"We're Here to Help Each Other"

Sermon delivered 1-26-03 by Lee Barstow

Third Sunday in Epiphany

Laity Sunday

South Congregational Church, Amherst, MA

The sermon was preceded by the following readings: Ruth 1:12-18, in which Ruth insists on accompanying her mother-in-law Naomi to a life of probable poverty in a foreign land & Luke 10:25-37, the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Now that we have heard two lessons that powerfully remind us to look beyond class and custom in order to help each other, I want to tell you another story from modern times that speaks to the same truth. It is a story about a man who could arguably be called the foremost spiritual teacher and peacemaker on the planet today—His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, who has heroically led his people in exile to preserve and expand Tibetan culture and wisdom. He works tirelessly to bring peace and democracy to Asia and elsewhere, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

I was moved to begin with a story about a Buddhist, I think, in order to build upon the lessons we have just heard. His faith tradition is different from ours, but he speaks the truth, and I believe very strongly that we are in great need to day to build more bridges than walls.

The Dalai Lama was scheduled to speak at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, that magnificent Protestant cathedral which is still being built in New York City to the glory of God. When the ceremonies began, there was standing room only—he is exotic AND legendary, after all, and people were craning to get a glimpse of him. A number of speakers preceded him, and they went on, so by the time it was time for His Holiness to speak, people were extremely well attuned to what he might say. He stood up, a small Tibetan monk in a heavy maroon robe, walked up to the microphone, and said, "We're here to help each other." And then he turned around as if to return to his seat. People gasped. "Could that possibly be all he was going to say, after all the time waiting through all the other words?" And then he hesitated, returned to the microphone, and said, "And if we can't do that, then we should try not to hurt each other." And then he did sit down.

I have often repeated this story over the years, but as I pondered it in preparation for this sermon, I eventually came up with three questions that I would like to consider with you now, in the light of our two lessons and the rest of our Christian tradition:

The first is, "What does it mean to help each other?" This is really a two-parter: the first part is what does the word "help" mean, and the other is, who are these "others" we're supposed to help?

The second question is, "How do we go about finding the inner resources we need to help others, especially when we don't want to?"

And the third question that arose as I thought about this is, "What's the result of following this advice? Why should we care about helping others?"

So let's start with the first part of the first question – what does it mean to "help?" The good Samaritan shows us one kind of helping, which is providing comfort and healing to another who is hurting, who has less than we do, who needs what we can give from our own resources. In the parable, the Samaritan gives medical care, time, and money, and in so doing, says Jesus, he is loving his neighbor. The irony of Jesus' story, of course, is that fellow Jews passed the man by, and it was a foreigner who ended up being the neighbor. It is a powerful story of the kind of good Christian charity that has driven so much caring and healing in the world, from the Red Cross to the Peace Corps.

The book of Ruth illustrates another kind of helping. When Ruth made the decision to go with Naomi, she was giving up the near certainty of a secure life in Moab -- her native land -- in favor of trekking to probable impoverishment with her widowed mother-in-law in a foreign land. But she went for it; she decided that she and Naomi would be together, that they would help each other to make a life in Judah. Do you remember the end of the story? It's a feel-good ending, very Hollywood. Naomi introduces Ruth to a wealthy relative, and they all prosper.

Okay, so now that we have considered two kinds of helping: charity and working together – let me ask you this: aren't we called on constantly to engage in one of these two? Isn't this what relationships are all about? In a sense, "helping each other" is just another way of saying "getting along with each other." It is an opportunity that presents itself in all the kinds of relationships we have, from the most profound to the most seemingly trivial. I know that when I'm on my way to work these days, usually a little late… and I meet another driver at the four-way stop right out here… I am given the opportunity to practice this principle. Do I steam on and satisfy my fear about being late? Or do I "help" the other driver by motioning him or her to go? I can tell you I am happier when I do the latter.

How about the Priest and the Levite – how did they feel as they passed by the wounded man? Did they tell themselves he wasn't important enough for them to bother with? Were they in too much of a hurry?

In this story, the lawyer has rightly answered Jesus that the way to "eternal life" is to love God and his neighbor as himself. And then he wants to know who this neighbor is. I can relate to this question: "Give me the bottom line – what effort will fulfill the contract and gain me the payoff? And Jesus, as he so often does, delivers a response so radical that it is still seen as a secret of life these two millennia later. Through his story of the Samaritan, Jesus tells us that this "neighbor" we need to love – this "other" that we need to help – is anyone who asks for it. We don't get to choose who to help. Instead, we are chosen by the ones who ask. We are given the opportunity, constantly, and we make our choice.

Doesn't this happen throughout our day? What do we ever do that doesn't entail a relationship, and therefore the repeated opportunity to help? Aren't we called on constantly to help in our marriages, in our families, in our friendships, in our work relationships? And how about our church family? And don't we all need help? There isn't one of us who doesn't need help, right? Sometimes a lot of help. And some of us more than others.

And now we come to the second question: how do we summon the willingness to give help, even when we don't want to?

Well, the question gives away what I think is a prerequisite to any kind of helping: we have to want to. And in order to want to, we have to see two things: we have to see our own need to exert ourselves, to do something differently, to change, and we have to be able to see the other person as we see ourselves, just like Jesus says.

