Know your neighbour to be a good neighbour

It was mid-January 2012, and I was sitting in the pews at my previous church during Sunday worship, any thought of ordination still in the future.  All that weekend the news media had been focussed on the sinking of the Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise ship that two days earlier had struck a rock near shore and sunk, resulting in the loss of 32 lives.

It wasn’t, however, the tragic human toll that was garnering the largest headlines. What had really captured the public’s attention, and condemnation, was the fact that the captain of the ship had (in his words) "fallen" into one of the first lifeboats and then went on to disobey the Coast Guard’s direct order to reboard the vessel.

Around the world, much was being made of the captain abandoning the ship rather than being the last to seek rescue after ensuring the safety of all else on board. I don’t recall what that morning’s sermon was about, but I do remember what I was thinking.

"If I were up there preaching," I said to myself, "I would want to suggest that those of us trash talking the captain are very likely guilty of turning a blind eye to the person who could have used our seat on the bus the day before. Or perhaps we casually dropped a charity appeal into the recycling bin, one that promised to use our $20 a month to transform - or simply save - the life of a child overseas. Or perhaps we put off visiting a lonely friend in hospital because we wanted to get home to our dinner."

It struck me as interesting, ironic - and oh, so human - that we were as indignant as we were about the captain’s unwillingness to risk death by drowning, when we ourselves often let even the most minor inconveniences derail us from performing all sorts of good acts.

Flash forward 13 years and I now find myself on this side of the pulpit, with that old memory having bubbled up during my reflections on the lectionary readings this week. There may not be a sea captain in sight in today’s scriptures, nor even a drop of water, but the air feels similarly heavy with a sense of self-righteousness and the determination to avoid self-criticism.

In our first reading, one of Israel’s high priests is trying to shut down the prophet Amos, a shepherd who lived during in the height of Israel’s national glory in the mid-700s BC. Now, kings may be willing to listen to a prophet’s wisdom when things aren’t going well; Amos, however, had the thankless task of decrying Israel’s failures when the nation was riding high. Priest and King Jeroboam alike had no ears to hear Amos railing against Israel’s over-reliance on military might, its unjust practices, and its shallow piety. Life was too comfortable to want to worry about people whose lives and labours were paying for the good times.

Then the gospel offers us the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. Just as we would like to think that we would be the noble captain who would risk going down with the ship in a heroic bid to save our passengers, we would similarly all like to see ourselves in the role of the Samaritan who interrupted his journey to administer aid and comfort to the wounded stranger. The parable, however, forces us to reckon with the fact that it is often we who are church-going, generally respected, comfortably networked and/or otherwise resourced who are so often the ones who cross the street and carry on our way.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m certainly not saying that we sitting here today don’t do good in the world. I am saying, however, that like the priest in the parable, we humans are also good at rationalizing our not-so-admirable conduct - those things "done and left undone," that we refer to in our general Confession. While Luke doesn’t tell us what the priest and Levite were thinking, the most common interpretation is that they were, ironically, too busy rushing to their religious duties to stop and help their fellow traveller. In our over-scheduled, distracted era, I imagine most of us have used the excuse of busyness to rationalize those charitable things "left undone."

The word the Bible uses there is "vindicate," or, in other translations, "justify." The lawyer wants to justify the line he draws between those he must treat with compassion, and those he doesn’t need to.

"You love your family and then you love your neighbor," he said, "and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”

Oh, no - sorry, that wasn’t the lawyer from the gospel reading, that was a statement made by the US vice-president earlier this year - someone who also happens to be a law school graduate. Clearly, the desire to justify the bounds we put on our compassion is alive and well two millennia after the story of the Good Samaritan was first told. And I’m not pointing fingers when I say that, because sadly I know it’s something we can all be guilty of.

As other commentators have said about this parable, the lawyers of the world focus on who our neighbour is, while Jesus is trying to show us how to be a neighbour. I think that’s an excellent nutshell summary of this reading.

In saying all this, though, I think it’s also important to acknowledge that there are times we can’t step up - either to be the life-saving hero or even that quiet person who gives up their seat on the bus. Sometimes we are juggling too many balls, and they are all important, and adding one more would cause the whole lot of them to come tumbling down. Sometimes our own circumstances are such that we are in a season of needing to rely on others for help. Or sometimes we are feeling so overwhelmed with the troubles of the world, or those in our own circle, that we need to create some space to protect and nourish our own wellbeing. And that’s OK.

The requirement to keep a regular Sabbath is in the Ten Commandments for a reason. "Rest, don’t quit" is the good advice I hear given to people who work so relentlessly on important causes or acts of charity that they are at risk of burning out and leaving aside their good work all together.

Returning our thoughts to today’s children’s talk: being the salt, light, or yeast in your family, your workplace, your church, and your community can at times be exhausting. But there is also something about being the right pair of hands at the right time that feels really life-giving. When we are on the path that is meant for us, doing the work we are called to in that moment or over the course of our lives, we can’t help but feel uplifted. And we are further empowered by being part of a community of faith, journeying with those who support us in prayerful and practical ways, helping us bring to fruition the promptings of the Holy Spirit within us.

In the second reading, Paul wrote to the Colossians, "…we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God."

Growing in knowledge - of God and of the world - is essential to being a good neighbour.

At the end of June, the Anglican General Synod elected Shane Parker as Primate, the new leader of our national church. In his first remarks, Shane recounted an early childhood memory of playing in batts of fibreglass insulation that were sitting outside St. Mary Magdalene’s in Fort Nelson, awaiting installation. He joked "I’m quite sure I carry a piece of the Anglican church in my lungs." He went on, though, to question this image of insulation, and, as quoted in the Anglican Journal, he said:

It can insulate us from God. We can be insulated from each other. We can even be insulated from our truest selves. Our church at this time needs to remove a lot of insulation.

He noted that the next few years will be a time for removing the barriers between the church and the outside world and between people within the church, going on to say:

We need to feel the cold and the heat and the wind and the fire. We need to understand our context without the insulation that has built up over so many years … so we can feel the Holy Spirit, so we can feel and hear one another and so we can have the courage to be the church we must be at this point in time.

All of us at St. Clement’s, as individuals and as a body, are being called to grow in our knowledge of God and of the world. We can’t be a good neighbour without knowing our neighbours, and through prayer and action, through conversation and contemplation, we can find the work that is ours to do.

Each of us is unique, and our circumstances are ours alone. We can’t always be that person who steps up with immediate, tangible, help. But each of us can, and should, commit to keeping our heart tender, to resist the urge to create and defend borders in our mind between those who deserve our love and compassion, and those who does not. How many such walls have we built within our family or friend groups, within our communities, within our politics? And how’s that working out for us??

Jesus points us to a better way - to the way of mercy; the only way that will ultimately save us all. The Good Samaritan showed mercy to the stranger who needed him. "Go and do likewise," he said to the lawyer.

The rest is up to us.

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- Image credit: https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-save-image.pl