Transfiguration Sunday
Exodus 24
12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. 14 He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”
15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
I think I described the film as “heart-warming.”
Maybe I used “feel-good,” or “magical,” or whatever reviewer keyword that will get your name and publication on the movie poster. I was selling “Hail, Caesar!” (2016), a film by the Coen brothers and starring George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson.
It was early fall, if I remember correctly, that I described the film to my cinephile parents. “It’s set in the golden age of Hollywood,” I said, “and recreates the classic studio backlot, with westerns, musicals, swimming and Bible-epics! It’s heart-warming!”
Fast-forward to Christmas morning, and my parents return the favour with my own copy of Hail, Caesar! “Thank you,” I said, “what a heart-warming film,” I said. “Really?” they said, “did you watch the film?” they said, “because it was dreadful.” Suddenly taste is subjective, and I can’t be trusted with “feel-good” or “magical.”
Well, tonight I get that last laugh. Hail, Caesar! is nominated for an Academy Award, in the category of Best Production Design! Oscar knows! But don’t take my word for it, see it yourself. Just don’t run out and buy a copy—maybe you should borrow mine before you commit.
Speaking of Bible-epics, the New York Times (before it became fake news) said that "in its remarkable settings and décor, including an overwhelming facade of the Egyptian city from which the Exodus begins, and in the glowing Technicolor in which the picture is filmed—Mr. DeMille has worked photographic wonders." And of the star, “Variety called Charlton Heston an ‘adaptable performer’ who, as Moses, reveals ‘inner glow as he is called by God to remove the chains of slavery that hold his people.’” (Wikipedia)
Kind words, all of which deserve a place on the double VHS boxset. And the inner glow, when not enhanced by some very talented make-up artists, was perhaps owing to the immersive experience Heston had, with many of the key scenes—including his encounter with God—filmed on location.
There, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, very near St. Catherine’s Monastery, Heston and director DeMille, along with a small crew, recreated the moment that Shauna shared a moment ago. They took the biblical story, and the now famous ‘look’ created by painter Arnold Friberg, and brought to life a key moment in the story of Moses. Friberg’s work was so well-regarded that Oscar went searching for a category to honour him, finally settling on Costume Design.
And in an effort to save you four-hours of screen time (including intermission) I give you the story of Moses, prince of Egypt: Worried that his Hebrew slaves will soon outnumber his Egyptian subjects, the evil Pharaoh orders that the first-born among the slaves be killed. Moses’ mother, in an effort to save the lad, puts him in a basket that he might float down the Nile to safety.
As luck would have it, a princess of the royal court finds the baby, and he is raised within that court. He grows up. One fateful day the princely Moses intervenes when an Egyptian taskmaster is being particularly cruel to a Hebrew slave. The taskmaster is killed, and Moses flees.
Now a fugitive, Moses chooses the quiet life with his new family, living near Mt. Horeb. A simple shepherd, he encounters God in the burning bush and accepts God’s challenge to free the enslaved Hebrews. He returns to Egypt, and with the help of a variety of plagues, torments Pharaoh until the slaves are released.
Despite Pharaoh's change-of-heart and a large watery obstacle, Moses and the people make it to the safety of the desert where they wander—until Moses receives the law, the topic of our passage today. In all, Moses and his people will spend forty years in the desert, where Moses will die in old age as they are set to enter the promised land.
The act of receiving the law is far from simple. It happens in stages, with the law given verbally, from the cloud, then shared with the people. But God wishes to go a step further, and provide tablets, so summons Moses once more. Moses sets out, and the cloud reappears:
For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Eventually the tablets appear, but for now I want to focus on time: all the markers that give the narrative a sense of God’s time. Six days of cloud and a summons on the seventh, forty days and nights of waiting within forty years of desert wandering, after four hundred years of captivity in Egypt. Time markers abound.
Even the New Testament retelling, the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, begins with a time marker:
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
The strange thing is that reading the previous chapter of Matthew provides no clue about the six days. One moment he’s teaching and trying to get the disciples to stop squabbling and then “after six days” a journey to a high mountain. It’s almost like a reflex, adding a time marker to lend some importance the event.