Let's start with this part. Why would we ever want to help someone if we didn't feel inside an identification with them, a commonness? The priest and the Levite felt none of this – perhaps they felt judgment, or maybe they were just in a hurry. But whatever, they were able to be indifferent. But the Samaritan, when he looked at the man, he must have felt how awful it would be to be bleeding by the side of the road with no one to help. And because he wouldn't want to be left there, he helped.

So one prerequisite to being able to help, I think, might be called an "arc of recognition" that the other person and I are the same. We really are all the same, aren't we? We feel pain the same, we feel joy the same, we long for love and comfort the same, we hurt each other the same. And we all make mistakes, right? I mean really good ones. Let's face it, at some time or other, every single one of us has been a real idiot, right?

But this recognition of others as the same as us is a tall order, isn't it? I mean, don't tell them I said so, but sometimes my own beautiful children look to me like they have two heads, so what hope do I have with the rest of humanity?

This is, I think, the most important piece of this whole topic, and I want to make sure we are focusing on it. Everything else depends on it. We know already that Jesus teaches the most important secret of life is to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. I have no problem with agreeing to that. But how do I live it when I don't want to?

It is hard to hold up our ends of relationships. I have a friend whose wife left him a few years ago. He wasn't surprised – there had been years of bad strain. For years he had wished she would be less critical, more loving. Lord knows he tried hard at that stuff… It was a reasonable point of view. Lots of his friends agreed with him, especially after she left. And then one day he realized that his list of reasonable complaints were doing him absolutely no good whatsoever. He might have been right, but that was cold comfort when he watched his children make new discoveries with no mate to share them with, and he thought about them being from a broken home.

He had a feeling that he needed to take some of her complaints inside and consider them. He knew that there were probably changes he should make, but he didn't think it fair that he should have to do all the changing.

This brings us to the crux of the matter. When we are lost in the darkness of our pride, or our fear, or our judgment, how do we find the way out? We know we need the situation to change, but we don't want to change. We want the other person to change. Or maybe we have an inkling that we ought to, but we don't know how. It seems that God has made us so that we cannot escape these moments. We are presented with them again and again.

The way out comes down to this: we have to be willing to surrender our best thinking in order to meet the other person openly and honestly, without preconceptions and sacred cows. This is a painful place because our ego thinks we are only the sum of our beliefs, and that if we let all this go, we will die.

But the good news that we are here to learn together is that our ego has reality turned precisely on its head. There is a way out, and though it's not easy, it's very simple. This is it: we ask God for help. When we pray for help at times like this, and we really are willing to follow through on whatever inspiration comes back, God gives us what we need.

It works, and I think this miracle is at the heart of the Christmas story. In the midst of our deepest darkness, the mysterious laser light of grace shines through to guide our path. All we need is the key of willingness, and the door to the light opens almost on its own. This doesn’t mean the results will be presented on a silver platter. We still need to do the footwork. But we are given direction, and that makes all the difference.

And what happens when we lose the willingness, as we inevitably will? We're only human, after all. We simply pick it up again, because it is always there waiting for us. These are what we might call everyday miracles. I think this is what Jesus taught us – the Kingdom of God is within our grasp if we will just surrender our pain to the light. But that's for another sermon … I'm getting off the topic.

This kind of everyday miracle happened for my friend. He trained himself to stop focusing on the problem and start focusing on the solution. He gave up obsessing about how his wife should change and instead, he put his efforts into the actions that he could take to make a better life in the current situation. And guess what? After a while of this, she came back, and they dedicated themselves to trying to recognize themselves in each other and to use that understanding to heal the judgment and to bank the coals of love. And they're still together today, not always blissfully, but happier for being together.

And finally we come to the last question: what's the result of helping each other? That's an easy one, right? The result is more happiness all around. We have all had that incredible feeling of gratitude and satisfaction when we have truly surrendered ourselves to helping another. It turns out to have helped both of us, doesn't it? That's inevitable, because we really are all connected. We really are parts of a whole. And when we help each other, we send a wave of love throughout the whole matrix. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true, when we hurt, we spread it as well. And we can't beat ourselves up about that. We are human beings and we make mistakes. We try, and we need help. We need God. And we need each other.

And that's why I am here at South Church, because this is a place where we are dedicated, as our covenant says, "to walk together in the ways of the Lord." That means helping each other, and we do it in spades. I have seen acts of love here that leave me in awe. Like people caring for homebound members. One friend of mine took it on herself to stay the night with an older member whose husband had gone to the hospital, because she knew it would have been hard for her to be alone. As a church body, we send money to help many agencies that bring health and education and hope to people who really need it. We are a church of many kindnesses, as when our wonderful choir decided a couple of weeks ago that even though today would normally be a day off for them, they would rehearse last Thursday and sing today in support of us lay people trying to manage a service. Thank you.

And of course, because we're human, we also hurt each other, as in any family. But if we work to see past our differences and the barriers between us, if we recognize ourselves in each other, we will build love and joy and beauty and strength. And when we falter, we can ask for help – from God and from each other. For we are a people of God.

I want to close with some wisdom from another holy man of yet another faith tradition. In this case, he is a Muslim (talk about a need to build bridges…). I do this because I believe so strongly that, though paths to the truth are many, truth is One. It has been said that though the creeds of different religions appear quite different, if you read mystical poetry from any of the authentic faith traditions, you would not be able to tell from which one it came. Here, then, are a few lines from the mystical branch of Islam called Sufism. They were written by the renowned poet Jellaludin Rumi:

Come, come, whoever you are,

wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter; ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times,

come yet again, come.

Amen