Generous Hands

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

October 11, 2009

Text: Luke 10: 25-37 and Micah 6:6-8

Loving God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength is the greatest commandment because I can never deliver the right kind of love long enough to myself or to my neighbor unless I am devoted to God.

I can generously love my neighbor for a while, but I can’t love my neighbor long unless I generously love God. Some neighbors are just too hard for me to love on my own. Wanting to do what God wants me to do, I will keep on loving my neighbor.

I can love myself for a while, but I can’t love myself long unless I generously love God. It is too hard to love myself on my own. Wanting to do what God wants me to do, I will keep on loving myself.

To love someone is to be on their side, to be for them, for their well-being, for their salvation. It may mean empathy for them----our hearts may go out to them. But it most surely means more than feelings. Love requires doing, which may include words.

We get moved to be generous with ourselves and our resources because we love our neighbors when they are in need, especially when they are suffering. (Which includes most people most of the time, when you think about it!)

A Tsunami hits, a hurricane comes ashore, we happen upon someone in a ditch, and we do what we can to make a difference for the better. We take up collections, we send work teams.

We discover that AIDS patients are often alone without a supportive network of friends and we form up an organized method of providing them with helpers.

We learn that children need tutors and we volunteer to be there to help them each week. You bring food each week to take to the food pantry.

A friend’s husband dies and you take food to them; another neighbor goes through a divorce and you become a caring listener.

These are works of mercy, after the example of the Samaritan long ago, who stopped and rendered aid to the half-dead stranger in the ditch. We pour on the healing oils and wine and we open our pocketbooks to take care of people as they get back on their feet.

The Samaritan did not know the man who was in the ditch by the road. It could have been a trick, to lure him into the area and mug him, too. The man could have been dead, and even Samaritans were not supposed to touch the dead.

And let’s not be too hard on the Levite and the priest: they had their reasons, too, for not stopping to help.

But the Samaritan, from the same territory that had not welcomed Jesus and his disciples, did the loving action.

And sooner or later, if we do these kinds of works of mercy, we ask if there is anything that can be done to protect people from getting into these situations.

Why is it that children from poorer neighborhoods score so much lower on standardized tests? What can be done to improve this situation?

Why is there so much more crime in some neighborhoods than others?

If we found that children were coming out of caves all malnourished and abused, we could set up an aid station to care for their wounds. But sooner or later we would go into the caves to find out why they are so wounded and how the wounding can be stopped.

And so our love for neighbor turns to works of justice. We give of ourselves and our resources for the sake of reforming the structures of our society. And in the tradition of the prophets and Jesus, we keep an eye out for the most vulnerable, the most dejected and rejected members of society and advocate for their well-being. (Take a look at Psalm 72 to see one example of the biblical standard  for leadership in the political world.)

In our weekday lives, where we work, or live, or rub shoulders with others, we represent the generous love of neighbor.

Love of neighbor will involve us in public life. I have served churches in which Republicans and Democrats kneel at the same altar rail as friends and then, still as friends, go forth to serve justice in differing ways. And both have in mind the common good of people, the survival of communities, the opening of doors of opportunity. We are not well-served when politics becomes a blood sport. Christians should know better, should know how to walk humbly while seeking justice and peace.

Whether it is health care, job creation, better education, better law enforcement, safer neighborhoods----we work for justice because we love our neighbors as God commanded us to do.

We work to protect ourselves and our neighbors near and far from the threat of the use of weapons of mass destructions because we love our neighbors and seek they well-being.

Now, preacher, what has all this to do with being generous toward the church?

Consider these:

In church, we keep on reading and pondering and being convicted by the passage from Micah: do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. And we ask over and over again what the story of the Samaritan means for us now. Who is the neighbor in this time and place, and what does love require? Some draw a tight circle! How big or small is the neighborhood?

We come here to learn of the love of a God who rains on the just and unjust and tells us to love our enemies (who may be our neighbors).Our gods are just so small; we need to hear of the Most High God so that our love will be expanded to include all of the people of the whole earth who God also loves.

We exist as a church which serves the purpose of increasing on the earth the love of God and neighbor. Whether we are 3 or 93, we get called to be agents of reconciliation in a world of hostility.

As a connectional church, when there is great calamity, we are ready and able to go sooner and stay longer to bring help to suffering people. We are now embarked on the mission, in cooperation with other people of good will, to eradicate malaria and educate peoples of all nations in how to treat and prevent this killer disease.

In our own local church, we will have spent and/or given about $240,000 for local and national and world-wide outreach for others, about 10% of our budget. (This figure has been higher in past years but we had to trim our sails going forward into 2009.) This includes apportionments (less pensions for clergy) and local mission efforts.

You may say, “But many others do works of mercy and justice, too?” Yes, thank God. God is not restricted to our efforts! We join hands to do works of mercy and justice with people we disagree with. And we can respect their convictions while accomplishing good things together----and not apologizing for who we are and what we believe.

Give generously of yourself and your resources because you love the neighbor, and you want to be neighborly in the same way the Samaritan was; you want to do what God requires of you, to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly.

And you want the church to prepare people to be salty Christians, leavening agents in the world where there is so much unhappiness, so much suffering, so much at stake.

You may say, “We don’t do enough for others! We do too much just for ourselves.” Yes, we have a long way to go. Come and make it better.

Another way to see the Samaritan story: You and I are in the ditch, half-dead, having been robbed and beaten. And the Samaritan is the Christ who comes and saves us, pouring on oils, transporting us to helpers, providing for our care as we recover.

And having been cared for in just this way, we can no longer ride or walk by, ignoring others who need our help, even if they are strangers. We can no longer parcel out our loving actions by the teaspoon full. We will go beyond what the law requires. We will love others as Christ has loved us.

Bernard of Clarvaux, a 13th century priest, wrote that there are four stages of Christian maturity:

First there is the love of self for self’s sake.

Then there is the love of God for the self’s sake. We love God as a means to an end: Give me, help me, protect me.

Third, we love God for God’s sake. We are lost in wonder, love and praise. This we may assume is the highest.

But Bernard says no. The most mature response is the love of the self for God’s sake. Such love for our dear, poor vulnerable self calls for a reconciliation within of the most profound kind. We are enabled to say, “My life, what I am, is a good gift from God.”

And I would add only this: if we can come to love ourselves rightly, not selfishly but generously, ours hearts will be turned toward the neighbor.