July 15, 2007
7 Pentecost, Amos 7:7-17, Luke 10:25-37
Holden just remodeled our basement. It had been a sort of cave-like place, with that metallic insulation cover showing everywhere and very low ceilings. Holden wanted to transform it into somewhat livable space. One of the first steps (after giving me a heart attack by cutting up what I would have sworn was a support beam) was to put up 2x4 studs all around the room in order to hang dry wall.
And so, Holden took his hundredth trip to Home Depot and got this contraption. A plumb line/plumb bob. You can use this tool to figure out what is “plumb,” that is, what is exactly vertical or true. It’s a simple tool – string (the plumb line) with a weight (the plumb bob) at the bottom. You attach the string to the point at the top and then let the weight drop. After it swings for a while, gravity makes the weight fall precisely below the point at which the string is fastened above.
Holden used this very plumb bob to figure out where to put the studs for the basement walls. He attached it at regular intervals on the ceiling, let the weight line up, and then followed the direction of the now perfectly vertical plumb bob to nail in the 2x4s. The result is a new room with straight, sturdy walls. (Holden jokes that it’s now his “man space,” but since Sophia brought down her dress-up clothes and tea party supplies I think that idea is doomed!)
These things are ancient. Archeologists have found evidence that plumb bobs were used to construct the pyramids. And we learn in our Old Testament reading today that the idea of using a plumb line to find a true and exact line was familiar to the Israelites as well. Amos has a vision of the Lord God holding a plumb line and talking about how He is going to set it in the midst of the people.
And sure enough -- we can see the straight and reliable plumb line in Luke’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
Today’s Gospel opens with a conversation between Jesus and a lawyer, who in those days was a highly respected expert in Mosaic law. Since the lawyer is trying to test Jesus, he starts by asking a question that he thinks he already knows the answer to, which is a very smart lawyerly practice: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus, in a very astute lawyerly move himself, turns the question around on the lawyer rather than answering it.
There’s a professor in seminary who loved answering our questions with her own questions. It wasn’t that Kate didn’t know the answers – she’s brilliant enough that she can seemingly channel theologians at will. Kate just wanted to help us come to the answers ourselves; to help us turn our questions around a little so that we could see some of the possible nuances. Jesus was a master at that, using his questions and stories to help people discover truths about God themselves. So Jesus answers this lawyer’s question about eternal life by saying, “You tell me. What is written in the law?”
“That’s an easy one,” thinks the lawyer. And he answers with a summary of the law: “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.” “Exactly right,” says Jesus, “Do this and you will live.” Do this.
Of course, the lawyer isn’t content with that. He wants to justify himself – to show how good he is and how well he knows the law. And so he asks Jesus a follow-up question: “And who is my neighbor?” In other words, “Who is not my neighbor? How far are we taking this rule?” Again, the lawyer thinks he knows the answer. Our “neighbors” are our relatives and friends and pious Jews – the people that “deserve” our love.
But once again, Jesus doesn’t answer the lawyer’s question directly. Instead he tells a story about three people who come across someone lying beaten and near dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was a long stretch of road, known for being dangerous and populated by robbers and worse. A priest and a Levite, two professional religious people highly respected in Jewish society, pass by on the other side. They are more concerned for their own safety and religious purity than for the half-dead victim. The third person to come by is a Samaritan.
Back then, Samaritans were seen as ceremonially unclean, social outcasts, religious heretics. There’s another story about a Samaritan woman that Jesus meets at a well, and we see Jesus’ own disciples just aghast that Jesus would even talk to this woman.
But in today’s story, unlike the first two men who walked by, the Samaritan doesn’t cross to the other side of the road. He cares for the hurt man’s wounds and carries him to an inn to take care of him, leaving the equivalent of two days wages and promising more on his return.
When Jesus finishes telling this story, he asks the lawyer, “Who was a neighbor to this hurt man?” Once again, Jesus has turned the lawyer’s question back on him. Except now it has shifted a bit. Remember, the lawyer had asked Jesus who his neighbor was; the lawyer wanted Jesus to provide him with a definition of the people he owed duties to, so that he could assure himself that he was doing his duty. So that he could justify himself. But Jesus’ question is a little different. He asks the lawyer who in the story acted like a neighbor. The lawyer answers that the neighbor was “the one who showed mercy.”
The lawyer answered right again. The lawyer got all the answers right. He knew God’s law well. He had the plumb line in his hand. But it wasn’t enough just to have the tool. He had to hold it up and let gravity do its work. To let that plumb line mark the foundation of his life.
One of my final classes in seminary was with Kate, that professor I mentioned a minute ago. Some of my women friends organized an independent study where we would meet with Kate once a week and talk theologically about some hard issue that we thought would probably confront us in parish ministry. Each week, one of us would present a case, either a hypothetical or something that had really happened, and then we’d just see where the conversation led us. It was an amazing class, full of great discussions and good, practical wisdom.
Our final week together we gathered to talk about money – the implications of Jesus’ warning that we cannot serve both God and mammon. The case was about a homeless person who repeatedly asks for money. And, as seems to often happen when this kind of subject arises, we got to talking about the many things that keep us from doing more to help people in need. Sometimes we are scared that what seems like a plea for help might actually be a trick and that we might be physically endangered if we help. Often we wonder if giving money would actually help, or if this person is going to take the money and buy drugs or alcohol. It makes more sense, perhaps, to refer them to an organization that has more experience with these things. A lot of stories got told about times when we felt taken advantage of by people that seemed to be in need. There was some mention of the money and time we give to various charitable organizations.
And just as we began to get comfortable with our justifications for not personally helping the individual who came to us in the case, Kate told us a story about a homeless man that had been coming repeatedly to her home asking for help. She had been giving him money week after week until she felt she couldn’t do that anymore and so now she instead invites him in for food and drives him to the Metro or wherever he needs to go. Kate lives alone, so the idea of her letting some strange man into her home, and then driving him alone in her car, not only worried me, it actually gave me chills. It brought back memories of a death row case I worked on as a law clerk.
And so I asked her whether she wasn’t scared of letting him into her home and driving him in her car. And her response shamed me, and I think all of us, really, because it was such a contrast to our own excuses and justifications, and because it was so clearly true to the Gospel. Kate said that as a Christian she feels called to reach out in love to others at all costs; that she strives to put away her fear for her earthly well-being and to live into her identity as one already risen with Christ. Plunk – God had dropped his plumb line and the bob landed right at my feet.
When God’s Word says to love our neighbor, the term “neighbor” isn’t meant to limit the people we love. It’s meant to describe the way we love. We act like a neighbor by showing the love of God – without limit – to all who are in need, whoever and wherever they are, no matter how unseemly or irrational or dangerous. The Samaritan didn’t weigh the costs or protect himself against dangers when he found the hurt person on that long, lonely road. He loved him by treating him extravagantly and lavishly in his moment of need.
“Go and do likewise,” Jesus directed the lawyer. Don’t just know the right answer – it’s not enough just to have the plum bob there. Use it, Jesus says. Go out and do – go out and love! And that loving, that doing, is what brings us life.
I’ll close with a collect I discovered in the New Zealand Prayer Book. Let us pray:
Save us, Jesus, from hurrying away,
Because we do not wish to help,
Because we know not how to help,
Because we dare not.
Inspire us to use our lives
Serving one another.
Amen.
ER