Saturday, July 10, 2010

sunday's sermon--Luke 10

Once up on a time, there was a Certain Man. “A Certain Man,” right? What was he like? No one knows. The story is vague on this point. So vague, it reminds me of Bella in Twilight whose character is so empty that any girl or grown woman can easily put herself into the story. So vague you can imagine anyone in this Certain Man’s place—your toddler grown up, an alcoholic friend, your pastor, someone like you, someone different from you, someone who wears glasses so she can see, someone blind, someone so holy you can’t bear to look at them.

This Certain Man was walking down the road from Clifton to Avondale—maybe he came from church, maybe he was going to a party, maybe he was going to make mischief—and he was set upon by robbers—by people who couldn’t see farther than their own greed or by people who couldn’t see farther than their own destitution. They beat him with a tire iron, they kicked him and took his clothes, they took his wallet and his dignity, leaving him naked and dying in a deep ditch on the side of the asphalt in a stagnant puddle.

This Certain Man opened his eyes, focused them on a Starbucks coffee cup sitting in a moldy mess near his nose, groaned mightily with the little breath he had left, and began to cry. He cried with the pain we’ve all felt—when it hurts to cry but it’s all you’ve got left, when the injustice and randomness of the pain overwhelms and the tears are mingled with rage and helplessness.

And, lo and behold, someone heard his cry. Would you believe it? A priest was walking by! Episcopal, Catholic, Jewish, or Buddhist—who knows—but a priest! And this Certain Man cried out, “Brother can you help me? They beat me and took from me and I’ve fallen into a hole. Will you help me get out?” And the priest, he looked in the ditch, he looked at the man, and he looked right through him. He couldn’t see past his own sense of urgency, past assuming this Certain Man was drunk or a serial fall-in-a-ditch kind of person. So he wrote down a prayer on a slip of paper and tossed it into the ditch with the man.

And the Certain Man opened his eyes, focused them on the slip of paper now absorbing the scum on the surface of the water, saw the words dissolving in front of him, and began to cry. He cried for every prisoner of war or conscience and every wallflower at the junior high dance, he cried for every collapsed building in Haiti and every small, struggling church, he cried for every addict and every sinner.

And, lo and behold, someone heard his cry. Would you believe it? A business woman was walking by! Procter & Gamble, Kroger, small-business owner, government employee—who knows—but an upright citizen! And this Certain Man cried out, “Sister, can you help me? They beat me and took from me and I’ve fallen into a hole. Will you help me get out?” And the business woman, she looked in the ditch, she looked at the man, and she looked right through him. She couldn’t see past getting her suit dirty before a meeting, past getting more involved in a stranger’s life than she was comfortable with, past what else he might ask of her. So she wrote down a couple self-help book titles on a slip of paper and tossed it into the ditch with the man.

And the Certain Man opened his eyes, focused them on the second slip of paper lodged against his bruised and bleeding arm, and began to cry. He cried for his pain, for his loneliness, for the world’s cruelty and and the world’s vulnerability.

And, lo and behold, someone heard his cry. You won’t believe it. ‘Cause this woman was walking by. And not just any woman, but a woman like the American West’s Calamity Jane. Calamity Jane in her rough men’s clothing, with her bull-whip, with her abrasive, foul-mouth and non-existent manners. They say that when she walked into a bar in Deadwood, South Dakota, the long-time, inveterate drunks, the men who virtually lived in the bar—would leave, disgusted by her obscene language and attitude. She drank and fought and swore with the best of them. This is the woman who passed by and heard a Certain Man crying out.

And she stopped.

She looked in the ditch, she looked at the man, and she saw him. And seeing him, not just looking at him but truly seeing him, meant that she was responsible. The others tried not to see, we try not to see this Certain Man’s pain. We know that if we really look at him, if we see him, then we see him with God’s eyes. Abraham’s concubine Hagar—another person we might have crossed the street to avoid—named God “el-roi”—“the God who sees” because God heard her cries of misery and saw her as she was and had mercy.

Problems should be solved by those who see them, someone once said. So we try not to see—because it hurts too much to really see the problems. Because there’s not much we can do to solve the problem anyway. It’s too expensive or too time-consuming or too complicated or requires too many people to work together. Or because we don’t know what to do.

The historical Calamity Jane didn’t think so. When smallpox came to Deadwood, Calamity Jane stayed and nursed people back to health. Or held their hands as they died. This rough, unexpected woman laid cool cloths on their heads and gave them comfort. Our Calamity Jane, or whoever she is, jumps down into the ditch with this Certain Man, getting mud and muck all over her clothes, bruising her leg as she does so. And the man says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” And Calamity Jane says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

And she gently lifts the man out of the ditch, cleans his wounds with alcohol and binds them with strips from her clothing. This foul-mouthed woman who no one would have anything to do with, who no one would even look at twice, cradles the man in her strong arms and carries him to the Days Inn on the corner. She pays the desk clerk two-days’ wages and says, “You treat him right, ya BLEEEEEP, and if you need more BLEEPIN money, I’ll be back and pay you whatever the BLEEP you need.” She wipes this Certain Man’s forehead one last time, and leaves, not asking for repayment, not leaving a forwarding address.

* * *

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see, Jesus said to his disciples, just moments before he told them this story. Who was the Certain Man’s neighbor? The one who had mercy on him—the one who saw him.
The one who had been there before—whether or not she’d been robbed and beaten and left for dead, our Calamity Jane had been rejected, had been despised, had been hopeless. She saw herself in the man and felt his pain. His cry had been her cry at some point. And she saw in the man the face of God.

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see—we are all recovering from something, whether it’s substance abuse or sin—and we have all been there before. Blessed are we when we don’t ignore another’s pain or joy but see it, recognize it, name it. Even when we don’t know what to do, even when we don’t know the way out of the ditch, blessed are the eyes that see what you see—because what we see is God. And the God who sees, see us.

We don’t have to be beaten on the side of the road to cry out and we don’t have to feel the extreme misery of that Certain Man for someone to see us. You know it as well as I do—sometimes we’re the man in the ditch, sometimes we’re the priest or the business women (maybe more often than we’d like), sometimes we’re the Days Inn desk clerk—the next person to see the problem and respond, and sometimes we’re the Good Samaritan, the Calamity Jane, seeing in the other person a need we can fill, seeing in the other person a big or small part of our own lives. And seeing means responding. “Eternal life is found not just in knowing the commandments but in doing them.” And in that response, we all live happily ever after.

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