The Jericho Road Luke 10:25-37 July 11, 04, 6 Pentecost, Year C, Proper 10 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi With a lawyer as a central character in today's Gospel, I can't resist telling a lawyer joke. As Joe's death neared, he summoned to his hospital room his three closest friends and confidants: his priest, his doctor and his lawyer. "I've always heard that you can't take your wealth with you," he explained, "however, I'm going to prove them wrong," and handed each of them an envelope. "Each of these envelopes contains $100,000 in cash. At my funeral, I want each of you to place your envelope inside my casket." At his funeral, each one dropped in his envelope as instructed. That night as they reminisced, the priest's guilt got the best of him. "I confess," he began, "but the church desperately needs a new roof that will cost $100,000, so I held out that amount to pay for the new roof." The doctor equally shamed confessed, "The charity clinic where I volunteer desperately needs a piece of equipment that costs $100,000, and I held back that much to give to the clinic." The lawyer couldn't constrain his shock and disgust. "You mean, that you stole that money from poor, dead Joe? I'm appalled at both of you!" The disgraced priest asked, "But weren't you tempted, just a little, to hold back some of it?" "Of course not," said the lawyer incredulously. I have you know that my envelope contained $100,000, and I never thought of making my personal check for a penny less." (My apologies to all attorneys here.) We humans so want to be exact about following the letter of the law. It is what shows both the humor and the truth in this joke. It is what motivates the lawyer in today's Gospel text to ask "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" The lawyer is baiting Jesus. He knows the answer already. It is the question of the rich man will later ask Jesus? It is the question that I as a priest am frequently asked in different ways? "What must I do to get into heaven? What must I do to be saved? If I do X, (you fill in the blank) will I still be able to get into heaven?" Sometimes when people ask these sorts of questions they are asking a real question. In essence, they are asking, "What is life all about? How do I find my highest fulfillment?" Sometimes they are simply wanting to assure themselves that if someone they consider less deserving can get into heaven, surely they can too. It's similar to when I was in seminary and I would hit one of those times that the workload and ordination process seemed overwhelming and wonder whether I would get through. I hate to admit it, but often I motivated myself at these times by recalling a less than dynamic priest and think to myself, "Well, if he got through, surely I can too." The issue is fundamental: how do we inherit eternal life? 'Inherit' assumes inheritance, promise. It builds on the view that God wants us to have this life. 'Eternal life' includes everlasting life, but its focus is quality rather than quantity. It is sharing in God's life, now, not just in the future. This is the number one question and still is. However, when we ask the question from the perspective of what's the minimum involved in getting it, we have missed the whole point. It is the same point that we miss if we, as a nation, truly have tried to circumvent the Geneva Convention's regulations regarding the treatment of prisoners, and challenges our claim to be a Christian nation far more than the absence of prayers at football games or copies of the Ten Commandments posted in courthouses. Probably the lawyer knew such things, but wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" The question of who is my neighbor is to place it within the social hierarchy, cultural boundaries. It is one of those questions we ask trying to justify not doing something that God has commanded. The time honored way to ignore what God commands is to set it up as a legalism. The lawyer really asks, "Who is worthy of my love?" - a legalistic question meant to justify ignoring folk who were not deserving. Jesus never lets us get off that easy and does not give a straightforward answer. Surely he could have provided a catalogue of those whom the lawyer could then love as himself as the law required. It is as if Jesus wanted among other things to point out that life is a bit more complex; it has too many ambivalences and ambiguities for it always to be possible to provide a straightforward and often simplistic answer and so tells a story about a man on the road to Jericho. We know nothing about this man: his race, social status, or region of origin. He could be me, or he could be you. To say that a man was robbed on the road to Jericho would be to state a regular occurrence. It would be the same as when Oktibbeha County was dry (as it was during my days as a MSU student) to say there had been an alcohol related accident between here and the Crossroads or Columbus. The Jericho Road is always with us. The Jericho Road is any place where people are robbed: robbed of their dignity, robbed of their love, robbed of their food and clothing, robbed of their value as human beings. It is any place where there is suffering and oppression. We don't know why the man in the parable is attacked, beaten, and robbed, but it happens. Also, let's not be too concerned about the identity of the two who didn't stop and consider what might keep you or me from stopping. It's 4:00 p.m. on a Thursday; I haven't even started working on Sunday's sermon; I've been at a Diocese meeting much of the week, and besides scheduled appointments, my day has been deluged with telephone calls and parishioners dropping by unexpectedly. As Sandra leaves for the day, I think, "Maybe I can finally get some work done", when a young woman appears at the office door saying her utilities are about to be cut off. I shamefully admit it's so easy to step past that beaten body on the Jericho Road. We say to ourselves, "He deserved it." He should have known better than to be on the Jericho Road by himself. Anyone doing so deserves what happens to him. He's beyond my help. What could I do for him? He might be a decoy and if I stop, I'll be Jericho Road's next victim." And so, each of us pass by the beaten man in the ditch on the Jericho Road. When Jesus asks, "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor", notice the lawyer will not even use the word Samaritan, so rejected in his culture, that he merely says, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus has turned the issue from the boundaries of required neighborliness to the essential nature of neighborliness that people mattered more than things, more than systems, even religious systems. Now Jesus seems to say to the lawyer, "Hey, life is more exhilarating as you try to work out the implications of your faith rather than living by rote, with ready made second-hand answers, fitting an unchanging paradigm to a shifting, changing, perplexing and yet fascinating world." Nothing material will give us fulfillment, only being connected to God. Our faith is more than doing the minimum, of doing what we have to to get into heaven. This parable renders void any system of religious quid pro quo. Eternal life - the life of the age to come - begins here, now, in a life characterized by showing mercy for those in need, regardless of their race, religion, or region - and with no thought of reward. Our faith, knowing that God is in charge, must make us ready to get involved, to do more than the minimum, to make time for the really important things, accept others as they are, use the resources we have, and take risks, to be venturesome and innovative, yes, daring to walk where angels might fear to tread on the Jericho Road. "Go and do likewise." Let us make sure that the envelopes we drop in the coffin contain more than a personal check. Let us go forth, then, as the followers of this Jesus, ready to celebrate life that can't be lived by rote. Let's luxuriate in its complexities, in its bewildering ambiguities, excited by the thrill of working out things for ourselves; let us celebrate our diversity opposing the new xenophobia that surrounds us, knocking down the walls that would keep the stranger out. Let us go forth ready to be surprised by a God who expects us to be involved with people on the Jericho Road.