Some words just go together in sets of three.  For instance, if I said small and medium, what would you say next?  Large!  Bacon and lettuce?  Tomato!  Larry and Mo?  Curly!   When Jesus told the story of the man who was beaten up by robbers and left for dead, the first man who walked by was a priest.  The second man was a Levite.  Every person in Jesus’ original audience would have assumed the third person was going to be an Israelite.  Priest, Levite, Israelite.  Those three things just went together, like morning, noon and night.

Jesus’ audience would have expected the third person to be an Israelite, because that’s how things went in their time.  If you wanted to talk about all the Hebrew people, all 12 tribes descended from Jacob, you said, “Priests, Levites, and Israelites.”  The priests were descended from the tribe of Aaron.  The Levites were descended from Levi.  Everyone else from the remaining ten tribes was covered under the umbrella of Israelite.  Priests, Levites and Israelites went together like a hop, skip and a jump.

But in Jesus’ story, the third person to encounter the man beaten by robbers and left for dead was not an Israelite.  He was a Samaritan.  Right away this would have been upsetting to the original audience.  Why was Jesus even talking about Samaritans?  Samaritans had a lot in common with the Jewish people.  They believed in the same God and had some of the same parts of scripture.  But there were key differences.  Instead of their holy city being Jerusalem, the Samaritans’ temple was on Mt. Gerizim.  And instead of descending from the twelve tribes of Jacob, Samaritans had a mixed lineage.  Like sixes and sevens, the Israelites and Samaritans were close—but not the same.  There was friction and dissonance between the two groups.  For over 500 years, Jews and Samaritans in Jesus’ day had been holding a grudge against the other, each thinking they had the “right” version of scripture, the “right” place of worship, the “right” people serving as priests.

Wow.  Friction between religious groups who are similar, but who have important distinctives.  Who could imagine such a thing?  If I were writing that in a text message or email, I would insert a great big LOL there!  LOL stands for “laughing out loud”, and in this case we’re laughing not because the situation is funny but because it’s so ironic.  Jesus told this parable to people who thought they were the ONE TRUE people of God, and instead of making one of their own the hero, Jesus chose for the hero their enemy—someone from the opposing religious camp.

As United Methodists, we have opposing religious camps right in our own denomination.  Last week it was announced that our United Methodist General Conference has been postponed again.  Just a little history:  we had a specially called General Conference in 2019 to “find a way forward”, to find a way to move beyond the corrosive division our denomination has experienced, division over differing opinions on human sexuality.  But instead of the 2019 General Conference resulting in a peaceful way forward out of our conflict, our conflict only became more entrenched.  The one thing, finally, United Methodists seemed united on in the wake of that experience was it’s time to stop hurting ourselves and each other with prolonged conflict.  A diverse coalition was brought together, with a professional mediator to help, and a proposal was drafted to gracefully divide up the United Methodist Church, so that those congregations who hold a more restrictive view can draft rules that work for them, and those congregations who hold more inclusive views can draft rules that work for them.  This plan was to be discussed and voted on at General Conference.

In light of this “graceful exit” plan, the conservative Methodists made plans to form a new denomination, which they are calling the Global Methodist Church.  Some progressive groups worked on forming a splinter denomination as well, although as far as I know, those plans have not come together yet.  But even if the most progressive United Methodists leave to form their own denomination, that will leave centrists and many progressives together in the United Methodist Church. This was all to be ironed out after 2020 General Conference.

But guess what happened instead?  The corona virus pandemic!  General Conference 2020 was postponed to 2021.  Then it was postponed to 2022.  Now it is postponed to 2024.  Since we are an international denomination, General Conference is made up of delegates from all over the world.  Many delegates were reporting extreme delays as they applied for visas, in some cases having to wait 800 days just for the first interview!  There was no way we could gather this year in person in a way that would include the majority of our international delegates.  And our Book of Discipline does not have any provision for meeting other than to meet in person.  So we must wait.

The Global Methodist Church, though, has announced its plan to officially launch on May 1 rather than wait until after General Conference.  They will follow the provisions agreed upon at a previous General Conference, which will require each congregation that wants to leave the United Methodist Church and move to the Global Methodist Church to essentially buy its way out.  It remains to be seen what impact this will have in Eastern Pennsylvania.  But things for sure are changing, and change never happens without friction. And when there’s friction, it’s hard to be loving.

We started our worship service by reading 1 Corinthians 13:13.  Paul says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.”  Like “ready, set, go”, the words, “faith, hope, and love” just go together.  But the greatest of these is love.  It amazes me how much I have in common with other United Methodists—our faith is so similar.  But it saddens me how our hopes are so different.  I am hoping for a more inclusive church.  Others are hoping for a more exclusive church.  We are at sixes and sevens.  But as John Wesley taught, we are all called to love alike, even if we don’t think alike.