What draws these passages together is time set aside for experiencing the glory of the Lord. Both Moses and Jesus have important and time-consuming tasks to complete, both must liberate a people. Moses must liberate his people from bondage and Jesus must liberate us from sin and sorrow, and through it all we have this call to time away.
From the time of his own forty days in the desert, until this all too brief time on the mountain, Jesus has struggled to find time with God. He gets in boat and a crowd forms on the shore. He tries to rest, and the disciples cry out. He will find some time alone at Gethsemane, but between temptation time and his last night, the transfiguration is a rare time away.
This might be the perfect time to remind you of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the result of another time away, when in the midst of the English Civil War a group of “divines” met to try to unify the churches of Scotland and England. The result was 107 questions for instruction and edification, with the most famous being the first (I have transcribed the 1647 language for today):
Q: What is the primary purpose of humanity?
A: Humanity’s primary purpose is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.
And what’s required to glorify God and enjoy God? Time and time away. Six days of waiting and a seventh day set aside to worship God. Forty days and nights on the mountainside. And in each story the glory of the Lord shone about them, on the face of Moses and in the face of Jesus. Yet each encounter with the Living God requires time.
Sometimes it seems we have nothing but time. 195 years of Sundays here at King and Weston Road is a long time, but more time is required. And all the other things that seek to crowd out the time must be set aside, as we seek to fulfil our primary purpose, to glorify God and enjoy God in this place. Amen.
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
1 Corinthians 3
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[a]; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”[b] 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas[c] or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
Two of the most learned people in the Bible don’t seem to have much time for the wise.
St. Paul, of course, will have his moment to tell us that the wisdom of the world is foolishness in the sight of God, but we begin with Luke, Paul’s first biographer. St. Luke, the physician, oddly the patron saint of both surgeons and butchers, is the other wise person who has little time for the wise.
We learn this most clearly when Paul gets to Athens, the city of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and is taken to Mars Hill, also known as the Areopagus. Luke tells the story in the usual way, as a travelogue, but can’t help but add some commentary:
19 Then [the philosophers] took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Sounds idyllic. A hilltop hangout for people who do nothing my debate new ideas? But Luke is dismissive. And what follows is a record of one of the most clever bits of contextual theology found in scripture, as Paul points to their own statue TO AN UNKNOWN GOD and tells them about the God who made the heavens and the earth, and does not live in human temples.
Acts 17 concludes with a description of the resurrection and some sneering. Paul doesn’t win the crowd that day at the Areopagus, but he does win a couple of converts—Dionysius, a member of the council, and a woman named Damaris—and the church in Athens in born.
It may be this early visit to Athens that informs his view of the wise, and we certainly see echoes of it in 1 Corinthians 3, as Paul once again picks up the theme of temples and buildings. Our passage starts with Paul describing himself as “a wise builder,” the one who founded the church at Corinth and now must guide them through some conflict.
It seems that factions have developed, some following Paul the founder and others following Apollos the leader that picks up where Paul left off, and Paul writes to straighten them out. “I planted the seed,” he says, “and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.” Then he drops the plant metaphor and returns to buildings:
I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Back to Athens for a moment, it’s easy to imagine what Paul had in mind when he was meditating on temples and human achievement. At the time of his visit the Parthenon was already over four-hundred years old, already an icon of the ancient world, but actually dwarfed by another tourist attraction—the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The temple to Zeus, like the subway to York University, had been under construction for nearly 500 years when Paul was there, and would not be complete for another hundred.
And such was the temporary life of temples. They are built, then fall down. If not fires or earthquakes, then conquering armies or English antiquarians. Paul expands the idea found in Acts 17—that God does not live in human temples—and names us as God’s temple, the true dwelling place of God.
And then he takes on the wise:
If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[a]; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”
It turns out Paul is making a case for following God in Christ rather then human leaders, but he does it by taking on the wise. Debating which church leader to follow makes you no better than the idlers on Mars Hill, when Paul, Apollos, Peter and the rest are all just Christ-followers doing their best to live the Gospel. You are the wisdom of God, Paul says, because you are Christ and Christ is of God.
Speaking of the wisdom of the world that is foolish in God’s sight, we have been studying remits. Remits, you will recall, are set by church leaders who gather at a national meeting every three years and try to chart a course for the future of the church.
And sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they amend things that need amending, and sometimes they correct the past and find a new path. Other times, unfortunately, then seem to forget the wisdom of the past and try to build something that experience tells us may not last.
They follow trends, some might say fads, and do it all with the very best intentions. I can call them fools for Christ because I was one of them, and have gone to the General Council more times than I care to admit. Like the church at Corinth, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” But we did our best.
If Paul were alive today he would be called a blogger, a letter-writer who was happy to have his material read by others. His letters were meant to be passed around, and he made his comments general enough that his “wisdom” could apply to most churches who took the time to read.
I read a lot of blogs, mostly because the form has an immediacy and a kind of free-form honesty that you don’t always get in books. Books are the result of a longer process, often careful editing, where blogs reflect thinking in-the-moment and at a particular time. And based on this timeliness, there are often trends.
One of the trends I see in various church-related blogs is a “grass is greener” longing that comes as people reflect on their own tradition. Liberals church bloggers wish they were more like the evangelicals and evangelical church bloggers wish they were more like liberals. Some bloggers take occasion to yell at their peers, or elders, or just the world out there. Again, the emphasis is on immediacy, not a record for the ages. Having edited a book for blogs for publication, I can tell you that half-formed thoughts and contradictions are part of the magic of blogs.
So this week I read a blog with the alarming and somewhat provocative title “59 Percent of Millennials Raised in a Church Have Dropped Out—And They’re Trying to Tell Us Why.” Okay, Sam Eaton, writer, speaker, and founder of a mental health ministry, you have my attention. As he writes it is obvious that he is coming from an more evangelical background, and his advice is surprising:
Listen to the millennials (people in their 20s and 30s) in your church (if you can find any).
Stop writing mission statements (stick to love God and love you neighbour).
Spend less time on meetings and Bible study and help the poor instead.
Stop blaming popular culture for the world's problems.
Open your church to strangers.
Spend money on those in need and not yourself.
Talk more about controversial topics.
In other words, our wisdom (“O if we only be more like those evangelical churches”) is foolishness, and the foolishness of the young evangelicals (“O, we should be more like the progressive churches”) might be wisdom. Or might not. Whatever is wise and whatever is foolish, the best advice is Paul’s: You are the wisdom of God, Paul says, because you are Christ and Christ is of God.
So we try to follow Christ, to live in his way, and to reinterpret what that means in each new generation while honouring the past. It is not an easy task, but the answer is always the same, always God’s wisdom, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 5
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
25 “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
If someone is going to insult you, better a poet for the job.
Take our friend Wm. Shakespeare, for example. Knowing, perhaps, that school children might be forced one day to learn this stuff, he added just enough content that only a 12 year-old can truly appreciate:
Henry IV, Part I: “Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish!”
And what a gift to the teacher—simply explain what each of these items are, let them giggle for a few minutes, and eventually the bell will ring. Next thing you know the hallway is filled with Shakespearean invective and the kids are demonstrating the power of applied learning.
Some of his insults, of course, seem to have lost their edge. If I tell you that my friends “wit’s as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard” (Henry IV, Part 2) you may be a bit confused. While others (“Thine face is not worth sunburning”) are quite clear and may come in handy when sailing resumes.
And of course, the internet is filled with Shakespeare insult generators, but the good folks at MIT have gone one better: a simple three-column chart, take a word from each, add “Thou” to the beginning and you’re there. “Thou artless base-court apple-john” may seem as thick as Tewkesbury mustard, but it’s fun to say.
And just to prove that none of this is new, I give you Matthew 5.22. Jesus shares one very common insult (“you fool”) and one that the New International Version gives us in Aramaic (“Raca”), a word that scholars are still debating. They are certain on one thing—and they would be quick to tell you—that “Raca” is a hapax legomenon, a word that appears only once in the Bible. So it’s a rare insult, whatever it means.
It likely means “empty one” or “empty-headed,” but somehow our friends at the NIV felt it was best left untranslated. As obscure insults go, it’s right up there with Tewkesbury mustard, but if you use it around here, we’re all going to know what you mean.
