It’s one of the gospels’ most well known teachings, and with good reason.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is an incredible account of what it looks like to follow the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” (v. 27) establishing an ideal for neighborly love and compassion.  All though familiarity can tame astonishment, which is a trap we must carefully avoid.  

Because this is a shocking story.  It is shocking that that there is no description of the man who needed help.  Jesus gives us no discussion of his race, class, or religion, because in light of the greatest commandment none of that matters.  It is shocking that the Priest and the Levite, the religious elite of Israel, not only failed to live up to the Command, but also that they crossed to the opposite side of the road to avoid helping the man.  And it would have been infuriatingly shocking that a hated Samaritan was the one who lived up to the Jewish God’s commands by going to such amazing lengths to help the injured man.  

But the most radical part of this teaching is very easy to pass up.  See, Jesus tells this parable in response to a lawyer’s question, “And who is my neighbor?” (v. 29)  It’s a question that understands the neighbor relationship as a passive relationship, a relationship that is somehow defined by proximity and circumstance not by people.  But Jesus doesn’t answer that question.  Instead, He tells this parable and closes with his own question, “Which of these three [Priest, Levite, Samaritan], do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (v.36)  It’s not about who are your neighbors, it’s about who are you a neighbor to.  Christ’s sense of being a neighbor is too radical to be confined to a passive relationship.  No.  It’s about being committed to actively seeking and reaching out to those who need help.  It’s about loving them in truth and also in action, helping their specific needs the best you can, while also trying to connect them with those who can better meet their needs.  Because it’s about loving them as you love yourself.  

If Jesus answered the lawyer’s original question, He would have given a definition.  Instead, Jesus gave a commission.  A commission that extends to all of us, “Go and do likewise.” (v. 37)

*(Luke 10:25-37)

So as I was preparing this talk, I had to really think about what I should say to get people fired up about Christianity.  Because that’s all a revival is: getting ourselves excited and inspired to commit or recommit our lives to Jesus, so we leave energized and empowered.  That’s my prayer for tonight, that something would hit each and every one of us, so we all walk through those doors uplifted, but more importantly transformed.  Amen? 

One of the aspects about Christianity that really gets me fired up, that just hits me, is the tremendous, radical freedom found in the gospel.  And that may surprise some of you, because its easy to find examples of Christians being portrayed, or even portraying themselves, as hyper-judgmental, cookie-cutter images of each other, too afraid to think for themselves.  Christianity can seem to be a religion that’s al about believe this, think that, don’t do these, and we’ll see you next week.

But that’s not what God wants for us.  The purpose of the gospel is for us to now be able to live life to the full.  And this freedom to live flows directly from God’s love for each of us that Maureen just talked about. 

John 8:31-32 “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’”

These are a couple of pretty mystical verses, even the people who Jesus was speaking to didn’t really get what he was saying.  They were like, “Who us?  Free?  But we’ve never been slaves?”  And in order for us to really get at the meaning behind this statement, we can’t make the same mistake they did in taking Jesus’ words only at face value.  If we do that, we miss out on the depth and power of what Jesus is saying.  “The truth will make you free.”

The first thing we need to ask to understand what Jesus is saying is quite simply: what is this truth that Jesus is talking about?  Without knowing that there isn’t anywhere for us to go, and we can’t possibly figure out what Christ meant, let alone get that freedom He is talking about.  It isn’t enough to know that there is a key that opens a lock.  If we want that lock opened we need to know what key to use.  So what is this Truth?

It’s Himself.  Jesus is the Truth that makes us free.  

A large theme throughout the entire New Testament and especially the books and letters of John is that Jesus wasn’t just someone who proclaims a truth, but He is the very Truth He proclaims, and that by following him, we come to know this Truth Jesus.  Later on, in John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  At the core of Jesus’ identity, the depth of who He is, is this freedom bringing Truth for anyone who seeks it.  Because Jesus is the epitome, the embodiment of Grace.  He is the truth that God is reaching out to you, is going to extreme lengths to bring you back near to Him into an intimate relationship, only because of His radical, absurd, overflowing Love for you.  And He reaches out for us in spite of our failures, our problems, and our sins.  And it is this Love which saves and sets us free from all of that.  This is who Jesus is.  Jesus’ name in Hebrew means God saves.  

