Good Samaritan

WDJD (part of the Empathy through Reading series)

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When I was a teen, I found a paperback copy of In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? tucked away in our basement. Within a few pages, I knew to read it on the sly, aware that it supported a “social gospel” that was frowned upon by the fundamental theology I grew up with. I only read it once, but it stuck with me in some important ways. The story itself felt old–it was written in 1896, after all–and unrelated to the social, racial, and justice issues in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1980s–but its basic premise lodged deep: What WOULD Jesus do?

This question–the very theme of Shelden’s book–was THE wedge that created and widened the gap between my “stated” theology and my “lived” theology. With every encounter, every person, there was the question: What would Jesus do? What would Jesus say? How would Jesus act? This meant, of course, that I had to look at what Jesus DID and SAID to have an idea of what he would do in my circumstances. So to the Gospels I went.

The clearest teaching I found Jesus giving in the Gospels was “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and it was a teaching that got “fleshed out” again and again and again, through both the stories Jesus told and the stories he lived. (He also said, “Love your enemy,” because some of us REALLY need it spelled out, I guess.)

There is one story that is specifically linked to the “Love your neighbor” statement. In case you’ve never read it or it’s been awhile, here’s a recap: Some religious guy is trying to test Jesus, so he asks Jesus, “What do I have to do to have life eternal?” Jesus turns the question back to the guy–after all, this guy is an Expert in religious law–and asks him what he finds in Scripture. Expert answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “Good answer–do this and you’ll live.” Then Expert–who is clearly not Mr. Rogers–asks, “So, who is my neighbor?” Jesus then tells a story to illustrate: a guy is traveling from one city to another when he gets jumped by some robbers who beat him so bad he’s left lying on the side of the road, “half dead.” First a priest walks by, but he ignores the victim. Then another person in the religious in-crowd walks by, also ignoring the victim (this is starting to sound like “a priest walks into a bar” joke). The third person who walks by is someone that the first two people would despise (and supposedly the victim would as well–were he actually able to express an opinion). This Third person is an outcast, an outsider, someone who doesn’t belong in the majority culture, who would get the side-eye were he to actually walk into a religious establishment or move into a middle- or upper-class neighborhood.

It’s Third, though, who actually sees and helps the victim. He cleans him up, bandages his wounds, puts him on his own animal (meaning, I’m assuming, that Third himself has to walk and slow down his pace), takes him to an inn, and pays for the innkeeper to keep taking care of him.

Jesus ends the story by asking, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (Now that I’m thinking about it, this actually might be THE original “___________ walks into a bar” joke.)

I took this story to mean that not only was everyone my neighbor, I also had a responsibility to actively be a neighbor to everyone. So there was my life mantra: this neighbor, that neighbor, that one…–no matter how crazy different from me they were or I was from them, how ridiculously different our views were/are–love them. I’ve been very fortunate to encounter, through both my work and the places I’ve lived–lots of neighbors whose backgrounds and stories were so different we could have stood in for the two main characters in the story Jesus told, so lots of practice.

So I was building empathy through reading the stories of Jesus. There are quite a few of them, and they became helpful when I would encounter someone outside my framework. I could ask, “What did Jesus say?” and “What did Jesus do?” and let that guide me.

These days I feel like Jesus–the Jesus who said “Love your neighbor” and “Love your enemies”–has gotten forgotten in the rhetoric. I find myself wishing there were a whole lot more Jesus in the thinking of everyone who calls themselves a Christian. Not in the form of just slapping on a WWJD bracelet, but some actual searching out and discovery of what Jesus DID do.

This post has already gotten a little too long, so just one more bit. One of the first things Jesus DID do was this: he emigrated. He and his parents became immigrants. I don’t think they had the proper paperwork to go to Egypt, but they went anyway. I don’t think they felt they had much choice in the matter. They felt threatened and unsafe in their hometown.

