This week, I received an email from the Lancaster County Food Hub, which seemed like it fit in with our story.

The email included an account by a person named Ashley. That’s not her actual name, but that’s the name they gave her in the email.

Ashley is a 38 year-old woman who seemed to have it all. A successful career, a stylish wardrobe, and a luxury car. She appeared confident and thriving. But after losing her job through a company layoff, her world unraveled. Ashley’s unemployment benefits barely covered the cost of her rent. Finally, she faced the harsh reality of her dwindling resources.

Each day, she worried about how she was going to make it. and had growing anxiety about her future. Ashamed and overwhelmed, Ashley found herself trapped in silence, too embarrassed to ask for help. She felt like a failure for needing assistance, a far cry from the confident woman she used to be.

So, in a moment of desperation, Ashley walked into the Food Hub. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, but she felt out of place and vulnerable in her time of need. She said, “I never would have thought that I needed help like this. Thank you for helping me.” This is what she told one of the client volunteers, her voice breaking with a mix of relief and sorrow.

As I focused on our scripture for today (Luke 10:25-37), what I realized is that many of us could be that one in need of help.

I was just part of a survey taken in our area around housing and the amount of people who are afraid that they are going to lose their housing. Losing housing right now is a terrible thing because there aren’t many available.

So you might think of Ashley and you might think, well, she could just give up that car. But, that’s her only means of transportation. She may not live on a bus line which will really limit her options. Giving up her apartment might be a wise financial choice. But can she find something that’s cheaper? That’s difficult in our community right now and I want to own that because many of us are proud people and we don’t like to let others know when we have problems, when we have issues that we need to talk through.

“Lean on Me” by Bill Withers was a perfect song for this week, because we don’t tend to share our problems. We try to keep them covered. I’m not suggesting that you stand up and broadcast to the entire congregation, but you might just find another person who’s willing to listen.

I want to specifically lift up right now our Compassion Team, because our Compassion Team has agreed to just listen to who you are and what you are going through. They’re not there to have answers or to fix anything, but they are there to listen. We do have some resources that we can direct you to as well. So, think about that. Think about if that’s something that would be helpful to you.

The thing about the person on the side of the road in the scripture that we read, it’s interesting that Luke makes the point of telling us that they were naked.

When you have a detail like that, you have to stop and say, what is the point? What is he trying to say by telling us that he is naked? They’re telling us that that person had no identity. Their identity was gone. So they are a nobody or they could be anybody. I think when we hear this scripture, we prefer to see ourselves as either the scholar asking the questions of Jesus or the Samaritan, because we would be the one who would do the right thing.

That’s what we want to believe. But Jesus’ initial audience would not have chosen to be the Samaritan. The Samaritan was the despised. They were seen as morally wrong, abhorrent, out of favor with God. Nobody wanted to be a Samaritan. Nobody wanted to associate with a Samaritan. How did they get to be the one who did it?

Jesus is making a strong point that we tend to judge people by what we see on the outside. Just like we may have judged Ashley based on how Ashley presents. We have to be very careful when people come to the church asking for help because it’s easy to look out and see what kind of car they drive and what kind of clothes they wear and we can be completely misreading them. It’s about listening to who they are, hearing their story. That’s how we connect.

It’s not about judging people, although I find it very interesting because the story almost sets us up to judge the priest and the Levite. When we read that they crossed over and walked on the other side of the road, we want to say, how could they? We wouldn’t do such a thing. We wouldn’t turn our back on someone in need. But we have to stop and wonder, why did they do that? The story does not tell us. The traditional answer has been they would have gotten blood on them and then they would have been unclean and they would have had to go through the whole process of cleansing themselves in order for them to do their jobs.

What if the reason was that that scene was too common?

One more body on the side of the road. This isn’t today, there weren’t ambulances running up and down. What if that scene was just too common? Like a person standing on a corner asking for money. How often do we look the other way?

In true Jesus fashion in this parable, he really doesn’t answer the question, does he? Who is my neighbor?

