A strange way to answer a question

This week I have been at a media training course. We were told that whenever we face the media we need to have a clear idea of the message we wish to convey, or the interviewer can dominate the discussion. This may seem a little domineering, but we see similar behaviour in the life of Jesus.

One of this weekend's readings in our church is that of the Good Luke 10:25-37 and I have been preparing my sermon on this for a while.

One of the interesting things I found in this account was the way in which Jesus did not answer the question. Jesus was essentially asked, "Who am I compelled by the law to love?" Jesus' story essentially gave the answer to "Who may act towards you in love?" We have lost the sense of outrage that this story would have caused in the original community. The behaviour of the Priest and the Levite would have been totally understandable, as they were subject to Levitical laws that would not let themselves be made unclean for anyone other than a blood relative. There are historical accounts of Samaritans killing dozens of pilgrims travelling from Galillee to Jerusalem about the time of Jesus, and only a chapter or so earlier we hear the disciples asking Jesus to call down fire and destroy a Samaritan village. Are we ready for the parable of the Good Moslem, or the Good Communist?

One other thing this also brings out for me is the concept of neighbourhood in the unexpected. Are we able to accept charity from those we think of as being lesser than us or threats to us? God's grace and love is universal, there are story after story of unexpected heroes inside or outside of the Hebrew community all through the Old Testament. Even a donkey manages to get a word in! The man dying on a cross in abject loneliness and agony is the saviour of the world! When we go forth to do the work of God in the community, are we ready to accept God working through those we go to serve? Are we too proud to accept the widow's mite so valued by God for the love and sacrifice with it shows? Are we willing to accept the love of the hurt and broken? Are we willing to listen for the word of God through the witness of the young, the frail, or those who we just don't seem to get along with? Perhaps we have to be stunned like the hapless traveller to accept the gifts that God sends us through these people.

Finally, I haver been looking at some writing by Moltmann in "The Crucified God" in preparation for the coming semester and some of his comments on the church are rather pointed and suitable for this meditation:

"The cultic division between the religious and the profane is potentially abolished in faith in the Christ who was profaned by crucifixion. Thus the eucharist, like meals held by Jesus with sinners and publicans', must also be celebrated with the unrighteous, those who have no rights and the godless from the 'highways and hedges' of society, in all their profanity, and should no longer be limited, as religious sacrifice, to those who are members of the same denomination.
The Christian church can re-introduce the divisions between those who are within and those who are without, only at the price of losing its own identity as the church of the crucified Christ" (p 40)


Who is worthy of our love? Only those who are worthy of the love of God... and that distinction has been obliterated by grace.