The text for the service is Luke 10:29-37. In the service I read from The Inclusive Bible which is not available online, so the link above is to the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
Come Holy Spirit. Warm our hearts to lavish your love and make neighbors everywhere we go. Amen.
Tonight I want to talk to you tonight about Jazzercise. Have you heard of it? Jazzercise has been around for 50 years. It’s a great workout!
But there’s something else about Jazzercise, at least Jazzercise in RTP and in Chapel Hill. It’s not only about the smooth moves. Jazzercise of RTP and Chapel Hill is a community with a particular culture.
When I first started Jazzercising some years ago – maybe a decade? – I would joke that if they would only serve communion and do a little Scripture it would be the best church ever.
We laughed about that a lot, but it turns out that the architect of the local Jazzercise culture is a woman named Ann. Ann’s daddy was a Presbyterian pastor and somehow she had internalized two things:
* everyone wants to be called by their own name, and
* you do not have to have an “out” group to define who is included in the community.
It is, in fact, possible for a community to be open and welcoming to everyone.
Ann knew how to make neighbors.
I think my experience with Jazzercise is a modern little picture of what Jesus was telling the lawyer about in tonight’s text.
The lawyer wanted there to be rules, and I suppose it is true that community works better when there are ground rules. But the Samaritan – who had no position, and who was part of a group that the “good” Jews couldn’t stand because they did not do worship correctly – just paid attention to the person at hand.
The priest and the Levite knew all about the Scripture but they didn’t live it. The Samaritan, who did not do any of the worship stuff “right” saved the traveler’s life.
So tonight I am here to ask you: who are you?
Do you get caught up in procedures and justification and accountability and all the other reasons we use to avoid people in need?
Do you respond to the person in need, because they have need? Do you believe people when they cry out in pain, or are you the lawyer trying to find a loophole?
If we are honest, I think we would all say that we are all a complicated mix.
* We want to help, but we worry about being hurt ourselves.
* We want good schools for all children, but we struggle when sending our own children to struggling neighborhood schools.
* We are thrilled to live in diverse neighborhoods but would really prefer that diversity come to us and bear the discomfort of being different rather than us being uncomfortable in neighborhoods where most of the people do not look like us.
It’s also hard to know. Is the person standing on the corner really in need, or is he trying to scam us? Does that woman with the runny nose and dirty hair really want a bus ticket or is she going to buy liquor?
We want to call people by name but so often it's easier to protect ourselves by putting up fences to keep out all that scary uncertainty.
The thing is… Jesus did not mention anything about the traveler the Samaritan helped. We do not know why the traveler was out on the road alone. We do not know the circumstances that led to the traveler being attacked.
But we do learn something about being neighbors:
I believe that Jesus is telling us that the answer to that question is: ITS UP TO YOU.
Being neighbors is not about the other person. Being a neighbor is about what we do.
So if you smile and say WELCOME! and mean it…
If you greet people you don’t know as warmly as you greet the people you do know…
If you show mercy and compassion to people who are hurting without asking about the how or why of that pain…
If you treat everyone as if we are all IN together...
Then you are being a neighbor.
I know… I know… there are dishonest people. There are people who will try to take advantage of us. There are people whose poor choices have led to their current troubles. Doesn’t Jesus care about that?
Well… YES.
As a matter of fact, Jesus cares so much that he brought his God-self to earth, lived in this broken and pain-riddled world, and loved everyone without doing background checks. Jesus loved the priests and the Levites, the Samaritans and the demon-possessed. And then Jesus died.
And THEN… as we will celebrate in such a short time… Jesus was Resurrected.
Jesus fulfilled the law so we no longer have to worry about who we should avoid.
Jesus fulfilled the law and lavished infinite love on us.
So much love, in fact, that we can spread it in Jazzercise, in the grocery store, at work…
We can even share love in church.
So go… find someone and make then your neighbor. All you have to do is pay attention.
Amen.
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