The scholar wants a clear answer. Just tell me who I’m supposed to like. You tell me who I’m supposed to like and I’ll follow that. But please make somebody that looks like me, talks like me, thinks like me. Has the same lifestyle I do. Don’t push me out of my comfort zone. Don’t make it a person from a different country, a different culture, a different gender, a different orientation. Don’t push me out of my comfort zone, God.

Can we open ourselves up to be pushed a little by God to stretch our thinking a little?

This week I received a text from a person who’s watching online, they are unchurched would be the word for them. They do not have any church affiliation and the person texted me and said in your sermon last week, you said that if we judge people, we cannot love them. I said, I don’t know if I used those words, but that was the message I was trying to get across because our judgments get in the way of our ability to love.

They said, I’m looking for a place that I can worship where my son can come with me and I’m afraid of people judging us and she sent me a picture. I had not seen her son in many, many years, but he has tattoo sleeves and he has piercings and he has gauges in his ears. She wanted to know if he would be welcome here.

I told her, I think that there is a large group here that would accept him. But I don’t know if everybody’s on that. But I would hope that if someone comes in here that is not just like us, that we would offer them grace and mercy, be kind and respectful. It’s our job to be listeners.

I want to give us an example of how people and how judgments affect how we act.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a child if I was given a glass of milk and if I had spilled that milk, I would have been labeled a milk spiller. I never would have been given a full glass of milk again because I’m a milk spiller. If you’re a milk spiller, then we’re not going to give you all that milk to just go spill it that we have to clean up. That label of a milk spiller stays with you.

I’m going to say that it stays with you, so when I pour milk for my children and now my grandchildren, nobody’s getting a full glass of milk because they might end up being milk spillers too and I don’t want to create milk spillers. So nobody gets a full glass of milk.

But, what’s the value of some spilled milk? A couple cents? Not even a buck. The whole half gallon costs $2.35.

Let’s not be those who judge people and who label people, but who accept people as they are and look for those opportunities.

It probably won’t be someone laying on the side of the road naked and bloody, but it could be someone that you’re standing in line with. It could be your next door neighbor who just needs someone to listen to what’s going on in their lives because our lives fall apart.

Life is full of joy and sorrow. So we can come together and support one another. We can lean on each other. Because that’s what builds the beloved community.

That’s who we are called to be. We are called to be the beloved community to one another and to every person that walks in the door. May it be so

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As I was thinking about our theme that love accepts, I thought about 1 Corinthians 13.

So, I started reading that in different versions of the Bible. The one I particularly liked, the version out of the Amplified Bible, I’d like to talk about it. 1 Corinthians 13 is often a scripture that we read at weddings because it defines love.

But you know, it was written for the church in Corinth, that couldn’t get along. It was written for a church that picked fights with itself and blamed each other for issues. Paul wrote this to remind them of who they were meant to be.

Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening]. 

– 1 Corinthians 13 (Amplified Bible)

What I liked about the amplified version is what it put in the parentheses, or brackets, it added text in brackets. I think that’s powerful. I think this leads us to important questions.

What happens if we accept all things as they are rather than judging them for what they are not?

Accepting all things doesn’t mean approving all things. You can accept, but is doesn’t mean you need to like it. It doesn’t mean you need to approve or condone it, but you can accept it and let it be what it is. Respect what it is, even if you don’t understand it. It does mean giving ourselves and others grace and accepting our own limitations because we may need to accept what is true about us.

Today’s scripture from Luke could be called a tale of two sisters.

First we have Martha. It just tells us that they’re sisters, but everybody has a perception that Martha is older. It’s very interesting. It sort of makes sense based on how the story plays out. Older sisters or firstborn have a tendency to be rule followers. They have a tendency to be very dutiful. They’re people pleasers. They understand the cultural expectations on them. Martha being a female in this culture understood that when 13 people show up at her house, without invitation, then she needs to provide hospitality.

Hospitality looks like having some kind of food and beverages, so somebody needs making start making pitas and somebody better grind up some hummus because we got 13 extra people at the table. That, I think, was Martha’s mindset.

Then there’s Mary. Mary is generally perceived as being younger, something about younger children or the baby of the family, they tend to be more playful. They tend to be a little bit more self involved or self interested. They’re going to make sure their needs are met. It’s not always true, I’m talking in generalizations, but the baby tends to behave differently in a situation.

