St. Alban's Sermon 7/10/2016

The Good Samaritan

Before I begin my message today I want to take a moment to say that I have chosen not to preach on the shootings that occurred this past week in Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights and Dallas.  Instead, we will substitute the Nicene Creed with a renewal of our Baptismal Covenant and we will change the Prayers of the People to a special litany of prayers, led by Deacon Mike. 
These prayers are for an end to gun violence because this week we, as a country, have experienced this specific kind of violence.  These are prayers to God to help us recognize the sanctity of life, to honor our diversity and to learn how to be a community of Christians who value all of God’s children.  We will ask God to make us instruments of God’s peace.
If you would like a copy of the prayers, please ask and we will make one for you after the service. 

And now, let us pray:  May the words of my mouth and the meditation in our hearts be always acceptable to you, our rock and our salvation.  Amen.


Last weekend, Jeff and I spent significant time at Sears, buying window coverings and other items we needed for the house.  When we were done, it was dinnertime, so we stopped at one of the restaurants near the mall.
Though the restaurant didn’t seem busy—there were plenty of empty tables—the staff was a little befuddled and overwhelmed.  My guess is that they were short staffed in all departments and everyone was pitching in to make sure the guests were being served well.
Our server was moving from table to table and was delayed in getting to us.  We were okay with the wait, so we didn’t mind.  As I watched her I noticed how she engaged with each table of guests, ensuring they were getting what they needed, that they were enjoying their food, refilling beverages, even asking if anyone wanted a “to go” cup as they left. 
She has the perfect personality for this job.  Her level of care and concern was delightful.
When she finally got to us, apologizing for the delay, she asked us what we had been doing and engaged in conversation about our new bedroom curtains and linens.  And she smiled an authentic, look-you-in-the-eyes smile that gave the impression that she really cared.  Her face lit up with excitement and true interest in what we had to say.  I’d call her a care giver, maybe even a minister to the guests she served at this restaurant.
But something was really bugging me.  Our server had very few teeth.  I could tell she was a recovering meth addict.  So while everything about her style as a server was exactly what I like, I had a hard time looking at her face, especially when I was eating.
Throughout our dinner I thought about why I felt so uncomfortable with her smile, especially when it seemed to me she had made the decision to continue to live her life in spite of what her mouth looked like.  She was working in a very public place, announcing to the world around her that she was an addict. 
I tried to set my discomfort aside to think about the journey she had taken to get to this place.  How who she is, is so much more that what her teeth look like.  She made it look like she had healed herself from this part of what addiction can do and chose to do the best job she could.
I considered that this job may be the path to her affording the extensive dental work she would need to repair her mouth.  But then I considered that maybe she needs to look in the mirror every day and smile to help her remain sober.  Either way, she was present and offering her beautiful, caring personality to those who sat in her section of the restaurant.
I thought about the management of this restaurant and wondered why they chose to hire someone whose smile could send their guests running out of the door.  When I looked around the restaurant, other guests ate their meals, maybe a little more quickly, but they did not leave.  When I looked at one of the other servers, I could see that she, too, was probably also recovering from some sort of addiction.
Jeff and I talked about this as we drove home that evening.  I said that I wondered if the management hired these women, whose lives had been hard, who in so many ways were outcasts to many in our society, who were fighting every day to stay sober, I wondered if they saw this as a ministry.
They were willing to take a risk that their guests would understand that sometimes people have to be cared for in radical ways, by unexpected people, on a very public stage.  And if their guests didn’t understand that life is harder for some, and the guests felt they could not stomach being served by someone with a meth mouth, then maybe they aren’t the guests for this restaurant.
I wondered if the management of this restaurant make it a goal to help people who are battling addiction to find a new way of living in society, no longer defined so much by their addiction but instead as the child of God they are. 
I have also had to think about whether or not I could return to that establishment in the future.  And I struggle with this because if this is their mission and their purpose and their goal, I think it is an amazing gift to our society.  And they deserve my patronage. 
But on the other hand, if I am going to go out for a meal, I don’t want to be grossed-out, no matter the reason.  And I feel shallow when I say this.
This restaurant management has picked people up out of the ditch, broken, dying, disheveled, and in significant pain and shame.  They have given them a safe place to land, to recover, to be reintroduced into society.  They have shown mercy and kindness and love by providing jobs to people who, in so many cases, are possibly considered unemployable by society’s standards.
At least that is my impression after a single visit on a Saturday night in July.

Jesus teaches us that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as our self.  He teaches these things through stories that make us think about who we consider our neighbor and how we really act with our neighbors.  He tells us stories, setting them up so that we have to study them to understand why this story at this point in his ministry.
There were five people in this parable.  Two walked past the wounded, dying man.  Not because they didn’t care, but because they had their own responsibilities.  One needed to remain ritually clean and to touch or be near a dying person would make him unclean and unable to do his priestly duty.  One had a schedule to keep and to stop would also make him unclean.  Nothing in the story says they didn’t care.  Nothing says they were terrible people because they did not help.  Their responsibilities required something different from them.  They had different gifts and talents.
I'd like to think that the two men who passed the man in the ditch would have called 9-1-1 if they could have.
The one who stopped, the Samaritan, a man who followed Jewish law but was not Jewish, could literally get his hands dirty and help the broken, hurting man.  He apparently had the means to support the man’s healing when he brought him to the inn, trusting yet another man to provide care.  And so he did.

This is a story about how we live in community, giving the gifts and talents we each have to provide for our neighbors.  Here in this place we have a variety of people who do a variety of things to help a variety of neighbors.  None of us is called to do it all, but we are each called to do something. 

I may not be able to go back to that restaurant.  But I can tell you about how I understand my experience.  I can share with you that there are places here in Indy where people who have been broken by addiction are being included in the “normal” of daily living, encouraging their sobriety and helping them change their path.
I can tell you about how a member of one of the AA groups who meets here came on Friday morning and cut up our downed tree, using his gifts and talents, to give back to this place a little something to say thank you. 
I can tell you that even when our lives seem to be difficult because of the challenges and obstacles placed before us: we are children of a loving God.

One more thing.  The server wrote us a note on our bill.  She said, “I hope you enjoy your new bedroom!”
We are all children of a loving God. 
      

Let us pray.  Healing God, heal us all from our fear, from our discomfort, from our inability to see how you are working in the lives of others.  Help us to see our neighbors as you see them.  Amen.