Mercy is a Risk

Luke 10: 25-37 - The Story of the Good Samaritan

                I had the privilege to befriend David Bailey several years ago before his passing.  David, an amazing singer-song writer, fought a long battle with brain cancer, much, much longer than the doctors told him he would.  David was an insightful and wonderful storyteller, much like the wandering carpenter of Luke’s gospel.  The Jesus of Luke’s account is a storyteller, and his mission?  To seek and save the lost.  His concern is the least of these.

                My friend, David, wrote many songs about this mission.  He wrote a modern adaptation of the story we read today from Luke, a story meant to de-familiarize the poetry and prettiness of a favorite scripture.  In his story, a young Latino man is mugged and left for dead in an alley, passed up by a priest and a skateboarder.  Keesha from the diner is the only one to show mercy and drag him several blocks on a piece of cardboard to rescue.

                Now the story is familiar, and even with the modern American flourishes, we can still be comfortable so long as we don’t listen too carefully.  David told us at a concert a few years back that he played this song in rural Alabama, at a Presbyterian church.  During the song, a woman got up and walked out.  David said he thought then, “Well, you can’t win ‘em all.”  After that concert, he got talking to the pastor and expressed his disappointment that he’d upset the woman.  The pastor told David, “No, no, that was my wife.  On the way in to the concert tonight, we saw a homeless woman outside across the street with a shopping cart asking for money to do her laundry.  My wife got up to go help her.”

                David confessed quietly to us that what really hit him, was not just that he had judged this woman as being unreceptive to his message, but as he told us, “I had seen that woman too… And I hadn’t stopped either.”  You see, brothers and sisters, we can easily get wrapped up in telling the Good News of the Gospel and forget to do what it calls us to do.   The young lawyer in this Gospel lesson is familiar with scripture, with the Law.  He knows verbatim… Love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.  Bam!  Got it, Jesus.  I paid attention in Sunday school.  This guy KNOWS the Word.  He knows what Moses said.  As a ‘lawyer’ or teacher of the law, this guy knows what ALL the teachers and prophets and judges have said.  He knows his Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel.

                Jesus pats him on the back and says, “Great, go do it.”  But smart-aleck as this guy is, and much like I was in Sunday school as I recall… he says, “Who is my neighbor anyway?” Big mistake.  You see, if your neighbor is your fellow Jew, you’re off the hook for the Romans and the Greeks and the Samaritans, the Babylonians and Egyptians, and everyone else who was ever at odds with the Jews.  You’re probably off the hook for non-practicing Jews too!  He knows how to treat his neighbor.  Love them as himself, and he’s got a whole stack of scrolls that tell him what that means.  And so do we.  That Bible in the pew, that Kindle in your lap, that smartphone in your pocket.  It’s full of commands, calls, expectations, and examples of how to love your neighbor.

                But as usual, Jesus calls us to a higher mission than we’ve ever been called before.  He tells a story in which he not only makes it clear that absolutely everyone is your neighbor… it’s not enough to simply be aware that everyone is your neighbor… he charges us that we are to be a neighbor to everyone we will ever encounter.  To notice everyone, to believe they are our neighbor, and to have mercy on them… no matter the risk.    Mercy is a risk.    Show mercy anyway (congregation was prompted to respond repeatedly with “show mercy anyway” on a slide and by me).

                Listen to me carefully.  Mercy… is always a risk.  You risk at the very least, being taken for granted, possibly taken advantage of, but perhaps even being harmed or killed.  The road to Jericho was known to be dangerous.  Even to travel alone was a risk.  Stopping to help someone who’d been hurt?  Very likely a trap.  There was a very real risk of harm or death.  The priest and the Levite were not necessarily cold or callous people.  Few of us would wander down an alley or a dark corner of a bus or subway station in a bad part of town, adding peril to danger.  It’s risky.  Mercy… is risk.    Show mercy anyway.

                This past week in Vacation Bible School, we’ve been teaching the kids who their neighbor is and what the Bible says they should do for their neighbors.  And that’s taking a risk.  Because the risk is that they may believe us.  The risk is that they might believe what God has told them in these stories.  The risk is that they may start wanting to have mercy on all kinds of people and in all kinds of places.  The risk is that if you believe what’s in this book, you will have to show them what mercy looks like in this world, and it is far from safe.

                As Americans, we are obsessed with safety.  We have a Food and Drug Administration and health inspectors to keep us safe when we eat, traffic laws and police to keep us safe in our cities and homes, OSHA and Unions and regulations to keep us safe at work, and even the Environmental Protection Agency and park rangers to keep us safe in the wild outdoors.  You can’t even use toothpaste or laundry detergent without being warned how not to use it or who to keep it away from.  Here at the church, we even have locked doors most of the week, safety plans, and emergency procedures.  But the Bible isn’t a safety manual.  Far from it.    Mercy is a risk.    Show mercy anyway.

