Musings after church........
Unless I’m reading one of the lessons on a given Sunday, I typically do not look at the lessons to be read on purpose. The problem for anyone who teaches is that if you talk about texts that you are likely to hear read either from the OT or NT 3-4 times each year, I can become wedding to my own reading of the text and then impose the need for the preacher of day to tell me what I already think! That is not a good thing, so I avoid that!
I already knew that today’s gospel was the parable of the Good Samaritan, but I didn’t know what the OT text might be. I am always delighted when there is a reading from Amos. I know what you are thinking: “This guy really likes some dark and harsh scripture!” Depending on which OT track a church is following in the Revised Common Lectionary, you may have heard Amos 7:7-17 today. God is going to judge Israel with the plumb line—implicit is the measure against Torah. Amaziah objects telling the king and then speaks against Amos who tells Amaziah that his wife will become a prostitute, his children will be killed, and Amaziah will die in an “unclean land.” Talk about a judgment! There is much to say about prophetic language/literature and gender, but I’ll pass over that!
Then comes the gospel parable of the Good Samaritan, and we get another look at someone who thinks he has the heart of Torah well done, until he asks a question about “the neighbor”! You would think that if 6 of those 10 commandments are about “the neighbor,” they would have sunk in at some point. Hey, I know it’s a story, but it is actually so typical of the way many people—then and now—understand the practice of religion. Do you know how many books have been written on the parables? Personally, I swear by the work of Brandon Scott, William R. Herzog, and Amy-Jill Levine. What a subversive story Jesus tells. The zealous Torah keepers pass by the injured man, and the one who is not even really acceptable to many people hearing the story is the one who does Torah!
I heard a really good sermon by the Rev. Dr. Andy Macbeth, who is filling in for our rector who is on sabbatical this summer at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Memphis. I will not summarize his very fine points, but to note his conclusion. He noted that it is better on Sundays to come to church and hear hard lessons because we do need them than to sit at home and watch television that does not ask us to confront the deeper realities, especially when they are hard realities, even the realities of events this week in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas.
My mind wandered, and I thought of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s comment that in going to Temple and hearing Torah that one should leave angry and upset because of injustice in the world. The desire for “feel good” is a reality in American religion. Unfortunately, that is not reading Torah or doing Torah. Reading Torah and doing Torah demand that we follow the lead of both Amos and Jesus. Amos in his collected oracles confronts 8th century Israel for its offenses against its own people, particularly those outside the circuits of power. We call those folks the AM HA’ARETZ, “the people of the earth.” We saw those people killed this week while selling CDs or while driving a car with a broken taillight, or wearing blue uniforms assisting people in their lawful rights of protest and shielding them all the while.
I left church today, and I am angry. I heard the plumb line, and I know we have been found wanting. Yes, I believe in grace and mercy; it must not be cheap and dispensed like candy. God created humans in God’s image; that says a great deal. At the least, it says human beings are valuable to God, and for all people, it means seeing God in the other, whether we are talking gender or race. Amos warned people to return to the values of Torah that they understood and knew, and Jesus emphasized that Torah meant doing, even when it cuts against our fears, prejudices, and divisions.
Yes, I left angry because I know I can do better. I left angry because I know the entire world can do better. Just for the record, these virtues are enshrined in every world religion. They are part of what it means to be human and in community.
Dr. Daniel Pigg, an Episcopal layman, serves as Professor of English at University of Tennessee at Martin, Tenn. This article is republished with the author's permission from a Facebook post.