Sermon at St. Thomas by Lynn E Cunningham

March 18, 2007. Lent IV: Joshua 4:19-24; 5:9-12; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:11-32.

1.         Dubois has a well-deserved reputation as a friendly, welcoming, neighborly kind of place. For example, I have heard several versions of the story of a couple who were driving across the country from somewhere in the Midwest, and whose car happened to break down just as they were arriving in Dubois. The local people not only helped fix their car, but turned out to be so friendly, that the couple decided to settle here, and not drive on any further. Of course, I suspect the beauty of the mountains had something to do with their staying as well!

2.         The early church saw many gospels written about the life of Jesus, maybe as many as eighty gospels. There were many more than just the four that we know in the New Testament. Each gospel seems to have been written to make some point of that particular writer or some aspect of theology that interested them.        

            a.         I suspect that if there were such a thing as a Dubois Gospel, it would center on what it means to be a good neighbor. Folks here take care of each other. They are friendly in the post office or the grocery store. They share food, and drive each other down country for medical appointments. Right now, it feels like the whole town is praying for Dick and Kathy Hodge, while Dick is so ill and in the hospital. Neighborliness has been raised to a high art here.

3.         What is it about the parable of the prodigal son that makes me think of neighborliness?

4.         Sylvia’s Bible Study class on Saturdays teaches, among other things, how it often helps to read several passages of the scriptures together, and, instead, not just in the isolated readings that we use each Sunday. Sylvia is not only a good teacher herself, but the book that she is having us read, by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, drives home the importance of looking at whole sections of scripture together, to open up more of the meaning of any one isolated passage.

5.         With the parable of the prodigal son, I had the strong sense that that story echoed other stories that Luke writes in his Gospel, indeed stories that are only found in the Lucan Gospel.

6.         Compare the parable of the prodigal son with the parable of the good Samaritan, the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, and the encounter between the disciples with Jesus on road to Emmaus.

7.         Every one of these stories shares a theme of a person’s self-discovery through some action that reveals what it means to treat lovingly someone else who turns out to be a neighbor in a completely unexpected way. Every one of these stories, and probably others as well, might be said to key off of the question that Jesus answers with the parable of the good samaritan, namely the question, who is my neighbor?

            a.         That question in turn is rooted in the second great commandment, “to love your neighbor as yourself”. If I am to love my neighbor as myself, well, then just who is my neighbor?

8.         The Greek word for “neighbor”, by the way, is not some obscure theological term, but is a common, everyday word, “plesios”, that simply means, “one who lives nearby”.

9.         Luke in these stories presents a theology of the second great commandment. Discovery of a person’s true self, comes in large part from seeing how a person treats and interacts with that person’s neighbor.

10.       A subtext appearing over and over again in these stories for Luke, is that, wealth and big differences in wealth, such as between the rich man and Lazarus, often distort the ability of two persons to love one another as neighbors. For Luke in many stories in his Gospel, wealth gets in the way of a person’s ability to carry out the second great commandment.

11.       So, over and over again, in these stories, finding an answer to the question of who is my neighbor, forces a discovery of some truth about one’s own self.

12.       The stories have the effect of asking the reader to step back and learn about the reader’s own self by observing how the reader is treating those who are close to him.

            a.         For example, in Dubois terms, if you are having a fight with your neighbor over how to locate fence lines and property boundaries, the way you conduct that fight reveals as much about you as it does about your neighbor.

13.       So, to turn to look more closely at the Luke’s stories, for example, the scribe’s question to Jesus, who is my neighbor?, provokes Jesus to recount the tale of the Good Samaritan. And the scribe is pushed to give an answer that was completely outside his own culture and theology, The scribe was forced by the story to see that a member of a despised minority, namely the Samaritans, was the real neighbor to the victim of the highway robbery, while the more culturally respectable priest, and the more culturally respectable Levite, who passed by on the other side of the road and ignored the victim, did not act as neighbors. They did not fulfill the second great commandment.

            a.         Similarly, the story of the rich man and Lazarus, reveals that these two persons had been living close by to each other for a long time, and had been neighbors to each other in that physical, locational sense, but the rich man failed to love and care for the poor beggar Lazarus. After they both had died and gone to their reward, the rich man learns the real truth of what it means to love his neighbor.

            b.         He learns this too late for him to do anything to change, but not too late for his still living brothers to change their behavior and to learn the meaning of the second commandment.

            c.         The parable of the prodigal son, does not involve unrelated neighbors, but instead, the prodigal son discovers that his own father could fufill the second great commandment of loving his own son in an unexpected way, through unconditional forgiveness and acceptance. The father’s totally accepting and forgiving love shows that these attitudes are integral parts of the second commandment.

14.       The encounter on the road to Emmaus between the risen Lord Jesus and the disciples might at first glance seem not to fit into the pattern that I have discerned here, and yet, I find that the way Jesus comes to the disciples as an apparent stranger shows another aspect to being a neighbor. Jesus talks in a friendly way to the disciples, even though he seems a complete stranger to them. He instructs them about the scriptures in an effort to comfort their grieving. Then he is revealed to them in the breaking of the bread.

15.       All this suggests an aspect of second commandment. Luke wants his readers to see that in every neighbor, even neighbors who at first seem like strangers, there is the possibility of discovering Jesus. Have you not heard that we should always look for Jesus in the other person, when we meet someone? Luke’s account of the encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus highlights a need to look for Jesus in the stranger.

16.       Maybe in old Dubois, the mechanics at Meckem’s garage understood that the stranger driving the next car in from the Midwest to break down in Dubois, might be Jesus, so they treated every newly arriving stranger with special care. I do know that whenever I go into Bull’s Conoco for help with a car, Bull always seems to treat me with a welcoming affection.

17.       The parable of the Prodigal Son, then, takes on a different dimension when read alongside these other parables and stories. The forgiving father in that parable expresses not just the forgiveness and acceptance for all by God but also expresses how to act as neighbor to anyone who has committed a grievous wrong.

18.       As I said, people act as neighbor to each other in Dubois, through carry-in dinners, sharing food, and generally taking care of each other. I am continually amazed at how folks take care of each other here in generous, and loving ways. All this is part of the Gospel of Dubois.       

19.       In that spirit, after church today, and after a shortened coffee hour, I am inviting everyone to spend about an hour listening to each other in small groups talk about how you came to join a church, perhaps how you discovered God in your life, and how this church of St. Thomas can support your efforts to know God better. As you can see from the handout that you picked up in the back of the church this morning, there will be four groups, one for the toddlers, one for parents with minor children, one for the youth, and another for everyone else.

20.       In a time like the present, when many people do not attend any form of worship, and when many others are exploring their faith, today’s sessions offer an opportunity for us as a congregation to check in with each other around such questions.

21.       Based on these discussions, the vestry and I can better understand how to provide Christian education for all ages for this coming year.

22.       Some people here may feel shy about sharing like this, and since I was not able to publicize this event very well in advance, this is perhaps coming as a surprise. But if it is, and you do not have other plans, I hope you will just humor me and stay and join in the discussions.

23.       Over and over again, in these stories from Luke’s Gospel, finding an answer to the question of who is my neighbor, forces a discovery of some new insight about one’s own self and about the love of God. The sessions today allow us neighbors to share a kind of carry-in meal with the Holy Spirit. Except our meal is catered by Connie’s Country Cooking.

24.       In Jesus name. Amen.