So, here are these two sisters. Martha goes to work in the kitchen. She’s about feeding everybody. Mary sits down in the living room and decides to listen. Actually, what happens in this is perfect example of triangulation. Martha is mad at Mary, but instead of talking to Mary, she talks to Jesus.

But in this version by Vermeer, what I love is you can’t tell the differences in age. Vermeer has Jesus look at Martha and gesture to Mary as if he is trying to connect them. He hears Martha, but he acknowledges Mary. Like there’s not, there’s not a, a right and wrong. Somebody needs to make dinner, but somebody needs to listen to what Jesus has to say.

Both roles are important. There’s not a good versus bad. There’s not a victim perpetrator. They’re both appropriate. Jesus kind of tries to smooth that through. That’s what Vermeer is trying to show.

I also really like this picture because that is not what I think we expect Jesus to look like. First of all, he looks very Jewish, but he doesn’t look like a savior. He doesn’t look like the superstar. This isn’t a Jesus that you’re going to say, Oh, wow. I want to see that guy. I think that just challenges us a little bit about Jesus.

But I thought about this story in the larger context of Luke, and I thought it’d be very interesting, and I think it’s a good short study for us to compare this story with the parable of the Good Samaritan because this comes immediately after the parable.

When writers put things like that together, it’s good to step back and say, are we supposed to learn something from this? Is there a deeper meaning in the fact that these are put together?

I’m not going to read the Good Samaritan story to us, but think back to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Does anybody remember what the problem was? What was the issue that needed to be addressed in the Good Samaritan? There was an injured man laying by the side of the road who needed help. What do the Levite and the priest do? Does anybody remember what they do? They walk away. They choose not to engage. Their attention is somewhere else. They say they crossed to the other side of the road and kept going.

It sounds like they saw it. There’s good reasons for a priest not to touch an injured body, especially if there’s blood obvious, because if he touches blood, then he is unclean. It’s like having COVID for a week, he has to seclude himself and do all of this ritual cleansing thing till he can go back to work. So it’s easier if he doesn’t get involved.

What does the Samaritan do? He takes him to a hotel. He takes care of the mans wounds and pays someone to continue to care for him for two days. He gives him two days wages to take care of them and says, if it costs you more than that, I’ll even pay that. So he provides all the care.

Now let’s go back to today’s story.

Where was Martha’s attention? Martha’s attention was in the kitchen. There was stuff to be done. I do know what I would do if 13 people showed up. That used to happen when the kids were little, right? Suddenly my yard is full of kids and guess what? Somebody’s hungry, which if somebody’s hungry, everybody’s hungry and everybody needs snack. That’s just what you do. You just start pulling out snacks and you bought them at BJ’s in bulk and here they are. Today’s snack is cheese doodles.

What’s Mary doing? Where’s Mary’s focus? Jesus. Mary’s focus is on the guest, right? Mary is also doing hospitality, but she is doing hospitality for the person. She’s not involved in all of the other things. She’s involved in listening. She knows that there is something to be learned here. It’s not really clear whether Mary and Martha knew Jesus and the disciples before they walked in, except that the way Martha talks to him, I don’t think you would get involved in that kind of a conversation unless you already knew the person. Mary may even be taking care of her own spiritual needs.

But for me, it’s the issues are Where Is Their Attention?

In the good Samaritan the Levite and the priest, their attention is on themselves. I feel like that’s Martha. Martha knows there’s food to be made. She’s gotta be in the kitchen taking care of stuff.

Whereas I put the Samaritan and Mary together because the Samaritan wants to care for the person and Mary. Is giving her attention to the guest, specifically Jesus. The attention is to the guest to listening to the guests, to making sure the guest feels welcomed in that respect. Probably knowing that she’s going to learn something there.

What about perceptions? What about the perception of the Levite and the priest? The perception of Martha? Does anybody see any ties there? How those could be similar in my mind? I’ll give you my logic again. They’re tied up with what has to be done with the doing. Whereas the Samaritan and Mary are about being. The Samaritan does do also, right? The Samaritan, because he helps, he bandages the wounds and he takes the guys. So there’s some doing in there. But I think there’s a difference in perception.

