Thoroughly

Lately I've been thoroughly washing my hands which leads to washing surfaces which leads to...well, in my case, to sorting and deleting computer files. I know. The connection isn't obvious, but I guess COVID-cleaning and compulsive-cleaning aren't that far apart in my brain's alphabetical filing system. While sorting computer files, I came across this sermon that I'd written in 2011. It begins with an ordinary trip to the store. Maybe nostalgia for that old normal drew me in. Or maybe this is the way normal was supposed to look all along? What do you think? Here's my retro word on the Word of God. 

On Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Luke 10:25-37

'These passages offer us so much to talk about; how to pull it all together?'  Those were my thoughts as I was finishing this sermon yesterday. So when I saw the orange light flashing on my printer and since I didn’t have any more paper to add to the tray, I decided to go to Staples. I also stopped at Target, despite the fact that I knew John would be home soon and we hadn’t eaten supper yet. Wasting time, my mother would have said. I was lecturing myself with her words so I only stayed long enough to pick up one item and hurried to the Express Lane. The cart ahead of me looked suspiciously like it held more than 20 items, but I told myself that I should be patient with others and so I passed the time by concentrating on not sighing out loud and trying not to look as impatient as I felt. And not blaming the person ahead of me for making me late. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that the line started getting longer behind me as well as in the next lane. Meanwhile my clerk was very carefully folding about a zillion pieces of children’s clothing. I sighed before I remembered not to, but – thank heavens - not obviously enough to attract attention to myself. 

     Then the worst case scenario happened in the next aisle. You know what that is, don’t you? A baby started to cry, one of those really wound-up cries. I glanced over, but the mother was answering questions thrown at her by two girls, about this height, 8 or 10 years old, I suspect. They were whining because she was refusing to buy candy. No one was attending to the baby in the cart. I thought, 'why doesn’t that mother pick up that child?'  I thought, 'why doesn’t that mother ask one of those perfectly healthy, strong, young girls to pick up that child, or to rock his car seat gently, or give him his pacifier?'  The mother was getting cranky with the girls; they both gave her sullen looks. The baby cried harder. Everyone was looking at them...even my clerk who obviously should have been paying attention to what she was doing because she had to check the screen a second time to see if she had accounted for everything before ringing up a total. Not much longer, I told myself. But now the clerk was talking with the woman ahead of me about opening a charge account. I re-positioned my single item on the conveyor belt and shifted my weight from one leg to the other. 

And then a funny thing happened. A song started playing in my mind. 'Lullaby and good night, dah, da, dah, da, da da da….' Oh, I know that must have been a very, very old reflex reaction. I haven’t sung a lullaby to a baby in many years. But there it was, loud and clear in my brain. And also in my brain— because of all the times I had read them this week, because of all the information about them that I had stuffed into my head— also in my brain were today's verses from the gospel of Luke, especially, "Which of these do you think was a neighbor?" 

         I was startled. I looked around. Everyone was uncomfortable. Many were sighing and shifting their weight. No doubt, several were thinking judgmental thoughts about this hassled mother and her three children. It was written all over their faces. All over my face, I thought. But I was also still thinking, 'Lullaby and good night…' so I started singing out loud right there in the Express Lane at Target. 

         I am not the sort of person who has ever even pretended to love musicals. Frankly, I have always thought it was pretty hokey that in the middle of the plot, just when everything was getting all complicated and a good solution was needed, someone would pick that moment to burst out in song. But secretly, I guess, I also thought that if, I say IF, that ever were to occur in real life, when one person burst out in song, others would be sure to chime in. Especially when someone was singing a song that everyone knows by heart, let’s say, something as familiar as “Lullaby and good night…”  But, that wasn't the case.  Maybe that explains why “Ooooooklahoma” isn’t entitled “Minnnnnnesota,” you think? 

         By now, my item was checked out and since I had started something by singing, I figured I might as well go all the way. So, still singing, I stepped to the side of the cart that held a very distressed little baby boy only a few months old, and when the mother looked up at me a little confused, I stopped to  ask, “Would you mind if I stand here and rock the baby carrier while you finish?” Do you know what relief looks like? As I rocked the baby’s car seat, I caught the eye of one of the older girls, so I said, “He’s having a hard night.” She replied, sarcastically, “He’s having a hard summer. See, he scratched me.” She showed me two Band-Aids on her arm. The other girl added timidly, “He really likes his Binky.”  I saw the pacifier lying where it had fallen down on his blanket and tested that a moment on his lips. It popped in place almost instantly and there was silence, except for a middle-aged woman still humming. The mother thanked me, really thanked me.  The baby was quiet, and I slipped away while she was gathering up her bags.

         I have helped others before, as you have. But this time, was different because it would have been far less embarrassing to mind my own business. This time I wasn’t completely sure how what I offered might be received before I offered it. To be sure, this time was only a small thing, a baby in the supermarket, d’rein, as the French say when someone thanks them -- nothing. This time, as small as it was, was far less safe than other times I’d offered to help in the past. And this time I was also in a hurry to get home. You see, I had to finish a sermon about the Good Samaritan. And, I had been studying God’s word which says, what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach…no, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

         That’s the illustration, here’s the sermon:  did you happen to notice in the text that Jesus never called the Samaritan “Good”? Neither does he call the priest and the Levite, “Bad.” They all could justify NOT stopping, if they had wanted to, whether for legal, religious, or cultural reasons, let alone, just being late. But the end of the matter is that the first two simply did not act in a neighborly way. They chose to respond with their heads— their better judgment— not with compassionate hearts. 

        We often have compassion for ourselves. We harbor hurt feelings and want others to love and accept us. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity, (v. 33). A heart like that applies the same awareness to the other person’s situation. When we study this passage, we often analyze the different ethnicity and job descriptions of these passersby, but the only difference that Jesus takes into account is their ability or inability to "be moved with pity".

How do we look at the world?  Have I received from my Lord a compassion that overrides logic, ego, and inconvenience?  The right question for us is not "Who is my neighbor?", but rather "How will I be a neighbor?"

 

Photo by Eduardo Soares on Unsplash