Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Faith in Action vs. Faith Inaction"

Text: Luke 10:25-37

and we’ll come back to him in due course,

but it does seem to me that often we don’t give enough attention

to a couple of the other characters in the story.

Or, when we do give them attention,

we aren’t 100% fair to them.

Historically, biblical interpretation

has been hard on that priest and Levite.

So let’s look at them first.

The setting

is the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Supposedly, a road well known

for being a dangerous place.

One where running into robbers was not all that uncommon.

So, we have an unfortunate traveler who

happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,

so he got his money and his clothes stolen,

and got beaten up and left half dead by the side of the road.

A familiar enough story to most of us.

And probably, when we have heard the story,

we have heard subtle and not-so-subtle digs at the priest and the Levite –

professional holy men, after all! –

who pass by our victim on the other side of the road,

and apparently make no effort at all to help him,

or even to see whether he’s still alive and breathing.

We grow indignant at them.

It brings to mind stereotypes about clergy

who think of themselves as too "holy"

to dirty their hands in the messes of everyday life.

It makes us fearful about the possible presence of selfishness

among the ranks of those whom we expect to be selfless.

We find it incomprehensible

that they didn’t "stop and render aid,"

and we wonder whether such a thing might happen to us.

But it’s not quite that simple …

or at least, it may not be quite that simple.

If the priest and the Levite are on the other side of the road,

what that may suggest is that they were traveling in the opposite direction:

that is, from Jericho to Jerusalem.

(Levites, by the way, are members of the priestly tribe,

and they had similar duties to the priests.)

Being a priest in that day and time wasn’t a full-time job.

You served in the Temple for about a month out of the year,

and then you went back home, wherever "home" was,

to tend your flocks and/or your crops and your family.

It was only one aspect of who you were and what you did …

but it was an important one.

So perhaps, this priest and Levite are on their way to Jerusalem,

to fulfill their annual obligation to serve in the Temple,

offering sacrifices on behalf of all God’s people

and leading the people assembled in worship.

Ancient Judaism, as you may know,

had a very strong and complicated set of rules about appropriate behavior,

and what sorts of things were "clean" and "unclean."

Certain animals were "clean," and those you could eat;

others were "unclean," and you should not eat those.

Furthermore, there were certain "clean" ways in which animals should be killed for food;

and certain things that could not be eaten together.

These rules about food are where all the rules about kosher come from.

But there were other items as well.

A woman with a flow of blood is unclean.

Touching blood makes you unclean,

even if it’s a matter of washing a wound on your own body, or your child’s.

Touching a dead body is an especially unclean thing to do;

if you do that, you must go through a lengthy process

of washing and purification,

all defined in elaborate ritual.

So, if you are on your way to serve for a month or so as the priest-in-residence,

where hundreds if not thousands of people are depending on you

to offer sacrifices for their sins

in a manner that will be pleasing to God,

and will induce God to forgive them …

you’re not very likely to stop and check on

a bloody stranger by the side of the road,

who might in fact be a bloody corpse by the side of the road.

You would be jeopardizing your ability

to do your job in the way that you believed God required it to be done.

You couldn’t risk numerous other people’s sacrifices,

and forgiveness, and status before God,

for the sake of the one by the side of the road.

Today, we don’t understand God as being that legalistic;

indeed, Jesus himself tried to get people beyond that:

remember his saying that the sabbath was made for humans,

not humans for the sabbath.

But in their own day and time,

and their own worldview and understanding of who God is,

their avoidance of the injured man made sense.

Their inaction didn’t mean they were being selfish, necessarily.

It may have meant that their faith required –

or at least, they sincerely believed that their faith required –

that something else was more important

than taking action in this particular instance,

for this particular individual.

I think it’s important for us to remind ourselves

that sometimes, inaction may be a faithful response.

We don’t even have to leave our own homes

to be surrounded by the cries of needy people.

Letters requesting donations arrive in the mail;

newspaper stories tell of sad situations and tell you how you can help;

the television brings us stories of misery from around the world.

We can’t do it all.

Every one of us here could empty our bank accounts to feed hungry people,

and it might take care of Dallas itself for a few weeks,

but that would be it.

We need to have a spirit of discernment about what God is calling us to do,

what God is giving us a passion about,

what opportunities God seems to be placing in our way,

and put our faith into action in those places,

and trust God to make other people passionate and concerned about

those things that we are having to say "no" to.

