Faithfulness: When the Right Thing is Hard to Do

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Year C, Proper 10 RCL)
July 15, 2007

The Reverend Paul R. Abernathy, Rector

Life is difficult. As our friend, Jan Hoffman, has said, “Once you’re born, you’re done for.”

Now, I do not speak as a negativist, one who always, perhaps only perceives the dark side in all things, persons, and himself. Nor do I speak as a nihilist, one who believes in nothing and therefore will not take the risk of trusting anything or anyone, including himself.

I simply mean that our lives are difficult for they are filled with a never-ending array of choices. There is not one moment in which we are not called to choose between this and that. Some choices are mundane, even relatively inconsequential. When Pontheolla and I dine out, we usually have to make a choice between two of our favorite cuisines, Greek and Italian. Other choices, however, are more significant, even grave. Choosing among options in providing basic necessities for our families, educational opportunities for our children, retirement income for our “third age.” Choosing which medical opinion to follow to treat a troubling set of symptoms.

Life is difficult. And the right thing to do isn’t always clear. Even more, sometimes the moment of choice itself occasions a collision of our values. Two Sundays ago, at Sermon Seminar, our friend, Joe Tarantolo, made precisely this point. He cited an example of a person in Nazi Germany, who, cherishing the security of his family and the sanctity of all life, both worthy values, faced the choice of whether to welcome Jews seeking refuge from capture and certain death into the sanctuary of his home. To choose either value would violate the other. Life is difficult.

We continue our July sermon series on faithfulness – that virtue of reliability, trustworthiness. Today, the third installment: faithfulness when the right thing is hard to do.

Yes, many times, the right thing isn’t clear, but sometimes it is. Sometimes – through that process of ongoing internal dialogue involving our inherited beliefs, our experience, our critical faculties of reason and intuition – we arrive at a sense of what is right and true for us.

This, I think, is what Moses was getting at, saying, “This commandment…is not too hard for you, nor…too far away.”^[1] Moses declared to the people that their knowledge of what was right and true for them was not difficult to attain. God’s word, God’s law, that which made for fulfillment, had been revealed, placed within reach, verily, written on the heart – in Hebrew terminology, the will, the power to choose. A word, a law that the lawyer who tested Jesus well knew: Love God, love neighbor.^[2] Yes, figuring out what love in action looked like in the concrete circumstances of daily life was no mean feat. Yet, no one to whom Moses or Jesus spoke could say, “But I don’t know what I’m supposed to figure out.” No. The right thing had been revealed.

Yet, even knowing the right doesn’t inoculate us from the difficulty in choosing to do it. We are not spared the test of faithfulness, for the right thing is often hard to do.

So reveals the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

A priest and a Levite see an injured man and choose to “pass by on the other side.” Presumably, they are going to Jerusalem to fulfill their religious duties at the temple, which they will not be able to do if they touch the man, thereby become ritually unclean. Jesus, therefore, does not condemn them. However, living with blinders on, fixated on their institutional obligations, they cannot see their personal responsibility, indeed, the person, their neighbor, the one in need.

Now, there was an historic hatred between Samaritans and Jews. So, the Samaritan, wearing the blinders of that ethnic enmity, justifiably also can pass by. But he, as Jesus tells the story, was faithful when the right thing – loving the neighbor – was hard to do.

Now, if this were all we could extract from these readings – that being faithful is hard even when we know what’s right and that sometimes we are and sometimes we aren’t – then big whoopdedoo! That merely restates what’s glaringly obvious to all of us. We will know no more of how to see our way through the difficulty than we already do.

However, I believe that Jesus through this parable reminds us of something, which, although also obvious, in our being reminded can make all of the difference in those daily concrete circumstances of our lives when we must choose. Jesus reminds us of who we are. And he does so, oddly, I think, by telling us what the Samaritan did.

The Samaritan saw the man and had compassion – administered cleansing wine and healing oil, bandaged his wounds, transported him to shelter, paid for his lodging, and promised to return.

Now, this is not a description of first century first aid. Rather, in this overabundance of detail, Jesus paints a portrait and invites us to look at it and see ourselves in the man who fell into the hands of robbers. To see ourselves as those who always in some way are in need – parts of us stripped, beaten, perhaps even half dead. And therefore to see ourselves as those who need compassion.

Jesus ends this parable, saying, “Go and do likewise.” Do compassion. But before we can choose to do that, I believe, we always first have to be likewise. That is, acknowledge our constant need for compassion. And in that recognition allowing ourselves to become naturally aware and alert to our neighbor’s need.

To put this another way, if “go and do likewise” is only a command, an order, even a divine decree to be faithful, then we can reasonably pass by, ignore it, for as only divine, it isn’t human. And if it isn’t human, then we can’t do it. But if “go and do likewise” is also a soul deep call to recognize one of the great commonalities of all humankind, need, then we might see also the natural human need for compassion – and be moved to do it, even when its hard.

Last Sunday, I spoke of trust as enabling faithfulness. Today, I say that to see our need can enable, even empower us to see the need of those around us – and, even more, to see that we are neighbors of “the other” and “the other” is our neighbor.

My post-sabbatical emphasis is how do we, as a community of neighbors, act neighborly, act with compassion with and for our neighbors in the world.

Even when what is right and true – acting with compassion – is clear, we are not freed from the difficulty of making the hard decisions about what our compassion looks like, for our neighbors, those in need, are everybody, everywhere! Mentioning only some of the themes of current news stories and our own communal discourse, we are neighbors to our neighbors in Anacostia, Darfur, Honduras, South Africa. We are neighbors to our neighbors who are DC public school children. We are neighbors to our neighbors who are immigrants, legal and illegal. We are neighbors to our neighbors everywhere.

Where, when, how – and for and with whom – do we choose to channel our considerable, yet, always considerably limited resources? This is the hard question that we, as a community, will continue to engage in the coming year as we endeavor to do the right thing.

Rarely, if ever, have I offered a postscript to a sermon. I do so today, announcing that on Sunday, September 30, following the 11.15 AM. service, a pub lunch and discussion will be held under the heading: What’s Next St. Mark’s? Post-Sabbatical Steps. Please mark your calendars now and plan to take part in this intentional communal conversation on where in the world we go from here.

[1] Deuteronomy 30.11. The Hebrew scripture appointed for the day is Deuteronomy 30.9-14.

[2] Luke 10.27. The gospel passage appointed for the day is Luke 10.25-37.