The Narrow Gate

Welcome to the continuation of my blog, post-seminary. Ministry and evangelism have brought me back home to Chattanooga. I welcome your company on my journey.

The original blog, Down In Mississippi, shared stories from 2008 and 2009 of the hope and determination of people in the face of disaster wrought by the hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, of work done primarily by volunteers from churches across America and with financial support of many aid agencies and private donations and the Church. My Mississippi posts really ended with the post of August 16, 2009. Much work, especially for the neediest, remained undone after the denominational church pulled out. Such is the nature of institutions. The world still needs your hands for a hand up. I commend to you my seven stories, Down in Mississippi I -VII, at the bottom of this page and the blog posts. They describe an experience of grace.



Saturday, July 16, 2016

Day 1313 - The Crux of The Matter

The text of a sermon given at Northside Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga, TN, July 10, 2016

Gospel Reading Luke 10:25-37

In the verses from Deuteronomy, Israel stands at the doorstep of the Promised Land listening to Moses instructing them in the ways of holiness and God’s covenant with them. In the first 10 verses of this Deuteronomy passage, Moses four times emphasizes the divine command to Israel that is the crux of the matter of the Lord’s covenant with Israel is, “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul because the Lord loves you.” Israel only has to do this one thing for salvation.
To really appreciate this Deuteronomy discourse of the Law you should understand a Hebrew word for God’s eternal love for Israel: hesed. It underpins and is the source of the Law. Hesed has no direct English equivalent. It means a one-sided, and therefore unrequited, eternal loving commitment by the Lord to Israel that surmounts every obstacle between the righteous and God. Hesed is the essence of the love of God for Israel that embodies the covenant the Lord made with Israel and the commandment given Israel, “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul.”
Today we turn to Luke’s account of a conversation about this same commandment between Jesus and a Jewish lawyer schooled in the Law. IOt would serve appreciating this passage to recall that Jesus said in Matt. 5:17, that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. (A detailed reading of the first 25 verses of the Sermon on the Mount might be illuminating.)
Today, in this interchange with the lawyer, we understand the essence of the law is, “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul.”
An artistic structure with two painted panels hinged together that enhance and mirror the meaning of each is called a diptych. The Deuteronomy passage and this passage in Luke form a kind of “literary” diptych on the essence of the Law. In this case one side of the hinge, the Hebrew perspective, is the Hebrew word hesed, and from the perspective of Jesus the other piece of the hinge is the Greek word splagchnizomai commonly translated as compassion
This confrontation with the Jewish lawyer is “The crux of the matter” of what righteousness means for a Christian.  Have you ever wondered what the word ”crux” means?
Let us step back and talk a little bit about language. Language is a fascinating thing. Time and usage reduce the complexity of particular words to simpler, or highly specific ideas, often transforming the powerful original meaning of old words into something simple and even trivial.
Unfortunately translations more often than not often obscure meaning because of this evolving nature of meaning. This problem is the greatest challenge of a Biblical translator.
This is the essential challenge to understand what the Lord requires of us is understanding what the words of Scripture meant when they were used.
“Crux” is a good example. It now means the heart, the core, or essential part of the matter, or the turning point. But the symbolic power of “crux” in its original use far exceeds these modern definitions. I am going to explain what “crux” means by the time we get to the end of my sermon because it beautifully captures the nature of the Law as expounded by Jesus in this reading in Luke.
I said passages in Deuteronomy and Luke are deeply connected.  Deuteronomy says, “(We must) love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and the Lord will take delight in us.” Luke says, “Who is my neighbor?” Both passages concern where the Law is found. They are a diptych, connected by hesed – loving kindness and compassion.
You know this story and parable by heart and you might say the message is, “We are to love our neighbor.” Look at little closer.
The lawyer has done something unusual, and Jesus takes advantage of it. He embellished Moses words and characterization of the law when he answered Jesus’ question about what one must do gain eternal life. He says, “ Love the Lord with all heart, soul, strength and mind…AND love neighbor as self.
Perhaps the lawyer added “and love your neighbor as yourself” trying to trap Jesus into saying the Romans were not neighbors?
The lawyer is justified in enlarging the command because he knows the commandments of the “Holiness Code” written Leviticus 19:1-21 as if written on the back of his hand.
He knows the commandments say, (Verse 1-2) “You shall be holy because I the Lord your God am Holy…(verse 9-10) When you reap your fields leave a border of crop behind, when you clean the harvest of your fields, leave some on the ground, when you pick your grapes, do not pick the vines bare, leave them for the alien and the poor. (Because) I am the Lord your God….”
And then after the “Do not steal, lie to one another, take my name in vain,” comes the command (in verse 33-34), “when an alien resides in your land he shall be to as a citizen among you, love the alien as yourself for you were an alien in the land of Egypt.”