Easier said than done.  It’s so easy to get caught up in being right that we treat others as less than human.  Remember, Jesus said even to call another person a fool or a dumbhead was akin to murder.  If you’ve even verbally insulted someone who disagrees with you, you have disrespected their humanity and forgotten that they are created in God’s image and are God’s beloved child.  It’s hard, preaching these words.  I am convicting myself!  But this is the love we are called to.   We have to acknowledge that there is a tremendous gap between how religious rivals in our society treat each other, and the loving care we see portrayed in the parable today.

Whether the friction is over differences in religious ideals, or political views, or lifestyle preferences, the key to eternal life is loving God deeply, and loving others as we love ourselves.  In other words, not forgetting the humanity of any person!  A few months ago, I was introduced to a new translation of the Bible called the “First Nations Version:  An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament”.  The First Nations Version of the Bible is the result of a group of First Nations people assembled by a United Methodist pastor named Terry Wildman from Michigan.  They wanted to make a translation worded for Native people. Listen to how our gospel lesson today sounds in the First Nations Version:

A scroll keeper, one who was skilled in his knowledge of tribal law, came to Creator Sets Free (Jesus) to test him and trap him in his words.  “Wisdomkeeper,” he said.  “What path must I walk to have the life of the world to come that never fades away, full of beauty and harmony?”

He answered him, “What is written in our tribal law about this?  Tell me, how do you see it?”

The scroll keeper spoke from the words of the law, “You must love the Great Spirit from deep within, with the strength of your arms, the thoughts of your mind, and the courage of your heart, and you must love your fellow human beings in the same way you love yourselves.”

“You have answered well,” Creator Sets Free (Jesus) said back to him.  “If you walk this path, you will live.”

But the scroll keeper, wanting to look good to others, asked him, “Who are my fellow human beings?”

What a great question.  Luke tells us that it was not asked in good faith, that the question was asked just to try to bait Jesus into saying something self-destructive.  But Jesus treats it as a legitimate question, and it’s a great question for us to consider, too.  How about that?  The First Nations Version calls the man a scroll keeper.  Other translations call him a lawyer.  He was someone who should have known better.  He asks the question, “Who are my fellow human beings?”  Then at the end of the passage, after Jesus has told the story, he asks the scroll keeper, “Which one of these three acted as a fellow human being to the man who was attacked by thieves?”  His answer leaves us wondering if he now knows better.

One of the best parts of my job here at Lima is getting to do chapel every month with our Lima Christian Nursery School and after-kindergarten classes.  In February, we practiced the verse, “Love your neighbor as yourself” in American Sign Language.  The symbol for love is easy—cross your arms over your heart.  The sign for your is also easy:  put your right hand out like you’re stopping traffic.  But the sign for neighbor is hard.  You put your hands out in front of you, palms facing toward yourself, and move them toward the center of your body until they are parallel, like an equal sign.  Then you pull both hands down several inches.  I don’t know the rationale behind the creation of this sign, but to me, it is perfect.  Neighbors are people who are our equals.  There is distance between us—we’re not the same.  But if we are intentional about creating connection, there is a lot of power in neighborliness.  This quick motion—bringing the hands to the center so they are parallel, and then emphasizing this arrangement by pushing the hands down, what strong symbolism!  To finish the verse, we learned the sign for “yourself”, making a fist and pushing it away from our bodies for emphasis.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  It’s a sign language Bible verse with UMPH!

Being a good human does not mean it’s your job to help every hurting person you ever encounter.  Loving our neighbor does not mean fixing all that is broken.  The job of savior has been filled.  I didn’t get it.  You didn’t get it.  It’s not up to any one of us to solve all the world’s problems or even any of the world’s problems.  Jesus did not tell this parable to make us feel bad for having limits to the good we can do.  He told this parable to explode the scroll keeper’s idea of piety—that someone in the “wrong” might be more in the “right” than we are!  As they say in Minnesota, “oof!”  Or at least that’s what I hear they say.  I was hoping to go there for General Conference and find out for myself!  But not this year.

It’s not faith, hope, and disrespect.  It’s faith, hope and love.  Let’s keep the faith, hold on to hope, and look to God for help in loving all our fellow human beings—even those human beings with whom we have friction and division.  Amen.

 

Benediction:  May we find the road that leads to life;

may we take the turns that bring right relationships;

may we pause to accompany others on the way;

and may we journey with God through Lent,

slowing down for Loving Union.  Amen.