Sermon Preached at St. Mark's Episcopal Church
Proper 10C (Luke 10:25-37)
In response to
a lawyer’s question about inheriting eternal life, Jesus turns the question
around and asks the lawyer instead, “what is written in the law?” Now most of us, like the lawyer, would
probably come up with the same answer – love God and love our neighbor. The teaching moment could end there. But, it doesn’t because Jesus recognizes that
who one sees as one’s neighbor impacts greatly how we live out the commandment
to LOVE our neighbor. If by neighbor, we
mean the people sitting next to us in church – or at the lakefront – on a
Sunday morning we may be missing Jesus’ point.
If by neighbor, we mean the people that we get together with for
cookouts or drinks at the local bar, we may be missing Jesus’ point. Because Jesus’, in the story he tells to the
lawyer, is quite clear that being a neighbor means showing mercy even – perhaps
especially – to the person or persons
must unlike us that we can imagine. It is telling that in Jesus’ story the
priest and the Levite pass by the injured man on the road because these are the
very people that one would expect to know how to behave in a “neighborly” way –
after all, they are law-abiding religious folk.
They would have answered Jesus question in the same way as the
lawyer. But instead, it is the Samaritan
who “was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers.” You’ll need to imagine the booing and the
spitting that the mere mention of a Samaritan might have caused Jesus’ 1st
century listeners; in fact, the animosity – the hatred - between the Jews and
the Samaritans goes back at least 8 centuries before the birth of Jesus.[i]
So, for the lawyer to admit that it is the Samaritan who did the neighborly
thing is pretty telling.
And at least
one of the things the story tells us is that we need to take seriously the
question, “Who is our neighbor?” Who
are the neighbors of St. Mark’s? Unlike
the lawyer in Jesus’ time, you and I have census data that can help us to learn
more about our neighbors. In 2010, the
Census data for the City of Evanston showed that 50% of Evanston residents are
between the ages of 20 and 54 and that another 25% each are either 19 and under
or 55 and older.[ii] How does this compare to our congregation? Approximately
50% of active St. Mark’s parishioners are 61 and up and only 25% are between
the ages of 20 and 54. Did you catch
that? 50% of Evanston’s population is between the ages of 20 and 54 and only
25% of our congregation is in that age range.
I don’t want to
overwhelm us with facts and figures this morning, but there is one additional piece
of data I’d like us to have before us. The
2010 Census data can be broken down into neighborhood tracts. St. Mark’s sits on the line between two Census
Neighborhood tracts (each approximately 1 square mile in size).[iii] Combining the population of these two
neighborhood tracts reveals that 59% of our neighborhood is white (St. Mark’s
is 85% white), 24% of our neighborhood is
black or African American (that number at St. Mark’s is between 10 and 15%),
10% of our neighborhood is Hispanic or Latino (5% of St. Mark’s), and 9% of our
neighbors are Asian (compared to 5% of St. Mark’s).[iv]
Incidentally, even when we look at Evanston as a whole – instead of just
the immediate neighborhoods - St. Mark’s is still under-representative of non-whites
in each group.
