Carter Memorial United Methodist Church

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?" He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live." Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?" Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man. "A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I'll pay you on my way back.' "What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" "The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same."

RESOURCE: Borg, Marcus J., Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus & The Heart of Contemporary Faith: New York: HarperCollins Paperback, 1994, Chapter Three, pp. 49-68.

Preached by the Reverend Caroline B. Edge at Carter Memorial United Methodist Church on October 8, 2006.

This fall I am inviting you to meet Jesus again for the first time. A few weeks ago we talked about how the historic Jesus was a Spirit Person who was able to transcend the physical world to be in God’s presence in a very special way. Last Sunday we talked about how Jesus’ message coming from this spiritual connection to God was "Be compassionate as God is compassionate."

Today I want us to explore this mantra of Jesus and how it challenged the core values of the Jewish culture in which he was born, lived, and died. Then we will tentatively explore how this creed of "be compassionate as God is compassionate" challenges our social systems today.

The Jewish culture in which Jesus was born and raised had as its motto, "Be holy as God as holy." The Jewish religion taught that to be holy one had to be pure. "Pure" meant staying away from that which was considered unclean – food such as pork and shellfish, people who were dirty or disabled or politically unsavory. The people who took the Jewish religion seriously were fastidious in being pure. They believed they had to be pure to approach God. People who were impure, the unclean, they believed, were not welcome into God’s presence.

Marcus Borg in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, the book that is the resource for this sermon series, identifies six categories that effected purity in the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day. "One’s purity status depended to some extent on birth." From the time of Moses, one of the 12 tribes of Israel had been set aside as the priests – it was the tribe of Levi. So the priests and Levites were by birth considered the purist Jews. After them came all the other Israelites, followed by converts to Judaism, and then those who were illegitimate or males with damaged testicles.

One’s degree of purity also depended upon one’s behavior. There were lots of rules which Borg calls "the purity code." Those who kept those laws perfectly were the purist. "The worst of the nonobservant were called "outcasts". If you were a tax collector or maybe even a shepherd – who were a mangy lot in those days, you were definitely considered an "outcast." "Sinners" was a term used for those who did not keep the purity code. Those who did were called "righteous" – in other words, law abiding. If one was a sinner, then one became "untouchable" by the righteous. If you kept company with a sinner, you defiled your purity.

Another criterion for purity was physical wholeness. Any disabled person was considered impure. "The purity contrast also was associated with economic class." Being rich did not automatically mean you were pure but the abject poor were certainly considered impure. The poorest folk would not have the means to keep all of the requirements of the purity code. Wealth was also considered a blessing of God, so the poor were thought to be folk who had not lived right as they were not blessed financially.

"Purity and impurity also were associated with the contrast between male and female." There was nothing that automatically made a male more pure than a female, "but generally speaking, men in their natural state were thought to be more pure than women." The purity laws forbade women who were experiencing their menstrual cycles or the bodily processes following childbirth to go into the Temple; they were "unclean."

"Finally, the polarity of pure and impure also was attached to whether one was a Jew or a Gentile. Being Jewish did not guarantee one’s purity, of course. But by definition, all Gentiles were impure and unclean."

Thus, we can see that the purity system created a world of sharp contrast between those considered pure – holy – and those who were not. At the center of this ethos was the Temple in Jerusalem. The priests who served there were bound by the most stringent purity code. How far into the sacred spaces you were welcome depended upon how pure you were. Only the priests or high priest could go into the room called "The Holy of Holies" which is where God’s presence dwelt, they believed. So the religious establishment was focused on purity during the time in which Jesus lived.

There were also two renewal groups active during that time who focused on purity. One was the Pharisees who we are familiar with because Jesus dialogues with them a lot in the Gospels. They believed that the purity laws governed every part of everyday life. The other renewal group was the Essenes who sought purity by isolating themselves from the world. Some of you have been to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. It is thought that group living isolated on that mountaintop was made up of Essenes.

Perhaps you are beginning to see how Jesus’ teaching of "Be compassionate as God is compassionate" came up against the dominant thought in his religion of "Be Holy as God is Holy." To substitute compassion for purity as the imitation of God was radical. There are many stories in the Gospels that tell of Jesus criticizing those who would promote the purity code as the way to spirituality. Jesus said what was important was being pure on the inside, not how pure one was on the outside.

The dearly beloved parable of the Good Samaritan which we read today is a perfect example of Jesus’ challenging the purity code. The priest and the Levite had to pass by the man "half-dead" to keep themselves pure. To touch a dead person made one unclean. Coming down the road, it would be hard to tell if that person pummeled by the robbers was dead or alive. So they better keep away or the priest or Levi could not go to work in the temple. On the other hand the Samaritan who did not worship God in Jerusalem at the temple was already considered pretty unclean, although not a Gentile. That person could help the half-dead man without tarnishing his purity. Yet Jesus says this is the person who is the most compassionate of the three. This is the one who is most like God who is compassionate.

Although as Christians we are called to follow Jesus who taught "Be compassionate as God is compassionate, we have a purity code of our own here in the 21^st century. In The United Methodist Church and a number of other Christian denominations, we have by Discipline – our rule book – excluded from ordination and appointment "self-avowed practicing homosexuals." Our Social principals say that gays and lesbians are "people of sacred worth, but The United Methodist Church does not condone thel practice of homosexuality." Basically we are saying that only heterosexual people are clean enough to go into the "Holy of Holies in our church" – to stand behind the communion table and consecrate the communion elements. Some of us Methodists believe that Jesus’ teaching to be compassionate as God is compassionate compels us to welcome all who are fit for ministry to ordination no matter their sexual orientation so long as they are faithful to their partner.

In other communities in which we live such as our state and nation, Jesus’ teaching "Be compassionate as God is compassionate," challenges us. How can we as an affluent nation allow anyone not to have health insurance just because they can not afford it. Without getting into the politics of the quality of the current Massachusetts universal health care law, we can celebrate that our commonwealth is at least making an effort to bridge this gap. And it took both the Republicans and Democrats working together to do it.

The Amish Community in Pennsylvania has witnessed to the world this week Jesus’ teaching, "Be compassionate as God is compassionate." Before they had even buried their five little girls killed by a deranged man in their schoolhouse on Monday, the Amish had forgiven him and showed acts of compassion to his widow by inviting her to one of the funerals and telling her she was welcome in their community. They also set up scholarships for her children who are now fatherless. How different these actions are to those families of murder victims who go to trials begging for the death penalty for the assailant. How different the Amish actions of forgiveness are to those of the Israelis and Palestinians who revenge every infraction. How different the Amish actions are from America’s reactions toward those who planned the 911 attacks. Imagine how different our world would be now if we had forgiven rather than taken revenge, if we had stopped after the Battle of Boro Boro in Afganistan and had not gone into Iraq, if we had sought dialogue rather than destruction, if we had given all the "enemy combatants" due process. I am not naïve enough to think that would have turned Osama Ben Laden and al-Queda in to "nice" people. But it would have shown the world a way to deescalate rather than escalate violence.

The apostle Paul took up Jesus’ teaching about compassion and called it "love." "Faith, hope, love abide – these three. But the greatest of these is love." Borg observed Paul "is essentially saying that compassion is the primary fruit of the Spirit." As we grow in the Spirit, we grow in compassion.

That growth begins at the font so we go there now to celebrate Dustin’s beginning journey following Jesus. Amen.