                The Bible might be one of the most dangerous books you could ever let your kids get their hands on.  Forget about locking up harsh chemicals or your prescription drugs.  Forget worrying about driver’s ed and the party school they’re looking at for college.  The most dangerous thing your kid can get into is the Bible.  Because if they believe it… they will do dangerous things.  They will risk much.  The words of Jesus are disturbing and challenging and full of risk.  Much of the debate in the Church these days is over taking the Bible literally… but the minute you start taking it seriously… you are in trouble deep… trouble you’ve not known.

                You want an adrenaline rush?  You could go sky diving or ride with your teenage driver.  You want a real risk?  Go read Isaiah.  I’m serious.  Isaiah is the dangerous neighborhood of the Bible.  If you have grade schooler who watches Reading Rainbow and reads Ranger Rick like my parents had, then you might get a kid who brings home stray pets and turtles and snakes.  If you have a kid who has read Luke, they’re likely to give their lunch you packed to a homeless person… or worse, if they’ve read Isaiah, they’ll bring the homeless person home to stay with you.  And if you’ve read Isaiah, he’ll be staying with you a little while because that crazy prophet didn’t just say God wants us to feed hungry people and sponsor homeless shelters.  That lunatic claims God calls us to bring them right in our front door and share our roof.

                In fact, I dare you to find a verse that supports our comfortable and isolated safe American dream, and I’ll show you ten that say mercy doesn’t look like safety.  Mercy looks like risk.  I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s lawyers who constantly stand up and challenge Jesus.  Because no lawyer then or now would sign off on the message delivered by our God and his prophets.  “Take out all this mercy-related stuff!  It puts you at risk.”  Brothers and sisters, mercy is risk.  Show mercy anyway.

                If I were to ask you where you see the least of these in Salisbury, where you find the hungry and homeless… would you think of Rowan Helping Ministries… maybe the last time you volunteered there… or would you think of 100 feet out that door in front of the public library?  Maybe both?  The nearest restaurant to the church is Go Burrito.  I know because I go there about twice a week.  Most days, most nights… it would be hard to walk from here to there and not pass someone hungry.  Half a dozen families walking to lunch after this service or home from VBS or Youth Group or choir practice could feed every hungry person from here to there, if they invited a hungry person along with them.

                You see, Isaiah knew… what every person who has ever been to Rowan Helping Ministries or Overton, or Mexico or Costa Rica knows… he knew that the principal difference between donating money and bringing people into your meals, into your lives, into your homes… the difference is that you will never be the same… and that you will want… you will need to do more.  I’ve never had a kid go on a mission trip and never go on another.  I’ve never met an adult who volunteered at a shelter only once.  I’ve never met a family who fostered a child and never did so again.  God has not only called us to take risks.  He has crafted our hearts in such a way that we cannot show mercy without becoming addicted.  Mercy is risk, and it is irresistible.  You will never again be content with what you had and who you were before taking that risk.  Mercy is a risk… Show mercy anyway.

                “But Brian, I don’t do risk.  Brian, I will not risk my family, or my kids.”  I understand.  Truly.  You wouldn’t be a good parent if you didn’t teach your kids to look both ways before crossing the street.  But you also wouldn’t be a good parent if you never let them cross a street.  You can do things with great risk with that in mind.  In college, I wanted to take homeless people with me to dinner.  I was not afraid I couldn’t find any homeless people.  At Chapel Hill, the street above campus is full of homeless people.  I was afraid they’d say yes and I wouldn’t be safe.  So I recruited my friend Frank.  We called Frank, Frank the Tank.  Frank was even bigger and more muscular than I am.  I know, hard to imagine.  Frank was 6’2 and built for either rugby or breaking down drawbridges.  And Frank and I would go out on Friday nights and invite the homeless to dinner with us and learn their stories.  It was still risky, but less.  You see, mercy is a risk… Show mercy anyway.

                Driving is dangerous, but we don’t outlaw cars.  We post speed limits, stop signs, traffic lights.  We invented seat belts and air bags and car seats.  We send the youth to Costa Rica, but we do have age limits and leaders and we go as a group and we go with people we trust.  We don’t eliminate the risk, but we find ways to say the mission is so important that we will find ways to make it safer.  We will show mercy.  And we will take the risk.  Because mercy is a risk… Show mercy anyway.

                So this week, you’ve got homework.  Turn to the person next to you.  Go ahead.  Say, “You have homework this week.”    Jim and Randy would tell you that you have homework every week.  And they’d be right.  This week, I want you to be a neighbor.  I want you to show mercy.  Maybe it’s taking an extra lunch with you to work to give to someone along the way.  Maybe it’s inviting a hungry person to lunch or dinner with your family.  Maybe it’s taking your kids to the shelter or Overton.  Maybe it’s making room in your house, your family, your hearts… for a kid who needs mercy… taking a risk.  This is your homework.  Don’t just think about it.  Decide now, and this week, do it, take steps… this week.  Turn to that neighbor again.  Everybody turn.  Look them right in the eyes.  I am going to prompt you one last time, but I don’t want you to tell me.  I already know the answer.  Tell your neighbor with enthusiasm...  Mercy is a risk… Show mercy anyway!  Do this… and you shall live.  Amen.