Again, I suspect that the priest and the Levite in our story

were wrong about God’s demands on them –

Jesus certainly seems to imply so –

but could well have been sincere about believing

that their faith required of them a different action

than helping the man at the side of the road.

So, if your passion is feeding the hungry,

you may need to let other people worry about finding them shelter.

If God has given you a gift for visiting people in prison,

it’s okay to let others be responsible for visiting them in the hospital.

If God seems to be calling you to focus your energy on helping children,

then you can trust God to call other people to focus on the elderly.

Putting our faith into action

means that, in other areas,

we will have to be inactive.

And we need to let ourselves see both of those as faith decisions.

Decisions about our vocation,

about the stewardship of our time, and our resources, and our lives.

Sometimes we have to say no;

and we need to let our faith inform those decisions

just as surely as it informs our choices when we say yes.

A word, though, about the Samaritan.

He is, of course, the main point of the story.

And Jesus is trying to get people’s attention

by making someone they would normally despise

the hero of the tale.

Which is also an important point.

Faith is seen in action,

and sometimes people whom we think believe the wrong things,

doctrinally speaking,

nevertheless demonstrate faith that we ought to be learning from.

We know people by their works; that’s all that we can see;

you can’t dissect a person and "see" their "faith."

And if a Samaritan does the right thing;

if a Samaritan takes the proper course of action

when a couple of religious leaders did not,

then who are we to say that his "faith" is somehow suspect?

Reformed Christian teaching in particular

has talked about the "invisible church" …

those people who may never be part of a church

or even of any organized religion,

but whose actions show them to be

people who are paying attention to God.

Someone who acts like a person of faith –

that is, in this case, someone who helps their neighbor –

is a person of faith,

regardless of whether they choke on the words of the Apostles’ Creed, or not.

But one more thing, back to the notion of "faith inaction."

This parable has to be turned in both directions to make it really work.

We’ve been taught all our lives to understand that

the answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?"

is, "Anyone who needs me is my neighbor."

And that’s half the story.

But if you look at the end of the parable,

the question that Jesus asks the lawyer is this,

"Who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

and he answers correctly, "The one who showed him mercy."

So: Not only are neighbors the people who need us …

Neighbors are also the people whom we need.

Neighbors are the ones who help us,

who show us mercy,

who do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

For us, culturally, that’s a tough concept.

We value independence, self-reliance, paying our own way, etc., etc.

Being in need is something we don’t like.

We’re perfectly happy to help others, of course, bless their hearts.

We easily get offended when others offer to help us.

Do they think I’m incompetent?

Do I look like an idiot?

I can do it myself perfectly well, thank you!

Sometimes, of course, it’s true that we could do it ourselves.

And sometimes, it most certainly is not true!

If we are broken and bloody by the side of the road,

a neighbor is nearly always a welcome sight.

But what about those times when we could do something,

yet another offers to help us.

What does it mean when

our pride keeps us from letting other people be our neighbors … ?

It seems to me that there are times when

we need to cultivate the grace of inaction

in order to let others be a neighbor to us.

To be sure, that can get carried too far,

but I don’t think that’s a danger for anyone presently in this building!

It is hard for us to discover things that we can’t do,

and it seems that those things grow in number as we grow older.

Some are no big deal,

like, I can’t touch my toes any more, or something like that.

Others are a very big deal:

I can’t see well enough to drive any longer.

I can’t take care of my spouse all by myself while he or she is sick.

I can’t climb the stairs in my house any longer because I’m in too much pain.

We tend to see things like these as a failure.

But that’s our culture speaking, not our faith.

Our faith invites us to reframe these things we can’t do,

these "inactions" that cause us grief:

to understand them instead as opportunities to make and to meet neighbors.

Sometimes, the most grace-filled and faithful thing we can possibly do

is to let someone else serve us.

Sometimes, we demonstrate our faith in inaction.

Whether it’s putting our faith into action,

or letting our faith dictate inaction,

the key, of course, is faith.

What does God expect of me,

and what does God not expect of me?

What does God need for me to be doing in the world,

and what does God have other people doing, and I should stay out of it?

Faced with any situation or any choice,

where does God want you to act,

and where does God want for you to let someone else have a turn?

Faith in action, or faith inaction?

Both may be faithful choices.

May God give us the grace and the discernment

to know when to offer which.

Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)