Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest, author and professor of theology at Piedmont College in Georgia. In her book, The Preaching Life, she tells of a time she was preparing a sermon on the Good Samaritan. As she was driving to work she saw a car on the side of the road. The hood was up and a tall black man stepped into the roadway as her car got closer. He held up a pair of jumper cables and looked directly at her. Her mind leapt from one thought to another in a matter of seconds, returning again and again to the idea that the man needed help. But as a woman alone in a car she made the hurried decision to pass him by, hoping the next person would stop to help. So she left the man standing in the road and continued driving to her office to, ironically, finish her sermon on the Good Samaritan.
Taylor talks about God not caring much what we ‘think’ or even what we ‘believe,’ but caring a lot about what we ‘do’ and ‘don’t do.’ If our good thoughts and positive beliefs don’t translate into merciful actions they have little value in this very physical world. Changing the world isn’t only about changing opinions and attitudes; it’s about what we actually ‘do’ based on what we know in our heart.
Taylor is an excellent writer and preacher. She delivered a sermon on the Good Samaritan at Truro Cathedral in Cornwall, England last July—not the same one she was working on when she encountered the stranded motorist on the roadside, by the way. In it she says that the one thing the Samaritan does that sets him apart from the priest and the Levite is that he “comes near” the robbery victim rather than only ‘seeing’ him and ‘passing him by’. “If there are moral or physical dangers involved,” she says, “the Samaritan ignores them. If there are ancient hostilities between their people, the Samaritan disregards them. If he and the half dead man are theologically so far apart that they are bound to begin arguing the moment the man comes to, the Samaritan figures he’ll deal with that later. All that matters right now is to come near the man, which is what puts him in the half dead man’s neighborhood. He comes near enough to see him, near enough to be moved by him, near enough to show him mercy.”
This is what our ministry partnerships in Portland and Eugene are about—coming near enough to be moved and show mercy to people who badly need real neighbors. Rose Haven in Portland and the Catholic Worker house in Eugene serve a growing population of travelers, many of whom have been beaten—physically, mentally, spiritually—and left half-dead by the side of the road, both figuratively and literally. Volunteers in both locations feed people, talk to them, do what can be done to meet some of their very basic needs for food, shelter and healing on so many levels.
We are a small community in both cities. What matters is we are doing SOMETHING, something concrete and real. As Taylor says, “do a little, do a lot, but do SOME’! Being a neighbor requires coming near enough to see, near enough to dress the wounds of those who have fallen prey to an inconsiderate and often violent world. As a community we are doing what we can, and hoping to do more, in and through our donations and volunteers as we deepen our commitment to the poor and neglected population served by our ministry partners.
As individuals we have opportunities on a daily basis to be kind and gracious to strangers whose pain and distress we cannot see. There are losses large and small in everyone’s life and for some these losses are traumatic. But they are often, also, invisible. Like the 12-year old next door who just lost his mother to cancer. Thankfully he has a strong and loving father and extended family, but meeting him on the street you wouldn’t know he is lost and in pain. And there’s the woman on the next block whose husband was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. When she shows up at the grocery counter with no wallet, holding up the line of hurried shoppers, no one knows she hasn’t slept in days and is overwhelmed with responsibilities she barely knows how to handle.
These are small examples of what people around us are carrying as they try to go about the business of their lives. People are carrying enormous crosses with wounds etched in their souls that others cannot see. They long for understanding, for a kind word, for a smile that tells them they are seen. Being a good neighbor to them is all about replacing judgment, criticism and blame with kindness and compassion.
With cities and nations in free-fall and violence all around us, we have an even greater responsibility to be that caring neighbor who puts aside differences in order to respect, and sometimes dress the wounds of others gently. This isn’t an easy thing to do. If it was, the priest and Levite in today’s parable would have ignored the purity codes that drove them to the other side of the road. In fact the priest, the first to arrive, would have stopped and taken care of the man himself.
Courage is needed to follow the law of love written in our hearts. Following that law will often place us out-of-step with systems that rely on self-protective and self-indulgent instincts to fuel the marketplace and steady the reins of power. But we have a model in Jesus who was further along the path of living with an open and loving heart. As the image of the unseen God, he showed us the way to BE love in this world. He didn’t tell us how to think; he demonstrated what to do. He showed us what love is in action. Today’s parable is a graphic example of what love looks like through his eyes: it is inclusive, open, generous and free.
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