Sunday 15th July 2007TRINITY VI

Fr Julian Browning

Deuteronomy  30  :  9 – 14 ; Colossians  1  :  1 – 14 ; Luke  10  :  25 - 37

The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.  Deuteronomy 30.44 

The truth is not being right about God, finding the right answers. The truth is something to be lived.

Today the The Good Samaritan would be on CCTV. And a detective constable on Crimewatch would want to speak, as a matter of some urgency, to the priest and the Levite who are spotted moving jerkily, in the way of those films, on the other side of the road, just in case they saw anything. Of course they saw something. They saw themselves getting involved, and behaving out of character, and they didn't like it. It's not an anti-clerical story, by the way, about the craven clergy and the heroic layman. Priest and levite were not clergymen in our modern sense. They were ordinary temple goers, with hereditary duties to perform, and you couldn't perform those duties if you had just touched a corpse, so on they go. They are doing what they are programmed to do. This story is perfect for our era of social breakdown, although in our case, yours and mine, our reason for not stopping to help our neighbour is more likely to be that it would make us late for our next appointment. Any excuse to avoid risk, trouble and expense.

The story of the Good Samaritan is not about good citizenship, it is about truth. Who is my neighbour is the second question put to Jesus. The first question in today's gospel is “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Where is the meeting point between God and my life? Is Christianity true, and, if so, how do I fit in, because at the moment I'm not quite sure. These are the questions we find ourselves asking in the great lifelong adventure which is our spiritual life. Sometimes we know, sometimes we think we know, often we don't know. But it's a wonderful adventure, isn't it, employing our minds and our senses, learning from others, from the arts, from the natural world, edging closer to some idea of truth, of what is real. This was the direction in which Western civilization moved, until our time. The old idea was that “with truth all things sing together”[Aristotle]. These days we have faith in little things, goodness, liberalism, the arts, things we can control and define, and in our society we do not look for something or someone beyond ourselves, the truth, God Himself. That's our loss, it's as if Health and Safety have at last got their bony fingers on religion, and broken it up into small pieces. You can't go there, you can't possibly believe that, no smoking, no thinking, no religion, no truth, don't go beyond yourself, beyond safety limits.

Jesus cuts through all this nonsense, including my nonsense. The truth is not being right about God, finding the right answers. The truth is something to be lived. 'I am the way, the truth and the life', said Jesus. For Christians at their best, it is more important to be true, than to subscribe to a correct idea about the truth. The story of the Good Samaritan is about action, not theory. “Do this,” says Jesus, “and you will live.” What is it that the Good Samaritan does? He isn't being a good neighbour, setting a high standard for others. He's doing the opposite. He breaks the taboos of his society. In his society a Jew was no neighbour to a Samaritan. But when that Samaritan takes compassion on the wounded man, all ideas about right and wrong are pushed aside, society's prejudices are ignored. This is a subversive story. It is subversive of our culture too, and it shows us what we are really like, deadened by prejudice and the pressures of our society. But says Jesus, Do this, cross that road, and you will live. Because you are living the truth, and the truth can come alive in you. This a gospel not of blame but of encouragement. We can do it, we can inherit, can inhabit eternal life. With truth all things sing together. In the first lesson God speaks through Moses to those of us who want to turn to the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul. He says the commandment isn't hard. And it isn't far away, it isn't beyond us, beyond our reach. The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. Of course our religion will cost us a lot, in terms of risk, trouble, time and expense, as it did the Good Samaritan. Compassion is costly, but we do have it within us to be used. That is how Christian truth is expressed. St.Paul writes to the Colossians with the news that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. And we wonder what that can possibly mean. Now we know. It has something to do with crossing the road in the wrong place at an inconvenient time to help, for as long as it takes, somebody we never knew as our neighbour. This is a commandment we can all have a shot at. Do this, says Jesus, and you will live.