By happenstance the lawyer has unwittingly turned this debate about the Law and judgment into a parable about grace and loving kindness.
There is a lot of subtlety in this parable. We find a man maimed and half-dead on the side of the dangerous road coming down from Jerusalem to Jericho. We might compare walking down this road to walking down Dodds Avenue between McCallie and Main Street Saturday night 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, or wandering around E. 28th St. in Alton Park in Chattanooga at night.
A priest and a Levite, people preoccupied by the Law see the body but cross to the other side to avoid the man. A despised Samaritan comes down the road.
You know about Samaritans. Most Jews hated Samaritans and most Samaritans hated Jews. Dr. Paul talked to us about Samaritans two weeks ago. Jesus wanted to go to a Samaritan town as he started his journey to Jerusalem but the town rejected him. The disciples wanted to rain down fire on them but Jesus rebuked them refused to judge them and went on to the next town.
As our NRSV translates, the Samaritan sees this half dead man laying in the ditch and is moved with pity.”  “Moved with pity” towards the half-dead man.
“Moved with pity?” The translators should be embarrassed for their effort.
What does “pity” mean to you? …Feeling sorry for someone?  Feeling a pang of remorse or concern for some one? Having a “pity party with a sense of condescension?” Other translations, such as the King James Version and Common English Version say, the Samaritan “had compassion,” or was “moved by compassion for him,” coming closer to the original meaning.
This word for compassion is the crux of the matter in this parable The Greek word is “splagchnizomai,” poorly translated as pity or compassion.
At the time the gospels were written, this Greek word meant a profoundly powerful compassion that strikes, and overwhelms the very core of one’s being. It literally means, “to seize one’s gut or intestine,” - like being punched in the stomach - because to the Greeks the seat of the most powerful emotion of compassion lies in the gut. Rather than use “gut-wrenching” compassion, I will use a more modern and polite “heart-wrenching compassion” to convey the implication of this passage.
This unusual word gives this parable a special meaning. If, as good translators,  we want to understand what Jesus means with this word translate as a heart-wrenching compassion, we ought to look where else the word is used in the Gospels.
We find this is a very special word used only in 9 different instances either involving an action of Jesus towards humanity or action requested of him by humans, and in three great parables.
Here are the instances where it is used:
Event 1. Mark 1:38-41, and Matthew 9:35-36 tell us Jesus was going about the countryside of Galilee preaching and arguing with religious leaders and a leper approaches and said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Jesus was moved with heart breaking compassion and said, “I do choose! Be made clean!” Of the same event, Mathew 9:35-36 says when Jesus looked over these crowds, “He had heart breaking compassion for them” because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. You know what happens to sheep without a shepherd when there are wolves around.
Event 2. Matt 14:10-14, and Mark 6:27-34: Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and had been working with large crowds of harassed and helpless, sick and disabled people until he and the disciples were overwhelmed with the work. Jesus tells his disciples, “Let’s go across the sea of Galilee in our boat to a deserted place so we can rest for a while.” The crowd sees them get in the boat and as Jesus crosses the sea, the crowd moves along the shore and arrives the same time Jesus does. Jesus gets out of the boat and looks over the massive crowd of 5,000 men plus women and children crying out for help in misery and had heart-wrenching compassion for them for they looked like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus and the disciples began to minister to the crowd with so much intensity they didn’t even have time to stop and eat. We begin to see this heart -wrenching compassion places the interests of others above our own self-interest.
Event 3. Mark 9:14-25 The disciples are arguing among themselves because they could not heal a man’s epileptic son. Jesus asks what’s going on and the father says your disciples could not heal my son. Jesus asks how long has the son been this way and the father says since childhood and pleads, “If you can do anything, have heart-wrenching compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to the father, “All things can be done for those who believe,” and with compassion healed the son.
Event 4. Matt 15:30-32 and Mark 8:1-3 Jesus and the disciples encounter a crowd of 4000 hungry people who were watching Jesus strengthen the week, heal the ill, causing the mute to speak. The disciples want to send the crowd away because it is late, but Jesus says, “I have heart-wrenching compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way” We must feed them - Heart wrenching compassion for others above your own self-interest.
Event 5.  Luke 7:11-16 Jesus approaches a town and encounters a crowd carrying out the body of a man who had just died, a mother’s only son, a widow. In those times, the death of husband and son of a widow was a sentence of hardship and poverty, if not death. When Jesus saw her, he has heart-wrenching compassion for her, “Do not weep.” He raised the dead man.