I think that it reminds us that we’re to look at how we can be accepting and maybe even let go of some of the perceptions that we have of other people.

The Levite and the priest may have had a perception of the person at the side of the road. They were beyond help or maybe that’s something they see all the time. It’s almost like another dead guy to walk around. Isn’t that sad? We don’t want to get to that point. We don’t want to get to the point where we look at something and go, “there they go again. That’s just them acting out again.”

We want to be able to actually look at people and care about them, see their need, see them for who they are, not for our perception of who they are.

Because our perceptions are all based on the stories we write in our minds. Our stories always agree with the judgments we have made. That’s why there are rationalizations. We can rationalize anything. All we need is a good story and our brain, our ego will supply it. But here’s the thing to remember about perceptions. Perceptions are usually or often wrong.

Mic drop. Our perceptions are usually wrong. They may be based on old wisdom. They may be based on bad information, inaccurate information that we have gotten along the way. So we need to pay attention and we need to recognize that we can choose to let go of those perceptions. That is a choice. That is a choice that is ours.

I hope that you can take some wisdom today from Simon and Garfunkel. Slow down. You move too fast. You got to make the morning last.

We have to slow ourselves down to see what’s around us. We have to stop to listen to the stories of others. Because then we might even learn something. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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When I approach scripture, I usually look for what is it that catches my eye, or what draws my attention.

That phrase, catching people, was the phrase that stood out for me. I want you to think about, if I ask you to catch a person, think about what your body would do.

Would you be like the rugby player on the left, where you come in like this and take them down? Or are you going to catch them with open arms like the right? Because to me, that is drastically different.

This is my struggle with evangelism because when we talk about evangelism, when I think about evangelism, my experience of evangelicals is it’s the rugby takedown. They’re coming for me and they’re going to grab me and take me down. They remind me that I need to say that prayer or I’m not.

There was a trust exercise that I learned many years ago, I have no idea how many, so we won’t count. But where you stood in front someone with your arms crossed and you were to fall into their arms. It was with open arms that you were caught, not taken down. Can you feel the difference?

This is the grace of love, right?

To me it is. I think that is who we are called to be. We’re called to be people who catch people with open arms. We catch people who are falling, who are struggling, who need a soft lane. We can come in and help them, help them to find, not even just a lane, we can find life, new life, the life giving water that is available through Jesus Christ.

This story is actually the calling of the disciples, even though it comes out of the fifth chapter of Luke.

You think, wow, by this time we ought to be somewhere further along in the story. But, you have got to remember that Luke is the one that gives us the large birth narrative. So the first two chapters are all about his birth. Then the third chapter is getting started in the baptism and the wilderness. The fourth chapter, he starts his ministry.

Luke is different in that respect. In Luke, he is already teaching and healing people before he calls the disciples. So he’s already active in the community. In fact, he’s already been to Simon’s house. He goes to Simon’s house because Simon’s mother-in-law is ill. You might remember that story because it’s also in Mark. But here, he doesn’t know Simon. He goes because the mother-in-law is ill and he heals her. And I guess he gets to know Simon a little bit.

Then he meets him again at the lakeshore. where Simon’s coming in. This Simon is Simon Peter, or who we know better as just Peter. This is the good news for us. We should love Peter because Peter makes all of the mistakes that we would make. He does it for us. And Jesus never once shames him or blames him. He accepts Peter for who Peter is and loves him just the same. Continues to have him right by his side, teaching him.

So here in this moment, they go out deep. Jesus does this wonderful teaching. Out in the boat, Jesus looks at Peter and says, go out into the deep water and put down your nets. This is where, if this was contemporary, at least in my head, I heard Peter saying, they’ve done that, don’t need to do it again. Right now I’m headed in for a good meal, a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow’s another day. Tomorrow will be good. Tomorrow we’ll catch. Are you kidding me? But that’s not it for Jesus. Yes, that’s not actually written in the book. The author is quite kinder to Peter. I hear more of Peter’s staff than the writer did, but they go out again. Peter says, all right, if you say so, but they go to deep water. That means they go to someplace they haven’t gone before. They go and try fishing in a different spot, not their local hole, favorite fishing hole, which brought them nothing. They’re going to go to deeper water. They’re going to go where Jesus wants them to go rather than where they’re comfortable going.

