog entry here:
[4] This actually came off Brian’s Facebook page. I believe he had written this in a book and he was quoting himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment