By the Side of the Road

Scriptures:       Amos 7:7-17;   Psalm 25:1-10

                        Colossians 1:1-14         Luke 10:25-37                         

I’ll begin with some words from an old Bob Dylan song – a song the aging hippies among us will remember:

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Today we read Jesus’ familiar parable of the Good Samaritan – a parable so familiar that in this country most people, Christian or not, have heard it at one time or another, a parable that’s so much a part of our culture that there are laws called Good Samaritan laws to protect civilians who try to help people they see in need of assistance.   It’s a parable seemingly so worn down by time and retelling that there’s nothing more to say about it.  And yet it’s a parable that our society desperately needs to hear in ways that connect to our present situation.

You may remember the setup:  an expert in Jewish law asked Jesus a question: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.”  He asked this not from a sincere design to learn, but in hopes of using Jesus’ words to trip him up – and of course Jesus is well aware of the spirit in which the question was asked.  So Jesus throws the question back on the lawyer, asking him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”  And the lawyer responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”  And Jesus responded: “Great answer!  Do this, and you will live.”

But the lawyer wanted to take one more shot at pushing Jesus’ buttons.  He said, “And who is my neighbor?’  And instead of giving him a one sentence answer, Jesus told a story that led the lawyer to draw his own conclusions and answer his own question:  A man – we are to understand this is a Jewish man, as Jesus, his disciples, the lawyer with the questions, and most of his listeners were Jewish- was returning home from Jerusalem to Jericho, and was set upon by robbers, who beat him, took all he had, and left him half-dead.  A priest walked by, and when he saw the beaten man, he walked by on the other side of the road.  A Levite – an assistant to the priest – walked by and did the same thing.   At this point, many in Jesus’ audience would have said to themselves, “I’ve heard this story before; I know how it ends!”  They would have expected that the next person to see the man would be an ordinary Jew, who would take care for the man and save the day.  But instead, as Jesus tells the story, the next person to happen along was a Samaritan.  The man would have had no reason to expect any help from this Samaritan – Jews looked down on Samaritans, and Samaritans returned the hostility.  In fact, when Jesus sent his disciples to one Samaritan village to prepare for Jesus to come, the Samaritan townspeople ran the disciples out of town – that was in our Gospel reading from last week.    Jesus listeners would have expected the Samaritan to walk by the man, perhaps giving him a kick in the backside as he passed.  But instead, as Jesus told the story, the Samaritan stopped and helped the man, bandaging him, riding him into town, and putting him up in an inn, and promising the innkeeper to pay whatever additional expenses he incurred to care for the man.   And so Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which of the three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers.”  The lawyer couldn’t bring himself to say “The Samaritan” and so he said, “The one who showed him mercy.”  And Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

We know this story, and we generalize it into an inspiration to help those we meet who are in need.  If a motorist is broken down along the side of the road, the story would inspire us to stop and help.  If someone comes to us asking for directions, we help them.  If someone comes to us and says they’re stranded, we drive them to their destination, or at least buy them a bus ticket.   We try to be good Samaritans.

All this is as it should be.  But it misses a crucial part of the point of the story.  The person who helped the man beaten by robbers was not just anyone, but somebody who ordinarily would have been hostile, someone who would ordinarily be seen as an enemy by the Jewish man who was victimized by robbers.  To Jesus’ listeners, this would not have been a heartwarming story.  For Jesus’ listeners, there were no Hallmark greeting card moments in this story, none whatsoever. The presence of the Samaritan and his helping the man, especially after the priest and Levite passed by, would have offended Jesus’ listeners, given them agita, would have raised their blood pressure and turned their stomachs.   Jesus’ parable is not just a heartwarming story about helping other people, but a deeply challenging story urging us to overcome our hostilities, our prejudices, the emotional and spiritual walls we put up, in order to help those in need.

How challenging to us is Jesus’ parable?  Let me ask the question a different way – who would we leave by the side of the road?  And let’s ask that question with a very specific focus, namely with a focus on the awful shootings of this past week, those by police officers and those of police officers – because that’s the question and the focus I’ve struggled with as I’ve written and re-written and re-written again this sermon as first one and then a second African American man was gunned down by police officers – and then an African American man, an Afghanistan war veteran with military training in the use of firearms, opened fire at the end of a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Dallas, killing five police officers and wounding seven others. 

Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Alton Sterling was selling CD’s outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  We’re told that a homeless man, who had begged Sterling for money and whom Sterling turned away roughly, placed a 911 call, warning of a man with a gun.  Officers arrived on the scene and pinned Sterling to the ground – and after he was pinned to the ground, unable to move, Alton Sterling was shot dead.   Reports of Sterling’s shooting were still circulating when news of a second shooting by police, that of Philando Castile in Minneapolis, MN.  Philando Castile was a kitchen supervisor for the St. Paul public schools, By all accounts, by all accounts, beloved by students and coworkers.  He was in a car with his girlfriend and their four-year old child when he was pulled over, supposedly for a broken tail light.  Castile was following police instructions, told the officer he was carrying a gun, for which he had a legal carry permit, and was reaching for his license when he was shot, in front of his girlfriend and his daughter.

Of course, such shootings by police are not isolated incidents.  We’ve heard the names – Trayvon Martin.  Michael Brown.  Oscar Grant, whose shooting by police is dramatized in the movie “Fruitvale Station”.  Tamir Rice, age 12, gunned down as he was playing outside with a toy pellet gun.  Walter Scott.  Eric Garner, pinned to the ground in a chokehold as he told the arresting officers over and over “I can’t breathe”.  And on, and on, and on, a drumbeat of death in the black community.     And yes, many of these black men were not angels.  Many had prior run-ins with the law.  But all were children of God.  Last time I checked, selling CD’s on the street is not a death penalty offense.  Driving with a broken tail light is not a death penalty offense – I’ve done that myself more than once, and lived to tell the tale.  Selling loose cigarettes on the streets is not a death penalty offense.  And consistently, there’s no real accountability for the officers involved in these shootings – they are generally suspended with pay for a time, and then return to their jobs.   I am friends with a number of white women who are raising adopted black children, and these women beside themselves, afraid to let their children leave the house lest these children be gunned down in the street like dogs.  Black parents tell their children how to interact when – not if, when – police pull them over – address officers respectfully, make no sudden movements, keep your hands in sight at all times, and at the end of it, pray you don’t get shot anyway – a talk my parents did not have with me, and that your parents almost certainly didn’t have with you, and a talk that these white adoptive mothers are struggling to have with the black children they are trying to keep out of harm’s way. Many of us would still, even after dozens of deaths that have been publicized and hundreds that haven’t, explain these shootings as the actions of “just a few bad apples”. But I think there’s a growing recognition that it’s more than that – that something has gone fundamentally, systemically wrong in present-day law enforcement personnel and procedures that is resulting in far too many blacks dying at the hands and guns of police.  I’ll win no friends for saying this, but we may be at a moment similar to where we were with Roman Catholic priests maybe 10 to 15 years ago, when we stopped accepting the Catholic Church’s excuses for the misconduct of their priests of “just a few bad apples”, when we realized there was a systemic problem and demanded that the church clean up its act, demanded accountability and punishment, including hard time in prison, for priests who molest children.  Just as with Roman Catholic priests, we need to be asking questions about who is going into law enforcement today and how they’re being screened and background checked – an FBI report published in 2006, ten years ago, warned that white supremacists, Klansmen, Aryan Nations members, etc were infiltrating law enforcement.[1]  And we need to ask questions about their training, about why so many stops for minor traffic violations are escalating into life or death confrontations.

Just as we were trying to wrap our minds around the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, we received even worse news from Dallas, much worse, that of one or more snipers picking off police officers just as the crowds were dispersing from what up that point had been a peaceful protest.  Up to that point, interactions between the protesters and police had been friendly, with police posing for selfies with the protesters, as similar protests around the country have been peaceful.   And then shots rang out.   News reports have been confusing.  At first it was reported that there were multiple shooters firing from buildings above the crowd.  Police released a photo of an African American man in camouflage – a man who, it was later determined, had nothing to do with the killings.  Now the killings are being attributed to one man, Micah Johnson, an African American veteran who had been deployed to Afghanistan in 2013-2014, and had served as a US Army reservist until 2015.  I’m sure additional information will be coming out.  But according to police, Johnson made his intentions explicit: he wanted to gun down white people, and especially white police officers.  Five officers were killed, and they have names: Lorne Ahrens, a 14 year veteran of the Dallas PD, Michael Smith, a 27 year veteran of the department, Michael Krol, who had previously been a corrections officer in Michigan, Patrick Zamarripa, an Iraq war veteran with three tours of duty, and Dallas Transit Police officer Brent Thompson, who had worked in Iraq for a military contractor, and who had just been married two weeks ago.  Seven other officers were wounded, along with two civilians – all children of God.  According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, with the Dallas shootings, 59 officers nationwide have died so far this year in the line of duty – 59 too many.  27 of these were deaths by gunfire - one of which was accidental ; many of the rest were car and motorcycle crashes, a few were due to heart attacks, one death was by an encounter with animals, and one was due to an aircraft accident.  Last year there were 130 deaths in the line of duty, including 41 deaths by gunfire, of which two were accidental.  In 2014 there were 145 deaths in the line of duty, including 49 due to gunfire, of which two were accidental. The rate of death in the line of duty has actually dropped, with lower numbers in recent years, and has decreased dramatically from that of the 1970’s, when according to the same website, for example, in 1975, there were 245 deaths in the line of duty, including a shocking 152 deaths by gunfire, of which 9 were accidental. [2]   We’re nowhere near those numbers today.   And it has to be said that most of those officers gunned down in 2016 were killed by white criminals, not black criminals – likely the same is true for past years as well.  Nonetheless, bullets from white criminals and bullets from black criminals are equally deadly, and law enforcement is a dangerous job – we’ve prayed for Officer Christopher Dorman in Folcroft, still recovering from being shot just a few weeks ago - and in recognition of this, police officers are trained and armed, given authority to arrest and detain people – and are held to a higher standard of conduct on the job than civilians.  I am convinced that most officers just want to do their job honorably and go home safely at the end of the day.  And I am convinced that most blacks want the same, to live their lives honorably and go home safely at the end of the day.  And both deserve to do so.