This is a metaphor, people. I want you to be thinking about the fact that that means that we will be called to go where we may not be comfortable.

Instead of going to all the comfortable places, the places that we like to go, because that’s where the fish, the people are. That’s why I chose this picture, that you got to be fishing somewhere deep to find a fish that big. Right? Look how he’s holding the fish.

Yes, I think about all these things when I take pictures, right? He’s holding it with open arms. He’s not just holding it up. That fish has some weight to it, right? Like this will be a strong man pose, but he’s not trying. He’s not even trying a strong man pose. He’s supporting that fish. I don’t know if that fish is gonna become dinner or not. I don’t know what kind of fish it is. That’s my ignorance. Maybe it’s a fish that you would rather put back into the water. But it’s that support.

That’s where I think Paul’s message (1 Corinthians 15:1-11) comes in too. That it’s not about being perfect. In fact, Paul’s story is that he was the worst. Paul is clear, “I was the worst sinner.” Paul specifically attacked the people who believed in Jesus. He was a Pharisee who went after the people who believed in Jesus and harassed them. Even almost to the point of death. He was a horrible person to the Christians, and Christ came even to him and invited him in to know the love and grace, the forgiveness that was available to even him.

I think that we are called to be those who are out catching people, catching people in that supported way.

But I’m afraid that we get caught up thinking about ourselves and what do we need? What’s wrong with our lives when there are others who are struggling? And need us to turn our attention out to them and maybe to look in places we haven’t looked before. Because friends, there are those among us in our community who are unsure of their housing, who are unsure of where their next meal is going to come from, who are unsure if they’re going to pay the rent or the doctor.

Those people need our support. They need the hope that we have based on our faith. They need to know that someone actually cares about them.

There’s also those with the hidden issues that we don’t see. Maybe their sitting down like this person, we might have a clue that there’s issues. They may have experienced a great loss. They may be struggling with how to move forward in life. They may feel like life is just crumbling around them. They don’t have that support system, and that is who I think we are called to be as we catch people and help them have a safe landing.

So I want you this week to pray about this. I want you to pray about who it is that God wants you to help.

Because when we call on God, when we put ourselves out there for Christ, the spirit will show up and you may be surprised by who it is that needs help. Maybe they won’t be in that deep of a water or that far out of their comfort zone because you may find out that someone’s hiding issues because we’re very good at that.

All of our German ancestry helps us to say, that’s my dirty laundry and I’ll keep it to myself. We come in here strong and proud, and sometimes the world’s falling apart. We need somebody to help us, to hear us, to affirm us. To encourage us to remind us that God still loves us.

I was in a hospital room this week and I said, remember, God is here with you. The person shook their head and said, “I don’t know.” I said, well, I’m here to tell you that I think God is here. Maybe you don’t feel that right now, and maybe this illness is in the way, but God still loves you. It doesn’t mean, poof, you’re cured. Doesn’t work that way. It means you will not be alone through whatever you are going through. You will not be alone.

We are called to come together, to be building the community of Christ, to be helping others know that they are not alone because right now life is hard.

I was in a conversation this morning where thinking about the pressures of the world and how they try to run our lives and we have to stand up for ourselves and determine what’s the priority.

Those are the decisions that we make each day, and God wants to be one of those priorities. Right up there with family.

We come together to remind ourselves of that. So that we can go out into the world and invite others to know that love and support that we have found here because Christ comes to bring new life to all by catching all those fish. They brought new life to the fishermen, to the community. It meant People were going to eat. Bills were going to be paid.

We trust and rely on each other. That is how we live. Sometimes our world and our country has us thinking about other priorities, but the reality is we will live and thrive when we are community and we help others in our community.

We need to think about what is the impact that we’re going to make. May it be so.

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