The Hole in Our Gospel Part 5

In Week 5 of our series on The Hole in Our Gospel we were privileged to have Steve Haas, vice president of World Vision speak to us at church.

The key question he asked was  “Who is my neighbor?”  He based his
answer on the well-known story of The Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37.

To recap the story briefly, an “expert in the law” asks Jesus one day while He is teaching “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus asks the man to recite the law that they both know so well. The man
says “Love the Lord your God… and, Love your neighbor as yourself.”  He then asks Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus goes on to tell the story of a man traveling on a dangerous road who is robbed, beaten, stripped and left for dead. One by one, three different travelers come upon the man.

The first two, a Priest and a Levite, both see the man and choose to cross the road and ignore him. Haas pointed out that if they stopped to help him, they would have become ceremonially unclean, according to Old Testament Law. This meant they would have to go through an entire purification process before they could serve in the temple.  Basically, it meant it would slow them down and inconvenience them.

The third man, a Samaritan, whose race was much despised by those listening to Jesus’ story, stops and helps the man. He even goes to the extent of taking him to an inn, staying overnight to take care of him and then leaving additional money with the innkeeper the next day to continue caring for him after he leaves.

As Jesus finishes telling the story, the expert in the law admits that “the one who had mercy” on the man is the one who represents a true “neighbor.”  Jesus simply responds, “Go and do likewise.”

The strongest point made from the sermon was that we often feel discomfort or awkwardness when we see people in need.  Stopping to help someone means that we will have to deviate from our plans, which could cost us time and money.

A video clip of Lynne Hybels shown during the sermon helped negotiate handling this tension.  She suggests simply praying and asking:  “God, what is mine to do?”  Our job is to wait for Him to show us and then to act.  While it’s true that we can’t do it all, we can all do something.

Rich Stearns reveals some staggering statistics in his book about what American Christians could do if we all started taking the gospel seriously.

He points out that we make up about 5 percent of the Church worldwide, but that we control half of global Christian wealth. If all Christians in the U.S. tithed 10 percent instead of the 2.5 percent that more accurately portrays our giving, we would have $168 billion to spend in the work of the Church worldwide.  This could make a serious dent in some of the world’s biggest needs.

Stearns ponders how the rest of the world might view Christians in the U.S. differently if we really took the Bible seriously and loved our neighbors as ourselves. He says, “The world would see the whole gospel – the good news of the kingdom of God- not just spoken, but demonstrated, by people whose faith is not devoid of deeds but defined by loved and backed up with action.”

Stearns also points out that the perception of Christians has changed dramatically over time. Data he shares in the book reveals that “we have become defined by those things we are against rather than those we are for.”

So how do we show what we’re for instead of just what we’re against?  How do we avoid being like the priest and the Levite who couldn’t be bothered with the mess and inconvenience of slowing down and helping someone in need?

Haas’ advice was that we need to pray and ask God to show us who we might be “bypassing” along the way.

Ironically, the first example that comes to mind is about two people right in my own neighborhood.

When we first moved in, an elderly woman named Jane lived alone across the street.  She was spunky and quick witted and would often walk over to say hello when we were doing yard work.

As her health started to fail, her daughter moved in to help care for her. Neither Jane nor her daughter drove and as the years went by they left the house less and less. They both put on a gruff exterior but loved when we would bring our boys for a visit and often had a candy dish filled and awaiting them.

A little over four years ago on a Sunday afternoon in June, Jane fell and was taken to the hospital. A few weeks later, her daughter told us she was transferred to a nursing home. I told her daughter I would visit Jane and truly meant it but had difficulty making the time.

Honestly, I struggled with the idea of going to a nursing home and felt squeamish at the thought. It brought back some fresh and painful memories that I wasn’t anxious to re-live so soon.

Besides that, it was a busy summer for me, especially because I was in charge of Vacation Bible School at church. Almost every time I pulled in our driveway after a long day of organizing details at church, I would think “I’ve got to walk across the street to check in on Jane’s daughter and see how both of them are doing.” 
Somehow, I always had a good reason for why it wasn’t a good time to go. 

One evening towards the end of summer I was outside when I saw another neighbor walking down the driveway from Jane’s house.  I called out and asked if everything was OK and was shocked when she told me:  “Jane died a month ago in the nursing home. We’re just helping her daughter sort through some of the paperwork.”   

I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. Guilt, remorse and sadness overwhelmed me. How could I have been so callous? How could I have missed it?

I had let the busyness of life carry me away and had justified it because I was serving at church. 

Rather than wallowing in my own pit of self-loathing, I faced my shame later that week and took the time to reach out to Jane’s daughter. There had been no funeral or memorial service of any kind, so there had not been an opportunity to remember Jane publicly.

I decided to celebrate her life in the best way I knew how.  So, I sat down and wrote all of the things I could remember about her that made me smile. We had been neighbors for 11 years and she had watched us move into the house as a young couple and raise our boys until she died when they were 5 and 8.  

After writing the card, I cut some roses from our yard and put them in a simple jar, knowing Jane would have liked them best that way. Sheepishly I made my way across the street and knocked at the door.

Jane’s daughter was a little surprised to see me. I hadn’t been to visit in several months.  She was a cold and distant at first until I offered an apology and my condolences.  It was not an easy situation to face. 

Later that day, Jane’s daughter saw us working out in the yard and came over to thank me for the card. Not one for showing emotions, she said irritably:  “You made me cry! Thank you for remembering my old, grouchy mother so well.”

So, why am I sharing a moment that makes me cringe?  I guess it’s because I know we all have them. We’ve all been that Levite who sees someone in need and decides to cross to the other side of the street and pretend we don’t see. We’ve all justified our lack of effort with an excuse of being “too busy.” We’ve all struggled with putting the full 10 percent tithe in the collection plate when we think of all the other ways that money could be spent.

The point is we don’t have to stay that way. We can ask God to humble us and to change us from the inside out.

God is a God of second chances.  He always gives us another opportunity to redeem a missed chance by giving us another.  We love Him well by considering all the people He loves as our neighbors from the elderly shut-in across the street to the African child with AIDS on the other side of the globe. It’s never too late to change, to ask God to open our eyes anew and to start fresh again.