Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
Year C, RCL
July 14, 2019
North Fork Ministries
Gospel:
Luke 10:25-37
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
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I once had a friend who was a kind of spiritual director. She was the priest at small parish in Eastern Idaho, and lived in a village nestled in the foothills of the Grand Tetons. I didn’t see her very often, but I looked forward to her visits to Texas because she brought with her a sense of peace and serenity that was missing from the rather topsy-turvy kind of existence I knew during those years.
Her peaceful demeanor hadn’t arrived by accident. She started and ended her days in contemplative prayer or meditation. She read and studied scripture faithfully. She practiced yoga. She lived in a place of great natural beauty, with the ever-present majesty of the snow-capped Grand Tetons looming above all.
When I would meet her for lunch or coffee, I found that my breathing slowed down, the anxiety I constantly held, but seldom noticed, began to fall away, and even the lunch hour rush at a popular restaurant felt like a holy place. We would chat for a while about this and that, catching up on the events in each other’s lives, and then at some point in the conversation she would stop and ask, Roger, how is your soul?
The first time she raised the question, I really didn’t know how to answer. How is my soul? I didn’t know where it was, much less how it was doing. Was my soul good, bad, healthy, sick? I really didn’t know. I hadn’t thought much about it. But her question prompted me to wonder about the nature, the well-being of my soul. And from time to time, I began to pose the question, “How is my soul?”
The inquiry led me to the realization that I wasn’t properly caring for my soul - that in my effort to make a living, meet the needs of my family, acquire the things that I desired, I was neglecting my soul.
And so with a heartfelt desire to care for my soul, I embarked on an exploration of spiritual practices. I read widely - everything from Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul, Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, to the Bhagavad Gita, and anything by Deepak Chopra or the Dalai Lama.
I learned to meditate for hours, fasted for days on end, sought to pray without ceasing, devoutly read the Daily Office, practiced mindfulness, spent my vacations in monasteries, Zen-walked to distraction, and embarrassed my children by practicing yoga at McDonald’s. A woman I was dating broke up with me because I prayed over the vegetables at the local Whole Foods Market, and friends expressed fear that I might levitate at any moment.
And although I can make light of it now, the search was a good one. I needed the exploration of a wide range of spiritual practices because my soul was troubled and searching and clearly needed attention.
I was on a spiritual quest not unlike the one of the lawyer who asked of Jesus, "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
The lawyer, schooled in the law, already knew the answer, and so, prompted by Jesus, he answered his own question by quoted the scripture he had been taught as a child, “love God, with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus affirmed his reply saying, “Do this and you will live.”
Jesus was directing him back to the spiritual practices that he knew would nurture his soul. He kept the law by fasting at appropriate times, avoiding the unclean, giving alms – familiar ways of expressing his love of God, and caring for his soul.
But clearly the lawyer wasn’t satisfied with this bit of spiritual direction. He continued the inquiry by asking, “But who is my neighbor?” And so Jesus responded by telling him the parable of the Good Samaritan.
I think that a lot of biblical teaching and preaching gets side-tracked at this point by reducing this familiar parable to a simple story about being kind to strangers, or by trying to answer the lawyer’s question about who our neighbor is in his own legalistic language. It’s pretty clear that the one who behaved “neighborly” in this story was the Samaritan, the ancient enemy of the Jewish people.
I would like for you to consider the possibility that in telling the story of the Good Samaritan in the context of the lawyer’s initial concern about eternal life, Jesus is making a connection between a person’s spiritual practice and the outcome of compassion for others that naturally flows from sound spiritual practice.
It is a connection that is well established in all the great world religions. In Buddhism the relationship is made explicit. Buddhists teach that the practice of meditation leads to an awareness of the interconnectedness of all creation, the sense that we are all one. And so compassion naturally flows from the realization that we are all of one body.
Modern science is catching up the wisdom found in this ancient truth. Scientific studies have found a firm link between the practice of meditation and the willingness to show compassion when faced with suffering. In one study andomly selected subjects took part in an 8-week course on meditation. A control group was told that they would take the course later.
In a waiting room, subjects were given the opportunity to give up their seat to a woman wearing a cast and on crutches. Astonishingly, only 18% of the non-meditators offered their seat to the woman, while more than half of those who had been taught to meditate gave up their seat.
It is a simple experiment, but I think it underscores the value of the lesson that Jesus sought to convey to the lawyer. The lawyer understood the teachings of his religion, he practiced the law, and he was obedient to God’s command, as he understood it. But through the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus was seeking to have him understand that whatever religious practice is adopted, a movement toward compassion for others validates it. The Samaritan, a distant cousin of the Jews, whose practice of religion looked very different from that practiced by the lawyer and by Jesus, had gotten it right. He had lifted the injured traveler from the ditch, bandaged his wounds, and paid for his care. In whatever way the Samaritan practiced loving God; his love was made evident through his compassion.
We are all at different places on our spiritual journey. It may be that your soul is wounded or neglected. It may be that your spiritual life is dry and barren. And it may be that you are just now at the cusp of realizing that your soul may require tending. If so, I urge you to find a spiritual practice that works for you, that nurtures you, heals you, and moves you toward wholeness. The path toward compassion begins by first showing compassion, love, for yourself.
But along the way, as your practice deepens – as your devotion strengthens, as your prayers become fuller, as your meditation becomes richer, as your songs of praise ring more true, I ask that you then examine your spiritual practice, and ask if it is leading you toward compassion. The question is the soul’s litmus test. Love of God must eventually lead to love for your neighbor, or something is amiss.
And if the idea of showing compassion toward your neighbor seems so remote, so removed from your daily existence, then perhaps a more basic question is in order. How is your soul?