The Gospels don’t include any stories from those years in Egypt. Knowing what I know about prejudice and drawing upon my years of experience as a middle- and high-school teacher, I am pretty sure that Jesus and his parents encountered a lot of people who rejected and bullied them, who told them they didn’t belong, who told them to go back where they came from. These encounters probably happened fairly often.

But I have hope that this immigrant family also had a few stories of kindness from this time in their lives. Stories of people who saw them, who loved them, who accepted them as neighbors.

Maybe Jesus had some of these stories in his mind when he told the parable of the guy who was beaten up and left on the side of the road. Maybe he had them in mind when he asked the Expert, “Which one do you think was a neighbor to him?”

The Expert answered, “The one who had mercy on him,” and Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

Whump, drop the mike. There you have it, Jesus people.

And this Jesus person (guess I can still call myself that) is going to keep asking how Jesus’ words/actions should impact my own views, attitudes, and actions toward immigrants in this country to which my own WOP (WithOut Papers) grandparents immigrated.

BE a neighbor

/ jdunderwood / Leave a comment

*Consider the ugly-beautiful story of Sarah and Hagar.

First, the UGLY.

-Sarah, wife of the Jewish patriarch Abraham, has multiple hardships, most of them the result simply of the patriarchal system of her time and place:

  • She’s had to leave her home–twice–and wander for many years as a nomad.
  • One time during her and her husband’s wanderings, Abraham sold her into a king’s harem in order to protect his own skin (he actually did this twice, but the second time happened after the Sarah-Hagar story).
  • Sarah is barren, a mark of deep shame in the Ancient Near East. She is unable to bear her husband the son God has promised to him.

-Sarah, despite her shame and very limited power as a woman, DOES have the authority of being the “owner” of a slave maid named Hagar, and she uses this power to sexually exploit Hagar. She “gives” the slave woman to Abraham with the hope that Hagar will get pregnant and be a surrogate mother.

-Hagar does get pregnant and suddenly realizes she has an advantage over her barren mistress. Hagar, not Sarah, is bearing the master’s child. So Hagar uses her newfound power and lords it over Sarah.

-Sarah, who IS still the mistress, complains to Abraham, and he tells her she can do whatever she wants with Hagar. So Sarah mistreats Hagar to the point that pregnant Hagar runs away.

Now for the BEAUTIFUL!

-God protects both women in this story.

  • He rescued Sarah from the king’s harem (and God will do it again when Abraham “sells” her off a second time), and God eventually names Sarah as a co-partner in the promise of a son–meaning Abraham is no longer free to discard her.
  • God comes to Hagar in the wilderness after she runs away, gives her her own promise of many, many descendants, and tells her she’s carrying a son (a BIG power play card in her relationship with Abraham and Sarah). With this power play card, God sends her back to the safest place possible for a vulnerable, pregnant, unmarried woman. Hagar feels so known by God that she calls God “the God who sees her.”

-God, who is so often named as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, reveals himself to be most assuredly the God of Sarah and Hagar as well. He is well aware of the struggles of their lives. He sees them. He knows their point of view.

One of my favorite lines in To Kill a Mockingbird is a statement lawyer Atticus Finch makes to his young daughter, Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.”

In the incarnation, God went beyond knowing people’s skins and souls as their Creator. He climbed into humanity’s skin, walked around in it, and considered things from humanity’s point of view. He became well acquainted with all the emotions, all the temptations, and all the struggles that come part and parcel with human skin.

But it’s important to consider the exact skin God put on. It wasn’t skin that would be protected by money or privilege. No. The Son of God put on the vulnerable flesh of the baby of two poor people who had to flee violence in their hometown and live as immigrants in a far-off country. And when he was grown and clearly had the power to control the weather and drive out demons and raise the dead back to life, he hung out not with cultured, authoritative people but with fishermen and tax collectors and women–some of them the lowest of the low. 

The skin God chose was bundled at birth into whatever cloth happened to be at hand.

Because Christ put on the flesh of the poor.

The skin God chose was nearly skewered when it was still infant soft.

Because Christ put on the flesh of the powerless.

The skin God chose was carried off into a foreign country.

