As we get ready for the Soup Supper later this week, Rev. Wonders explores the radical vision of justice, compassion and equality of Jesus as revealed by parables, like the one about the Great Banquet, and Jesus’ own habit of eating with street people and outcasts. 

2^nd in the Parables Series

Luke 10:25-37  The Good Samaritan

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?" He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live." Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?" Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man. "A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I'll pay you on my way back.' "What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" "The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded.    Jesus said, "Go and do the same."

The Great Banquet -Luke 14:16-23

…[T]here was once a man who threw a great dinner party and invited many. When it was time for dinner, he sent out his servant to the invited guests, saying, 'Come on in; the food's on the table.' "Then they all began to beg off, one after another making excuses. The first said, 'I bought a piece of property and need to look it over. Send my regrets.' "Another said, 'I just bought five teams of oxen, and I really need to check them out. Send my regrets.' "And yet another said, 'I just got married and need to get home to my wife.' "The servant went back and told the master what had happened. He was outraged and told the servant, 'Quickly, get out into the city streets and alleys. Collect all who look like they need a square meal, all the misfits and homeless and wretched you can lay your hands on, and bring them here.' "The servant reported back, 'Master, I did what you commanded— and there's still room.' "The master said, 'Then go to the country roads. Whoever you find, drag them in. I want my house full!  

Parables of Radical Hospitality

Have you ever been in this guy’s shoes?  Gone to a lot of trouble to prepare for a big dinner, only to have your guests cancel at the last moment?  Not just one or two of them, but pretty much every one of them?  It’s a big deal isn’t it.  After all, you were so looking forward to treating your guests to an extra special evening.  You spared no expense, took care to accommodate everyone’s needs and preferences, got out the good china, polished Aunt Millie’s silver candlesticks and ironed your best tablecloths. Maybe you even hired musicians to play and young neighbors to help serve and rented one of those chocolate fountains!  Then, just when you are getting dressed for the party, the calls start coming.  One person is just getting over a cold—she fairly certain she’s no longer contagious, but you can’t be too careful, can you?  Another had a hard week at work and now just wants to stay home and veg out—he’s sure you’ll understand. Two more call off because the weatherman has forecast snow around midnight but they don’t want to run the risk of it coming early.  Someone else realizes at the last moment that she double-booked herself and she really must go to her in-laws’, although she’d really rather come to your party. .And so on down the guest list.  What ever is a host to do?  The banquet is ready now, at the precisely the hour you promised when you invited everyone weeks earlier, but the chairs at the table are empty.  Each person has a reason and would probably assume he or she is the only one calling off and won’t be missed.  But they are mistaken. 

<><><> 

The characters in our other story have their reasons, too, reasons as completely compelling to them as any we might have had in the same situation.  The priest had ritual responsibilities to the community and would have had to go through time consuming and costly purification rites if he had touched the wounded man, or even worse, if it turned out that the man was dead.  And there was nothing to indicate that the wounded man was, legally, a “neighbor”—for all the priest could tell, the wretch could have been a Samaritan—or a gentile.  And the Levite came along behind the priest—perhaps he even saw the priest and concluded that if the priest passed the man by, then maybe he had better pass him, too.  And didn’t they have a responsibility for their reputations, for their own and their families’ sakes--what if someone saw them with the naked and wounded person and reported to the officials that the priest and/or Levite committed a crime against the injured person?  Or what if it was a scam, a trap of some kind?  People sometimes tried to take advantage of people of their kind…  No, if the man really was injured, no doubt someone else would aid the poor unfortunate.  Which is, in fact, what happened.

 I’m sure the Samaritan also had things to do.  He was on his way to some appointment, just as the priest and Levite had been.  But he stopped.  He was moved by a compassion that overshadowed everything else—perhaps an empathy heightened by his own experience as a social outcast in these parts.  For the Samaritan was not just an out-of-towner, he was a member of a despised group, considered by most Jews to be inferior for a variety of reasons (–again with the reasons…) that are largely lost on us today.  And of course the enmity was mutual.  Nevertheless, the Samaritan stops for this man who he has every reason to assume is, indeed, a Jew.  He cleans his wounds, hoists him up onto his own donkey and walks the rest of the way to the inn, steadying the man and encouraging him to hold on.  At the inn, he pays for a room, but puts this injured man in the bed while he, the Samaritan looks after him through the night.  In the morning he pays the innkeeper to take care of the man, and guarantees his expenses, without a thought about whether the innkeeper might try to cheat him later.  Or maybe that thought did cross his mind, but it didn’t outweigh the other man’s need. 

A couple of weeks ago when I talked about the parables that were one of the primary ways Jesus taught, I stressed how open to interpretation they are and how they invite questions and discussion.  Unfortunately, familiarity with these stories has tended to close down the possibility of actually thinking about them—and for many their Biblical origin has narrowed the range of meaning.  We think we know what they mean because we’ve already read it or heard it somewhere.

We know, for instance, that Jesus had a thing about hospitality, not just because it figures in a number of the stories and examples he used in his teaching, but because of the stories told about him.  He was infamous for hanging out with the wrong kind of people, tax collectors and assorted other outcasts and sinners, and even eating with them, which was a very big deal in his culture.  He allowed children to interrupt him.  He was friends with women.  And instead of telling people what they should think, he invited them into the process by telling stories they could relate to and discuss.