Event 6. Matt 20:30-34 In Matthew as Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem two blind men on the side of the road calls out,” Lord have mercy upon us, son of David!” Even though the crowd and disciples tried to silence the men, Jesus asked them, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Let our eyes be opened.” Moved with heart-breaking compassion Jesus touched the eyes and they regained sight. The men followed Jesus on the dangerous journey to Jerusalem. Again Jesus heals the blind men out of divine heart-wrenching compassion, and the men risk their own self-interest and follow Jesus to Jerusalem.
If we have not yet gotten to the message about the point of heart-wrenching compassion in these 6 situations, then we haven’t gotten to the crux of the matter.
Jesus expected we wouldn’t get it and gave us three great parables about instances of humans exhibiting this special heart-wrenching compassion as the path to holiness, or righteousness.
In one parable Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a king who wished to settle the accounts of his slaves, the second is the parable of the prodigal son, and the third is this parable today about the good Samaritan.
In The parable of the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus described a king who wants to settle his accounts with his slaves, but one slave came to him with a ridiculously immense debt of 10,000 talents –about $7-12 million today, or about 100,000 years’ wages for the slave of the time.  The point is you can’t get there from here. The King said, “Since you can’t pay, I’ll sell you, your wife, children and all your possessions to get what I can.” The slave fell his knees begging the king, ”Have patience with me and I will pay you everything.” And the king out of heart-breaking compassion for him released him and forgave his debts. Heart wrenching compassion that puts financial self-interest second.
In the parable of the prodigal son, the son demanded his inheritance and then squandered it all on wine, women and a good time leaving himself destitute feeding swine for a living. He decided to come home with the hope of expecting nothing more than to be treated as one of the slaves in his father’s household. The father sees his son far away coming up the road towards home, not yet close enough even to say “Father forgive me.” His father on seeing him far off but coming home was filled with heart-wrenching compassion. He ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
We see this word, heart-wrenching compassion has a more intense, unconditional meaning. It is a compassion that strikes us so hard that it overcomes any sense of resentment or injustice and has no regard for self-interest.  It expresses unconditional love.
The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus turns the tables and asks the lawyer, “Who was the neighbor of the half-dead man?”
The lawyer is obliged to answer, it was the Samaritan who put self-interest in second place for the man’s well-being, Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” 
Be a good neighbor!
We are sort of like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she exclaimed to Toto, “Toto, I have a feeling we aren’t in Kansas anymore!”
Jesus calls us to live the law as he did, with a steadfast commitment to compassion, not because of words on a tablet, or its logic. We live the Law when heart-wrenching compassion is written in our hearts. Jesus turned this whole idea of “neighbor” upside down with this word, heart-wrenching compassion and his question, “Who was the neighbor?”
Be a neighbor. Love every enemy or alien we meet as friend as God loves us, because we are good neighbors who love others as God loves us. This is what it means to love one’s neighbor as one loves self.
In light of this passage three things come to mind. First, I recall one friend I know who is too jaded for his own good and not very long ago in a discussion over allowing Syrian refugees into our country told me the good Samaritan might have worked in Jesus’ time but not in today’s time. Second, I cannot help but thinking of the miserable Presidential campaign with its deceit and all the opprobrious, harsh talk about how we should treat the immigrating Syrians fleeing religious and political persecution – what kind of neighbor does that make us?  Third, and of course, all how can we not think of all the violence around the African-American community of the last week, violence of police against citizens and citizens against police. Consider, if police and public approached each other as neighbor, what a difference it might make…
Do you begin to get the idea about what Jesus is saying about the place for heart-wrenching compassion? Do you think that this command for having heart-wrenching compassion towards our neighbor is easy? Do you think Jesus thought we’d consider it easy? Hardly considering this parable about the good Samaritan.
As I promised when I began we come to the crux of the matter.
Crux has a sense of being the essential part, or the heart of the matter. But its meaning is far more than just “essential.”
Crux is an old Latin word that means ”cross” or “instrument of torture.” It refers not to just any cross but to the cross of Jesus. Do you see in that sense of crux, this parable calls us to the most difficult part of being a Christian. It calls us to have that divine heart-wrenching compassion in our heart, even when judgment and indifference might be preferred.
The crux of the matter is that Jesus taught this model of compassion and service encapsulates the entire law - to love the Lord who has unconditional compassion for us, hesed, with every part of our being, and to be a neighbor who loves the way God loves us.

The hard part of Christian Ethics is making it personal. It is hard for each one of us to reveal to the world that we are Christians by our love and compassion not by our judgment of and indifference to others.  But, if we do that, perhaps we single-handedly can be the instrument the Lord uses to heal the violence in our world. Remember, the Kingdom of God is at hand.

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