Because Christ put on the flesh of the refugee and immigrant.

The skin God chose was shunned by the religious and those highly reputed.

Because Christ put on the flesh of the illegitimate.

The skin God chose grew rough and calloused.

Because Christ put on the flesh of the working poor.

The skin God chose often lay itself down on the ground to sleep at night and at times grew tight over ribs.

Because Christ put on the flesh of the homeless.

The skin God chose was bruised and torn by guards.

Because Christ put on the flesh of prisoners.

The skin God chose was naked in the sight of all.

Because Christ put on the flesh of all those forced to expose themselves to others. 

When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, he did so in response to a question posed by a teacher of the law. The teacher asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus turns the question around on him: What does the Law say? How do you read it? The teacher answers well: the way to live eternally with God involves loving God with one’s entire being and one’s neighbor as oneself. But then the teacher follows up with a question of limitation: who is my neighbor? In other words, Who do I HAVE to love? How far does my love have to extend? And Jesus changed tactics; he stopped the back and forth of questioning and told a story instead. The teacher had asked, “Who is MY neighbor; who am I required to love?” Jesus’ story makes that answer clear: it’s everyone. And with that truth set in place, Jesus’ redirects the teacher’s question with a charge: “Go and do as the Samaritan did. Go and love as a neighbor to all people.” 

I know that the status of immigrants coming into this country has become a political issue, but it, in my opinion, should not be primarily a political issue for the church. It is a neighbor issue. And I think we ignore this issue at our peril as followers of Jesus. I think we do damage to the neighbor heart God is planting and expanding within us. I am pretty sure Joseph and Mary didn’t have their papers in order when they entered Egypt, and Jesus doesn’t mention the strangers in Matthew 25 having to present the proper documents in order to be welcomed. And there is no way I can preach on this passage about Hagar without bringing up the current status of undocumented immigrants and refugees in this country. 

Friday night I was at a Lights for Liberty prayer vigil in Humboldt Park, praying for migrants in detention, for separated families, and for people in this country who are facing deportation. It was hosted by a church in Humboldt Park, and we gathered in a fenced-in parking lot next to the church. As I listened to local pastors and a state representative pray and speak, I noticed a sign attached to the fence next to me. It had this picture on it, the picture of Yazmin Juárez with her daughter, Mariee. The two left Guatemala and sought asylum in the U.S. and were held at a detention center in Texas. While there, Mariee became sick. After Yazmin and Mariee were released, Yazmin and her mother took Mariee to a pediatrician, and Mariee was immediately admitted to a nearby hospital and diagnosed with a lung infection. She died in the hospital. Yazmin blames improper medical care, “terrible and inadequate” living conditions, and a culture of neglect at the migrant holding facilities for her daughter’s health.

Yazmin testified before House lawmakers and said, “I am here today because the world needs to know what is going on in ICE detention centers.” 

 As I stood next to the picture and read the brief bio of Yazmin and Mariee, I immediately thought of Hagar–Hagar fleeing with her child in her womb. I knew that God saw Yazmin and Mariee, and I, a follower of God, didn’t have the choice, standing next to their picture on the fence, to not see them as well. God sees each and every person held in a detention center; he collects the tears of every parent and child separated from each other; he hears the whispered prayers of those fearing deportation. 

 Last night our family got food from our favorite taco joint. It’s straight up Laramie Avenue from us, in south Belmont Cragin. Right next to the register was a little stack of cards with a sign. The sign, in Spanish, read, “Know your rights. Take a card.”  The cards have instructions for what to do if ICE comes to the door. 

The student population at the school where my husband teaches is about 60% Latino. At times in the last couple years, the school has had to bring in grief counselors because the stress about deportation among students has spiked so high. People in our communities are afraid. No matter what their U.S. citizenship status is, Jesus calls them our neighbors. Jesus calls US their neighbors. 