That’s the truth He was talking about.  It is His identity.  It is why He came, why He lived, why He taught, why He died, and why He rose again.  It is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” 

It is the Gospel, the good news, the greatest news, and it is why we are here tonight.  This is the message that fires us up to face the world.  God is for us.  He is not scowling down at us waiting for you or me to step out of line so he can crush us with Condemnation.  No.  He is seeking after us, like a shepherd for his lost sheep, a father for his lost children. He wants to pour out His love on each of us, transforming us into our true selves.  In communion with Him, in communion with each other, and in communion with all creation.  His hand is outstretched to each of us, because of what Christ has done to set us free.  All we need to do is take it.  

God is for us.

So radically for us that he brought Himself and His entire Kingdom to us.  He is not distant or disinterested.  He has made it abundantly clear that this life, this time, this space we have been given is not something we just need to get through to go to heaven.  No, heaven is invading right here right now.  And it is calling us and giving us the strength to live life to the full.  The hand God is extending to us is, in Jesus’ words “at hand,” so close we don’t even need to reach to grab it.  God’s Kingdom has drawn near. It is among us and in us.  And we are invited to live in the kingdom and with the kingdom in us.

This is the Truth that Jesus proclaimed, because He is this Truth. 

And it is in this Truth that we find the tremendous, life-changing freedom to truly be ourselves, and to live life fully and authentically.

The world we live in spends a lot of time trying to tell each of us who we are.  And it is harsh.  The world looks only at the outside, what we say, how we look, what we’ve accomplished.  But the world gives the most staggering weight to our mistakes, failures, and the wrongs we’ve committed.  It is happy to define us by those, allowing them to eclipse any other aspect of who we are.  So we get labeled by the things that we are most ashamed of.  The world says we are failures, liars, screw-ups, addicts, cowards, criminals, lusters, weaklings, whores, cheaters, hypocrites.  That we’re wicked, evil, fearful, worthless. And on and on and on.  It is incredibly difficult to shake those words and labels off, instead we become chained to them.  

But even worse than what the world yells at us, is what we whisper to ourselves.  The world is quick to judge, but we can be downright cruel in how we identify ourselves.  We each know intimately the things we regret, the wrong we’ve done, and all the sins we’ve committed.  Most of all, we know the sin we continue to struggle with.  Those things we confront but can’t beat. I bet that at one time or another we have all identified with the saint’s words in Romans, “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” With that sin and knowledge, we can be so ruthless to ourselves.  “What’s wrong with me!  I should be better than that! I’m a failure! An idiot.”  It’s so easy for us to dwell on it.  Letting that guilt and shame fester and grow.  So it just wears on us, dragging us down.  We can begin believing that those things we hate most about ourselves are the very things that make us who we are. That they control us.  Which is allowing those things to enslave us.  To take our lives captive.  And that is exactly what Jesus means in verse 34 when he says “Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” 

Then this bitterness begins sapping our strength and energy, making us more prone to stumble, to fall, and to give in to sin again.  Reinforcing those self-defeating things we tell ourselves.  And we can spiral and spiral, being tougher and tougher on ourselves, coming to believe that we are our shame.  

But that is not the Truth. 

The Truth comes to us in Love.  And it says, “You are not your failures.  Your mistakes do not make you who you are.  Your sins do not define you.  I know because I created you.  You were fearfully and wonderfully made.  I breathed life into you, so that you could find peace and joy in My Love for you.  I delight in you.” 

Jesus, the Truth tells us, “ I know you’ve made mistakes.  I’ve seen your sin and how it has separated us.  But my Love is bigger than your sin.  My embrace is stronger than your attempts to turn from Me.  And I want to bring you back to Me, so much so that I came and gave my life so that we could be reconciled.  Because of that you are not a failure.  You are not a sinner.  You are God’s beloved child, righteous and without blemish.”  

This is our true Identity, and it is the identity that gives us the freedom to authentically be who we are, because it shatters sin’s lies about us.  