Looking at
these data alone – age distribution and racial make-up of Evanston – it is easy
to see who our neighbors are. We may not
view these neighbors as “Samaritans” (complete with booing and hissing), but
there is clearly a line between us and them. As clear as that line may be, it may be less
clear how we are being invited by God to be neighborly. What do we do to
be more representative of our local community? In a recent lecture about the
importance of re-rooting our congregations in the community, Neil Harrison, Director
for Renewed Evangelizing Congregations for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of
America, asked the challenging question,
“do you really think Jesus would sneak out the side door and travel 5 to 10
miles, snubbing his nose at his neighbors?!”[v] It’s
a tough question. But what makes it
tough is not the answer because we know that Jesus would not do this. But, too often, it is exactly what we do – not
just St. Mark’s, but churches throughout the United States. While the concern hasn’t been expressed this
way before, it is one that St. Mark’s Outreach and Social Justice Ministry Team
has been grappling with and the answers are beginning to become clearer as we
engage more and more in ministries in our local community with our
neighbors: working with Oakton
Elementary School’s Blessings in a Backpack program which provides weekend food
for school children during the school year, encouraging our members to drink
coffee and meet with one another at Curt’s Café – a coffee shop that provides
job training and life skills to at-risk young people, donating space at St. Mark’s
to the Interfaith Action of Evanston’s Hospitality Center which provides a safe
place for our homeless neighbors to gather for breakfast, rest, job coaching,
computer training and more. In addition
to these formal programs of St. Mark’s, countless members volunteer with
organizations in the neighborhood – their local neighborhoods and St. Mark’s
neighborhood – working in soup kitchens, with Family Focus, Y.O.U., Jr.Wildkits, the YWCA and many more. In
fact, just this past Tuesday, 17 young people and adults from St. Mark’s and
St. Matthew’s spent the morning volunteering at the Producemobile where we
served over 8,000 pounds of fresh produce to 302 households, totaling 1,016 of
our neighbors. These are all ways in which God is already at work in our
world and inviting us to come alongside, to be good neighbors. But here’s the
challenge: you and I cannot become comfortable about the work we do “out there”
until we are equally comfortable becoming and being a place “in here” that
welcomes the neighborhood in – welcomes the neighborhood into our building –
yes, but also into our worship, into our formation, into our fellowship, into
all aspects of our life together.
I have a vision
for St. Mark’s that we will strive continually to live our faith as a people “Being in Place” – that is, rooted in our community.
Being in Place – taking seriously God’s command to love our neighbor as ourselves. How will we begin? Perhaps we begin by simply shifting our
thinking, to imagining a community that not only serves its neighbors,
but a community that embraces its neighbors, imagining a community that
works not only to better the lives of its neighbors, but a community willing to be bettered by
the lives of its neighbors.
Here’s a simple
exercise to help us begin: take a walk
around the neighborhood. You can do this exercise around your own home, but I
encourage you also to come to St. Mark’s and begin your walk at the corner of
Ridge and Grove. Come alone, come with a
friend, come with your family, but come.
Make time for this important walk making sure you spend time walking to
the west of St. Mark’s and time walking to the east of St. Mark’s. Spend time walking to the north of St. Mark’s
and to the south of St. Mark’s. Before
you start walking, ask God to give you the eyes of Christ, to see your neighbor
in God’s light – those who are like you and especially those who are different
from you. Think about the people that
shape our congregation and its practices. And, as you walk, look at the people
you see. Notice any differences. Which groups have historically been on the
margins?[vi] At the conclusion of your walk, reread the parable of the Good Samaritan – today’s gospel
reading – and ask yourself, “Who is our neighbor?” Talk with someone about what you discover. Pray about what you have seen.
[i]
2 Kings 17:1-41 (esp. vv. 5-6).
[ii]
City of Evanston Community and Economic Development
Department, “DP-1: Profile of General Populationand Housing Characteristics,” (US Census Bureau)(accessed June 22, 2013).
[iii]
St. Mark’s is located
on the line between Tracts 8095 and 8096. The remaining three Tracts that make up
“West Evanston” are Tracts 8092, 8097, and 8098 (source: City of Evanston Community
and Economic Development Department, “2010 Census Results – City of Evanston, Illinois,”
(US Census Bureau) (accessed
June 22, 2013)).
[iv]
Data adapted from City of Evanston Community
and Economic Development Department, “Final Evanston
2010 Census Tract Information,” (US Census Bureau)
(accessed June 22, 2013).
[v]
Neil P. Harrison, “Congregations in the 21st Century:
D.Min. in Congregational Development” (lecture, Bexley Hall Seabury Western Theological
Seminary Federation, Chicago, IL, June 5, 2013).
[vi] The idea of walking the neighborhood of the church was first presented to me in Stephanie Spellers, Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other, and the Spirit of Transformation, (New York: Church Publishing, 2006), p. 102.
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