 I’m not saying that the story of Hagar and Sarah or the parable of the Good Samaritan or Matthew 25 holds all the answers as to the stance each of us should take on immigration in this country. I know it’s very complex. But these passages reveal the heart and actions of our God, and they give us a charge as to what we are to DO. “Go be a neighbor!” Jesus tells us. And we’d better not be neighbors only to the Abrahams of the world or even to the Sarahs of the world. We are neighbors to the Hagars of the world, to the beat-up stranger on the side of the road, to the despised Samaritan, to the fleeing Josephs and Marys with infants in arms.

God’s tenderness for Hagar is breathtaking, especially when we remember that societies, by and large, have never valued people like Hagar. We still don’t. Hagar is merely one of those peripheral, powerless people who never become anyone “worth” knowing. Yet God sees her, knows her name, and speaks tenderly, personally, and directly to her.

“Which of the three,” Jesus asked, “was a neighbor to the man unseen by people but seen by God?” 

“The one who showed him mercy,” the teacher answered.

And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” 

*The post is part of a sermon I preached in our church’s Genesis: Stories of Redemption series. The poem in the middle of this post is a revision of a blog I wrote and posted a couple years ago. 

 

Mama

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Five-month-old Ruby is a Heinz 57 mutt

With a weak bladder, a lot of energy

And a ton of affection.

Much of her puppy love is lavished on me:

She follows me everywhere,

Cries when I leave the house,

Greets me after a 10-minute absence as if I’ve been gone a week.

Why? my children ask. Why does she like you best?

After all, they complain, that’s why we got a puppy.

‘Cause Chai is clearly your dog, and we wanted a pup who’d prefer us.

Well, I tell them, I can list concrete items, like water and food and walks,  

But bottom line is,

She’s knows I’m the mama.

I’m not just playmate or pal;

I’m Mama.

I know another Ruby.

I met her nearly a year ago

When both of us stood on an L platform together.

She asked for change,

But my pockets were empty that day.

I asked her where her coat was—it was bitterly cold.

She said she was only going a couple stops—

then gonna’ get herself some food and warmth with the Catholic Sisters of Charity.

“They’re good to me there,” she told me.

I’ve run into Ruby several times in the last few months.

Right now I know where she’s sleeping, and I purposely ride my bike through her particular tunnel on my way into work.

If she’s there and awake, we greet each other.

If I have a few minutes, I stop my bike and we chat.

Ruby has what some call “issues”:

physical—many probably related to addiction;

mental/emotional—she’s still a child in many ways;

social—she compiles some interesting things in her hoard.

Ruby’s forgotten my name.

At least, I assume she’s forgotten it—

Because she calls me “Mama.”

“Mama, I’m not having such a great day today.”

“Mama, the police told me I have to clean up my stuff. They say it’s too messy.”

“Mama, I don’t wanna’ stay overnight in one of them shelters, not till it’s cold. Too many rules.”

She calls me “Mama,” and it makes me wonder if she’s ever had one.

Our Ruby pup can actually count on me to act like a “mama” for her. I make sure she’s warm enough, fed enough, exercised enough. I check on her water bowl. I train and teach her. It’s nothing compared to the “mama”ing I do for my children, but it’s still enough that Ruby pup knows she can trust me; I am a safe and dependable person for her.

Did Ruby the woman—made in the image of God, bearing the likeness of God—ever have a mama who did these things? Did she have anyone? A sister, brother, auntie, grandfather?

Cain asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He was the first of us to abdicate responsibility for a fellow image bearer. He was speaking of an actual family member, but this thought brings me to the question: who is my brother? My sister?

Who is my neighbor?

If Jesus expected the kind of care given by the Good Samaritan for his “neighbor,” what does he expect of his followers—who are called to love so, so many as brother, as sister?

Or—I’m thinking of Ruby’s vulnerability—as child?

What does it mean to “family” each other? To extend our notion of “kin”? To accept not just the crazy uncles we must put up with because they’re biologically related but also other broken, difficult, hurting, needy people? How messy is too messy?

Is there such a thing in the family of God?