When the theologian asks what he needs to do to earn a place in heaven, Jesus turns the question back to him—“What’s written in the law?”  In many translations the man is referred to as a lawyer, since the important source of laws is the Torah and its commentaries.  Of course the man has the answer right on the tip of his tongue—so what is he really interested in?  Loopholes!  “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?” he asks.  He’s got a pretty good idea of the potential scope of the term but he is hoping to whittle religion down to a comfortable and manageable size.  But that is not how this guy Jesus sees things.  You neighbor is not just people who live in your neighborhood or belong to your religion, as hard as it is to really love them. No, even the despised Samaritan is your neighbor. 

But let’s back up a minute.  Let’s imagine people hearing this story for the first time.  First they hear about how a couple of high class people left a wounded man in the dust.  Maybe people were nodding—yeah, just like them to leave the poor guy to suffer.  And who do you think they were imagining would be the hero of the story?  Probably someone like them.  But no.  It’s a right wing fundamentalist Halliburton executive in Italian wing tips and an Armani suit who stops to help the Unitarian Universalist whose broken placards indicate he was on his way to a peace march.  The war profiteer doesn’t hesitate to tear his expensive shirt to bandage your wounds and he doesn’t care about the blood stains on his suit and in his BMW.  He forgets about his big meeting and stays with you in the emergency room until he’s sure you will be alright, having given them his credit card to ensure your care since your wallet is gone and no one knows if you have insurance or not. 

Because the priest and the Levite and the Samaritan are only half of the story.  What about the Jew who wakes up to discover that his life was saved, not by the people he thought he could count on, but by someone for whom he has always felt contempt?  Someone he considered morally reprehensible and unclean…Some one he himself would probably not have stopped to help…

Who then is my neighbor?  Everybody.  Anybody.  No loopholes on either end of the exchange.  When we speak of the Beloved Community, we aren’t just talking about this congregation and our friends and relations, not just like minded, like hearted people in any combination of concentric circles radiating out from here.  The Beloved Community is all encompassing or it is just another gated community.  This story is not intended for someone one else.  It’s meant to challenge us and not necessarily in any obvious way.

And what about that banquet?  All that food and entertainment prepared for guests who all cancelled at the last moment?  Rather than let it go to waste, the host throws open his doors and invites anybody and everybody to come in and eat.  People with nothing better to do, People with no place else to go.  People with the capacity to be spontaneous. People who are hungry and glad and grateful for the unexpected feast.   Because everything is ready now and it’s all perishable and unrepeatable in this particular way. 

We might ask. ‘What’s the problem?  In the end wasn’t it better that all those hungry people were fed instead of people whose lives are obviously full?  Perhaps it was a just redistribution,  a win-win situation where the invited guests got to do what they felt they needed to do and hungry people were treated to an elegant night out and a great meal.  The host will get over it and eventually feel good about himself for turning disaster to a charitable end.

But what has happened to the love and connection between the people who were originally invited, the people for whom the feast was so lovingly prepared?  Does it have to be only one or the other—only the people we already know and love and feel comfortable with, or only strangers we didn’t know we could care about?  Just who is our neighbor? 

As you must know by now, next Thursday is the Valentines Day Soup Supper, an annual event the Social Concerns Committee has been putting on for years and years to raise money to support the Shalom Center and the Inns program, one of numerous ways we, as a congregation and as individuals, respond to that imperative to be a neighbor to all.  The money we raise, the soup and sandwiches we make and serve on our soup kitchen Sunday, the meetings and vigils we attend and the unflagging work and support many here have given to the establishment of the permanent shelter are a memorable parable in and of themselves.  And if you haven’t walked into that story lately, it’s still going on and your help is still needed there and in dozens of similar ventures.

But the other part of the beloved community is coming to the banquet—to the pot lucks and programs and children’s chapels and classes and circle suppers and cottage meetings and other events—and to church.  Not because you’ll go to hell if you don’t or to heaven if you do.  Not because you even necessarily need to hear what the speaker, who ever he or she may be, has to say.  Sometimes there’s a big message for you and sometimes the big message is for your neighbor—who is also happy to see you.  It’s like going to a birthday party.  Sometimes it’s your birthday and sometimes—most of the time, actually—it’s someone else’s birthday, but you still go to the party.  Then there's the story about a child who goes to the Synagogue with his father and asks him why he spends most of the time talking to his friend Mr. Goldberg. The father responds, "People go to the synagogue for different reasons. Mr. Goldberg goes to the synagogue to talk to God. I go to the synagogue to talk to Goldberg."

We have dreams and plans about becoming a great church, a place to grow our souls, enlarge our minds and hearts, teach our children, and from which to do good and make a difference according to our religious principles and values in the community and in the world.  But we have to be connected in order to do any of these things.  And that means when we are invited to the banquet, we need to show up.  Not because you don’t have food at home, but because when you break bread –or animal crackers—with others, you make community and the community is the source and the foundation for all the rest.

So come next Thursday to the Soup Supper and support the programs of the Shalom Center while you also weave the fabric of community over warm bowls of yummy soup and hot jazz.  And bring friends and strangers—it’ not an either or proposition!  Many hands have been preparing this feast and setting the welcome table.  But they can only do so much.  We need you there—and here—to welcome and be welcomed. 

Come—everything is ready.

Come: Everything is happening right now!