We no longer have to accept the world’s valuation of us.  We don’t have to listen to that voice in the back of our heads that criticizes and condemns.  Because the God of the Universe has loved and forgiven us, so we are given the freedom to love and forgive ourselves as well.  So don’t hold onto the sin that Jesus freed you from any longer.  God has let it go in His view of us, so we should let it go as well.  Die to the sin so you can live to God.  We are to be filled with that overflowing love and forgiveness of God.  As that wells up within us, we can pour it onto our neighbors.  Restoring the relationships with our brothers and sisters, growing into real community with them as we also grow nearer to God, creating this deepening communion between ourselves, others and God.  

With the empowerment that comes only from communion like that, and the strength of God within us, we are encouraged and empowered to fight back, overcoming ourselves and our sin.  This is repentance, and we are called to live it.  It’s a not a word we like hearing.  But each of us needs to understand that repentance is not a barrier, but an invitation.  Those sins that are enslaving us, lying about who we are, and keeping us from living life to the full, we have to face them to be free of them.  But we don’t have to face them alone.  The God of the universe is facing them with us.  Paul says in Romans 8:9, “the Spirit of God dwells in you.”  Or as he says in Philippians 2:13, “For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you to will and work for His good pleasure.”  Paul is just carrying on the proclamation of Jesus, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!”  And brothers and sisters, the weight of that entire kingdom is behind us in our repentance.

Now of course, repenting is still a struggle and a process that we must continue throughout our life.  But that’s okay. Because of God’s Love for us we can know we aren’t perfect, and instead find peace in the fact that we are works in progress.  Because we can trust that no matter our stumbles and the times we stray, God is faithful to be with us every step of the way.  Or as Paul says about life in Philippians 3:12, “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”  

And because of the Grace of God expressed in the Gospel, we can press on to live better. Not in timidity or selfishness, trying to earn our way into heaven or to avoid punishment, in other words, only doing good for self-serving reasons; but in boldness knowing that it is the way to live authentically and out loud.  Because Christ came and freed us from our sins so that we can, in his words “have life and have it abundantly.”  

But we don’t just have a newfound freedom of identity and freedom to live.  We also have the audacious freedom to rejoice.   Jesus has given us an unthinkable gift, at the cost of his own life.  It is not just freedom from our sin and the chance to find strength and peace in fighting it, but now we get to be reconciled to God through Him.  We are connected to the God of all Love, Goodness, and Peace, the God of Life, and if it is God who draws us to Himself nothing can separate us from that.  As Paul says in Romans 8:37-39, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The incomprehensible God loves you incomprehensibly.  The only response to this is unthinkable gratitude, which leads to immeasurable Joy.  So now that the gospel has set us free, we can live with that joy firmly planted in our hearts as we take on the world, with all its challenges and pains, assured in the confidence that because of God’s Grace and Christ’s sacrifice we have already won.  

Peace

It is today that Christians get to celebrate the ultimate injustice: Grace. 

As Jesus was being lead to his crucifixion, we are told that the Roman soldiers made a man carry Jesus’ cross.  Now we can’t be sure if Simon was a follower of Jesus or not, but I think that we can be confident that the Roman soldiers didn’t care.  They “compelled” him, or “seized” and forced him to do it, without any regard for his personal beliefs.  This is exactly what we should expect from some of the most brutal men portrayed in the New Testament, the same men who mocked, beat, and executed Jesus. 

So my question is why are we Christians doing just what these soldiers did in forcing others to bear Jesus’ cross? 

As a Christian, I see bearing my cross as an awe-inspiring responsibility as well as a precious honor.  But it is one that is only to be taken up freely, aided by the empowerment that comes from God.  It is not something that we should compel and force others to pick up. 

There’s a story in the Gospel of Luke,* where Jesus and his disciples cross the Sea of Galilee and go to the town of Gerasene.  When they arrive they meet a demoniac who had been long afflicted to the point of running around the tombs naked.  This man was well known in the town for his crazy and terrifying behavior.  But anyway, Jesus cures this man, and the whole town hears about it.  They come out to find the man they knew to be wild clothed and sitting calmly and Jesus’ feet.  