So why is Jesus repeating all these insults? What is he trying to say? Listen again to verse 21 and 22:
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
The first thing to note here is Jesus’ use of intensification, something he uses throughout his teaching. “You have heard it said” and then “but I say to you” is a standard formulation for Jesus, underling the question of authority we will look at in a few minutes. But it’s also something he found in scripture. We know that Jesus loved the psalms and quoted them most often, and in them we see the same device:
Happy are those who keep your decrees,
who seek you with their whole heart.
We recite these words, and the meaning is clear, but we often miss that they are meant to elevate us, to draw us close to the truth and therefore closer to God. “If this is so, then how much more is this so” and on it goes. And as the psalmist is expert at drawing us closer to ultimate truth, so much more is the Son of the Most High.
So the form is intensification, but the content is equivalency. When Jesus says “you have heard it said” and “but “ say to you” when can expect that one will be more than the other, when in fact he is saying they are equal. “You have heard it said ‘you shall not murder’ but I tell that anyone who is angry is subject to judgment.” Again, Jesus intensifies the message just to be sure we hear:
Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
In some ways this is just another of his ‘hard sayings,’ those verses that would have us taking an eye out of lobbing off a limb because some part of our body is causing us to sin. These are words we take seriously rather than literally, since it would be a terrible burden on the health care system of believers were in the regular practice of gouging and lobbing.
Again, seriously rather than literally. Jesus wants to make it clear that what resides in the human heart is just as important as the actions we undertake. Beginning with Cain and Abel, we know that anger is at the root of that most serious of crime, and when we learn to control our anger the world will be a better and safer place.
So by what authority does Jesus share these teachings? It’s a common question, one that the religious establishment were quick to ask when Jesus entered the temple courts and began to preach. At one moment it seems he will answer then, then famously he won’t answer them (Mark 11), all the while letting the people decide. “They were amazed at his teaching,” Luke says, “because his words had authority.” (4.32) Or perhaps the more familiar: “The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.” (Mark 1.22)
Of course this is ironic, since Jesus was first and foremost a teacher of the law. His disciples called him ‘rabbi’ as did many others. And like the teachers of the law he followed many of the customs that would come to be associated with power of the rabbis. He would amplify the importance of certain laws ("gezerot") but commending them or ranking them for his followers. Sometimes, like our passage this morning, he would expand the meaning of a law, to renew it or give it new life ("taḳḳanot"). Later still, he would introduce new rites and practices ("minhagim") such as the eucharist and the washing of feet, rituals that his follows did to honour the teacher or the teacher’s message.
And all of this, of course, reinforces what we read last week. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And he added what certainly seems like another one of his ‘hard sayings’ to say that “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“You have heard it said” but “I say to unto you.” Call it the ultimate intensification that our righteousness must surpass that of the experts and the religious elites. And just to go a step further, we need to surpass them just as Jesus surpassed them: “The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.” (Mark 1.22)
In other words, be like Jesus. And just when the task seems impossible and the bar is set too high, we have C.S. Lewis to assure us. Lewis said we can share in the life of Christ, and he added this:
Jesus “came to this world and became a [person] in order to spread to other [people] the kind of life He has—by what I call "good infection." Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”
Not Christ, but a little Christ. More than a follower, more than a disciple—we are to become little Christs. It’s another intensification. “You have heard it said ‘come and follow me’ but C.S. Lewis said we are to become little Christs. It is the way we can surpass the teachers of the law without trying to be Christ himself.
St. Paul said we “put on the mind of Christ,” meaning we use Jesus lens to see the world, we live his values and try to love the people he loved. So being more than the other teachers, more like little Christs, we put on his mind and meet the world we know.
“Happy are those who keep your decrees, the psalmist said, “who seek you with their whole heart.” Amen.
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 5
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
You are the Sriracha (see-rotch-ah) of the earth. But if your Vietnamese hot sauce loses its hotness, how will you flavour your pho? You might as well put ketchup on it, or just eat the spring rolls instead.
There is, in fact, little risk that your Sriracha sauce will lose its hotness, since the good people at Huy Fong limit production of the sauce based on the supply of some very specific chilis. Still, they make 20 million bottles a year, so you don’t need to start rationing.