Fear driving out love

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Processed with VSCO with hb1 preset

Photo and lettering by Emily (daughter). If you like what you see, visit her Etsy shop LetteringbyEm to see if you’d like to order a piece. 

I have tried to stay out of the current political storm for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t know a whole lot, so I don’t see much point in my making a less than fully informed comment. Second, I simply don’t want to add to the division, and I’ve got friends on both sides.

And it’s these “sides” that are getting to me.

You see, I’m taking a Jesus and the Gospels class right now, and we’re looking at Jesus’ message and life and how he didn’t fit into any of the political camps among the Jews of his day. He wasn’t a seize-back-control/power militant; he wasn’t a “maintain differences” but work-the-system guy; and he wasn’t a separatist who withdrew from politics and society completely.

He said things like the Sermon on the Mount and taught people to pray for God’s kingdom to come, for his will to be done on earth. He told stories about crossing ethnic divides and putting ourselves out to love our neighbors, and he ate with “sinners” and outcasts.

He didn’t fit into anybody’s mold. As soon as someone tried to make him a member of their camp, he said something that made it clear he wasn’t.

But he wasn’t a maverick, just out to find his own way, different simply to be different. He was adamant about that. He was actually following orders. He was doing his Father’s will, doing it all the way to the cross.

And Jesus encouraged his followers to do the same. “Take up your cross and follow me,” he said, in his invitation to a cruciform, God- and others-focused life.

N. T. Wright wrote this about Jesus’ call: “Jesus was summoning his hearers to give up their whole way of life, their national and social agendas, and to trust him for a different agenda, a different set of goals.”*

I don’t think Jesus is summoning us today to anything less than this.

Now I don’t want to simplify the political complexities of the United States. I don’t want to make it seem as if we shouldn’t have opinions or discussions about the current campaign and issues.

But I’m seeing a lot of anger on Facebook and Twitter, and behind the anger I see fear. There’s fear that the world ahead will not look anything like the world of the past—and there’s fear that it will look far too much like the past. There’s a fear of lost power, lost say and influence and majority control. There’s a fear that our agendas and goals might be set aside.

And this makes me think of this verse: Perfect love drives out fear.**

I know sentences are not like mathematical equations. You cannot simply flip the two sides of that sentence around and have it mean exactly the same thing. But I’ve wondered if many of us Christians have let “Fear drive out perfect love.”

When we fear (and anger is often, I believe, a result of fear), it is a sign of a lack of trust. Somewhere deep down we are not trusting in the perfect love of God. We are trusting in something else, something less certain, something other than God.

And why?

Because deep down I think we know God’s agenda and goals do not match up with our own. His agenda and goals are not about our safety and comfort; His agenda and goals are not about Christianity retaining power in our political and economic systems. They are not about America being seen as a great nation.

His end goal is that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven, that Christ reign as King, and God be worshiped by all.

And while he promises that all of the workings toward this goal will result in our good, he doesn’t promise that this good won’t also involve discomfort and danger and tribulation for us. In fact, he promises the opposite.

But that is perfect love: love that is perfect not only in character but also in foresight. It knows the good end and understands what trouble along the way is necessary for that end result.

This is the perfect love that can drive out fear.

But we must trust this Perfect Love.

We must trust this God.

Where does our hope lie?

If it depends on a candidate or a party or a human agenda, we will fear, and love will be driven out.

But if we trust in the perfect love of God, fear will be driven out.

We will know we are loved.

We will live without fear.

We will love…

Without fear.

 

*from The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is. Here’s a link to a recent Christianity Today article in which Mike Bird, author of What Christians Ought to Believe, interviews N. T. (Tom) Wright about his latest book, The Day the Revolution Began.

**Please follow the link to see this verse in context (I John 4:8). I have to admit I am taking the verse a bit out of context, as the fear it is talking about specifically is fear of God’s judgment. But in our modern, Western world, I feel we have swung so much to the other side of who/what we fear, that we must acknowledge that misplaced fear, remind ourselves that God is the one we SHOULD fear–and then take great comfort from this verse.