Seeing the formerly possessed man like that was a challenge to what they thought they knew and their entire worldview.  This made them uncomfortable and even “seized them with a great fear” according to the author.  Not able to cope with this assault on their understanding and wanting to go back to the status quo, the people ask Jesus to leave.  

This pisses Jesus off.  So he begins screaming at them.  He yells about how wicked and sinful the Gerasenes are, and about how they will burn in hell for rejecting him and not repenting.  And he rants, and he rants,  and he rants. 

Actually, I’m totally kidding.  Instead he just leaves.  

Yup, he gets in his boat and goes away.  Probably recognizing that if they didn’t accept Him at first, after what He had shown them, anything else he tried to do would only make them push him away further. Staying would only turn their discomfort and fear into anger and hate, strengthening their rejection.  So he peaceably leaves them.  

But Jesus doesn’t completely abandon the Gerasenes.  He commissions the former wild man to stay and to testify on his account.  This is something that we Christians can do as well.  Because if we approach someone in humility and grace, being respectful especially if they don’t want to hear what we have to say, and leaving them alone if they ask, then hopefully we can heal the twisted view of all Christians being pushy, judgmental hypocrites.  And maybe that will go on to testify on our behalf. 

*Luke 8:26-39

As I came to be a Christian which was where philosophy seemed to be pointing me a couple years ago, one thing I needed to wrestle with was the account of the first sin in Genesis.  I didn’t have difficulty with the forbidden tree being in the garden at all, because it seems reasonable that for man to have free will we must also have the choice to choose and act wrong.  So that seemed to make sense within the myth and what the authors were trying to say.   What I really struggled with was the idea that the first sin of man came from him seeking the knowledge of good and evil.  This seemed neither just nor in character for God, who graciously gave us minds, curiosity, and passion for knowledge. 

What ultimately resolved this conflict in my mind was the recognition that God was with Adam and Eve in the garden and they had a relationship with each other to the point that the would talk with one another.  So, Adam and Eve had a direct connection with the Ultimate source of all Knowledge about Good and evil.  All they had to do was simply ask.  And they should have asked because any knowledge that tree could have offered is insignificant in Light of God.  This means that the act of trying to gain that wisdom through the fruit and not God is a lie and a blatant rejection of of the Truth.  Which is why eating from the tree leads to death, the very act is man’s attempt to separate himself from the reality of existence.  Even Eve’s justification for taking her first bite was because it was “a delight to the eyes,” meaning she is judging by appearance not actuality.  

So in fact, man is not punished for trying to gain knowledge, but for doing it poorly and trying to make the Truth what we want it to be.  

Looking at Genesis three this way actually shows that it is a remarkably insightful allegory for all sin.  First, we are deceived into doing something that we know is wrong.  Then, in order to convince ourselves that it really isn’t wrong, we have to rationalize doing it with perverted reasoning.  But, once we’ve committed the sin we recognize it for what it truly is.  So we become ashamed and try to hide, to the point of desperately trying to pass the blame on someone else.  

One aspect of the creation myth in the opening of Genesis that is too rarely mentioned is that Genesis opens with creation myths.  These two accounts, the first starting Genesis 1:1 and the second starting Genesis 2:4b, have very different focuses and actually differ greatly in their ordering of creation events.  This inclusion of alternate stories seems to disavow a straight literal reading, as well as emphasizing that there is so much more going on in these verses than a mere causal account of how things came to be.  Reading Genesis one and two with this in mind reveals some incredible insights that are readily compatible with the scientific and evolutionary explanations of our origins.  

To begin, the basic story-arcs of science and the first creation myth follow the same basic structure.  They start with the inconceivable beginning of the cosmos as we know it and then slowly focuses in on earth and eventually to mankind.  The second account in Genesis points out that the earth as we know it today, with its bodies of water, plants, and animals, was not originally formed that way.  Instead all that came to be through a process.  