And the story of the sauce in the clear bottle with the rooster on it is just as compelling as the sauce itself. Huy Fong founder David Tran began making the sauce in his native Vietnam, but fled the country along with other members of the ethnic Chinese population, part of the “boat people” crisis of the late 1970s.
Tran and three thousand other refugees crowded aboard a ship named Huy Fong (hence the company name) and fled to safety. Eventually settling in Los Angeles, Tran began to supply restaurants in Chinatown until demand began to grow, mostly through word-of-mouth. To this day, Huy Fong doesn’t advertise, since increasing production would hurt the quality of the sauce.
It’s a remarkable story, but it’s not really unique. Last year we heard about the Hadhad family of Antigonish, who fled Syrian after their chocolate factory was bombed out. Within a year of settling in Nova Scotia they were back at it, selling chocolate at the farmers market and online, creating ten jobs for local people in the run up to Christmas.
We are a country of immigrants, refugees, migrants, and people seeking a better life. And when the unspeakable happens, and people are murdered while they pray, it falls to us to reflect on how we see the latest wave of newcomers—the stories we hear and the stories we tell. On one level, an attack on one group of worshippers is an attack on us as well. And an attack that can be traced back to public discourse—toxic discourse—should cause everyone to pause and reflect on words and their impact.
So we pray for our brothers and sisters, for those who mourn, and for everyone who experiences hatred or oppression based on race or religion. We pray that those who lead us or seek to lead us will ponder their words, and consider how those words may be received. And we pray that as we allow the light of our religion to shine, we never diminish the religion of others.
“In the same way,” Jesus said, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5 is one of those chapters that gives us phrase after familiar phrase, a kind of scriptural comfort food that may lose its edge with each reading. We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world. We ought not hide our light, lest we fail to be a light to others.
And so often with these familiar passages, we dwell on the well-loved and well-worn phrases and stop before the full meaning is revealed. So we must retain our flavour and light—this we understand—but the means remains the law:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
This is the famous jot or tittle of the King James Bible, where Jesus seems to anticipate that abundant grace will confuse what it means to be faithful, what it means to let your light shine. When we receive new life in Christ, when we accept that we are redeemed through the power of grace, we must live in the context of that light. It’s the same question the St. Paul asks in Romans 6:
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
So we follow the law. We begin with loving God and loving our neighbour, Jesus’ own summary of the law and the prophets, but we also turn to scripture when context and circumstance challenge us to look deeper. So today we began with welcoming the stranger, what does it say in the law?
Deuteronomy 10:19 You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.
Leviticus 19:34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
Hebrews 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Matthew 25: 35 I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
And all of this, it would seem, leads back to the Good Samaritan. You know it: an expert in the law corners Jesus and asks after eternity, wanting to know the heart of scripture—the heart of the law. Jesus give his famous summary about God and neighbour—and the expert agrees—but then asks the follow-up: “But who is my neighbor?”
And the story is told, a man beaten and robbed, left for dead at the side of the road. The people who ought to stop and help—the very religious—pass on by, but the foreigner, the Samaritan, becomes his saviour and neighbour, the one who follows the law.
Again, it is so familiar it has lost the power to shock or even surprize us, with the Good Samaritan becoming shorthand for anyone who goes out of their way to lend a hand. But that’s a perversion of the meaning, a way that we have domesticated the parable to make it about being helpful. Yes, we ought to help those in distress, just as the Good Samaritan did, but that’s not the point of the parable.
The Good Samaritan is whatever group or minority that we count as stranger in our midst, whoever we view with suspicion today. So the Good Samaritan is a migrant, or a refugee, or anyone who we have decided in advance would never lend help to someone on the road. Until they do, and then the parable lives once more.
“For I tell you,” Jesus said “that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
But then they do. I have no doubt that Jesus told and retold the Good Samaritan and inserted a new character with each telling. I sure there were good Roman soldiers, good tax collectors, and even good thieves that might some day hang beside him. The Good Samaritan is just a placeholder, a blank space were we can insert others or even ourselves.
Jesus says we are the light of the world. And later, In John, he will reveal that he too is the light of the world. Together we let our light shine: to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, and proclaim Jesus, our judge and our hope, Amen.