Who will we leave by the side of the road?  Many who mourn the deaths and injuries of the officers in Dallas and grieve for their families have little sympathy for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile or their families, or the hundreds of other black men who have been gunned down by police officers.  And some who have mourned and protested the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and other victims of police shootings have little sympathy for the dozen police officers who were killed and injured in Dallas, or the dozens gunned down before them, or their families.   But to mourn one group but not the other, is to leave one group bleeding out on the side of the road – and for us as Christians, that’s not a faithful option.

All lives matter – this is true.  But some lives are at much higher risk than others.  Blacks are at much higher risk of being killed by police than whites.  Police face risks that civilians don’t.   And so, yes, black lives matter.  And blue lives matter. 

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Our lives matter!  Blacks and police officers are not the only people that our society is leaving by the side of the road.  Over the decades, life expectancy in the United States had been steadily rising, until recently.  But now, recent studies show that death rates among middle-aged white men and even more so white women, especially those with a high school education or less, have increased dramatically, especially in rural and small-town communities.  Life expectancy in these groups has actually dropped by 3 to 5 years.  Among so-called developed nations, US life expectancy for American women is dead last, driven by dramatic drops in life expectancy for white American women.  Normally such drops in life expectancy don’t happen except in exceptional circumstances – for example, when a country’s political system has collapsed, as that of the Soviet Union did in the late 1980’s.  Researchers point to a number of causes for this decrease – escalating rates of suicide among middle-aged whites, rampant alcoholism and use of heroin and prescription drugs such as oxycontin – affectionately known as “hillbilly heroin” – and fentanyl, increased rates of smoking and morbid obesity, especially among white women, and a lack of access to regular health care.  Underneath these statistics is self-destructive behavior brought on by despair – as one researcher put it, “there are millions of people underneath these graphs who are in pain.[3]  The social contract that held in the 1940’s through the 1970’s – that if you work hard for your employer and play by the rules, you’ll have a good life – has fallen apart.    Corporations and the politicians who enable them have unilaterally revoked this social contract, burned it to ashes, blown it to bits.  Kiss it goodbye, perhaps forever.  Many young adults are coming to the sad realization that, contrary to past expectations, their lives will be worse than those of their parents, not better.  As Catholic worker co-founder Dorothy Day said, “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”   This system has left millions – including people we know and love – bleeding by the side of the road.

When we encounter our society’s injustices, we may tell ourselves “not our problem”, but God who sees and knows will not accept our excuses.  To live out Jesus’ words, “Go and do likewise”, we need to care for our neighbors by the side of the road, and to accept the care of our neighbors when our lives leave us bleeding by the side of the road.  It means stepping out of our bubbles, stepping away from Fox News or MSNBC and hearing – really hearing – what others with different life experiences are trying to tell us about the pain they’re dealing with – and then being willing to act.  As Christians, we want to be where Jesus is, and Jesus is with and Jesus is for those who are suffering.

It’s not easy.  None of this is easy.  The love God shows us, and the love we’re called to show others, is not the soft, sappy stuff of Hallmark greeting cards.  Rather, it’s tough, durable, hard as nails.  In fact, it would be impossible without the grace of God, who sent Jesus to rescue us when we were all by the side of the road.  It would be impossible without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that still, small voice from God that instructs and leads us forward.  It would be impossible without the support of the Christian community – none of us can do all this alone.

And so Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which of the three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers.”  The lawyer responded, “The one who showed him mercy.”  And Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”  May God grant us caring neighbors to support us in our time of need, and God grant us strength to be neighbors to those we find bleeding along the side of the road.  Amen.

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[1] http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/402521/doc-26-white-supremacist-infiltration.pdf

[2] www.odmp.org/

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/wp/2016/04/10/2016/04/10/a-new-divide-in-american-death/, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html