After God creates animals and man, he gives them the command to “Be fruitful and multiply” so that they will fill the earth.  This leads to the amazing understanding that all creatures are co-creators with God in creation.  This is directly inline with the biological insight that animals are participants in their own evolution, and that the way we all live, breed, and die impacts the future of ours and other species.  

Probably most profound is the understanding of man that both evolution and Genesis force us to.  In Genesis one, humankind does not come on the scene until very late in the creation narrative, just like science tells us.  Genesis two differs in this account as man was made first, then animals, and finally woman.  But this account also states that man was formed from the “dust of the ground,” and that animals were made from the ground.  Stating that both humans and animals come from the very same source.  So just like scientific cosmology and evolutionary biology Genesis shatters our preconception that man holds some sort of primary position in the universe because of some innate magnificence that we have earned.  Nope, we share the same origin with all the species, and the qualities that do set us apart, we could not have not done anything to deserve them, only received them from the process that created us.  This fact serves to better display God’s absurd Grace, by showing that our privileged positions and gifts in no way stem from us, but from what God has done for us.  

It’s an issue that is deeply embedded in our nation and one that we must continually return to in order to protect the health of our nation and the harmony between us.  

The way this issue is normally framed is as the relationship between two institutions that should have a wall of separation between them.  This is how it is discussed in the establishment clause of the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. 

This view, while incredibly important, is not enough on its own.  Only view the state and churches as institutions is a limitation in understanding each.  Primarily, the state is the citizens and the churches are the believers.  So as long as there are people of faith, the state will have churches in it; and as long as the nation survives, churches will have the state in them.  Complete severance between church and state is impossible because we the people are both.  

So, where we should look for the separation between church and state is in the guiding ethic of each.  It is the role and responsibility of the government to maintain a functioning environment for the state.  And while this is best accomplished through justice for all, I think that it is best to think of government amorally and pragmatically.  Because the government uses force to guide public behavior, so any attempt to legislate morality is necessarily coercive.  On the other hand, it is the role and responsibility of churches to encourage and guide the believers to live morally, complementing the limits we place on government to defend our freedoms and rights.  

With this understanding of separation, there still is a very valuable interplay between church and state.  The stay should try to foster an environment for the churches to thrive, but also to have open and respectful dialogue between churches promoting the understanding, health, and peace within the state.  This type of discussion can then serve as a check on the state, its laws, programs, and actions, serving to protect the liberties this country was founded on.  

*Note: In order to stay consistent with the language of the First Amendment I mean the term church to apply to any religion, belief structure, or overarching worldview that people hold.  But I want to be absolutely clear that I include in that meaning atheism, agnosticism, and any non-religious traditions as I am sure that the constitution should respect and protect these just as it would any other faiths.  

God loves all of us: Its the truth at the heart of Christianity.  But to think that God loves humanity as a collective unit, while right, is misleading.  The deeper truth is that God loves all of us because He loves each of us, and that the reason he loves the collective whole is because he intimately loves every individual who comprises it.  

This type of love is demonstrated in Christ’s command to his followers.  We are not called to love all of humanity, or to love everyone.  No, we are called to love our neighbor.  Loving humanity takes a general good will and the avoidance of hate.  But loving your neighbor demands relationship.  You must go to that person, see them for who they are, and share life with them.  Relationships by their very nature are active and engaging, they reject passivity.  Relating to someone means you meet them where they are at, embracing who they are, their passions, gifts blessings, concerns, faults, sins, fears, hopes, and dreams; taking all of that and loving them as you love yourself.  Caring for them when they are hurting, and rejoicing with them when they aren’t.  This is what God calls us to do, because it is exactly what God is doing for us.  

Our capacity to love comes from God’s infinite love for us overflowing from our hearts for others.  So, the only way to truly love is to embody the way God loves.  Which is to love the individual for who they are, as they are.  In that way, love is radically rooted in the present.  We cannot claim to love someone for who they were because that person is gone; nor can we love someone for who they might be because that person doesn’t exist.  We can only love someone for who they are, someone who was fearfully and wonderfully made for God to be delighted in.  This type of love is empowering, it is transformational.  It does not seek to change the beloved to the desires of the lover, instead it frees the beloved to become more fully the individual they are meant to be.