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July 15, 2007, Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, All Sols' Episcopal Church              

The Omega Point
Luke 10; 25 – 37

A verse from The Old Testament passage assigned for today is from the Book of Deuteronomy:
But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth,
And in thy heart, that thou may do it.

God tells us through these words of Moses, that He has planted the knowledge of goodness…..the knowledge of right and wrong….within each one of us at creation.

In present day Jerusalem, the museum that commemorates the Jewish Holocaust of WW II, is approached by a road called Avenue of the Righteous. The road is lined with trees. And each tree was planted to honor a gentile who has risked his life to help a Jew. The gentile’s good deeds, are defined by the Jews for the world to see, as righteousness.

Righteousness and goodness involves doing what we know is right! God, way back in this Book of Deuteronomy, makes it perfectly clear that He has planted His laws of righteousness and goodness where we can not fail to find them. They are in each of us!

Why are they there? Quite simply………………………..

God wants us to know them and obey them.

Knowing what is right and good. ……But…...what does it take to getting us to Do what is right and good?

Certainly this drama is being played out in our Gospel story of the Good Samaritan. For it is there that Jesus, in polite story form, tells a lawyer not to be so calculating. He tried to point out to this lawyer of religious law that all men everywhere are his neighbors and are therefore entitled to any goodness and help he can give them.

We do not need any blinding light from heaven, nor do we need a divine booming voice from heaven. Each one of us knows the good we should be doing!

 And the time that we should be doing that goodness is not “one of these days”………it is here, and it is now………in this and in every other time period of our lives

 A young novice who was talking to his Master eagerly described what he dreamed of doing for the poor.

Said the Master: “When do you propose to make your dream come true?”

The novice said, “As soon as the opportunity arrives.”

The Master replied, “Opportunity never arrives,  It’s here.!!”

What does God call us to do?

What does He intend for us to do?…….answer?………

We are intended, as followers of Christ, to strive to reach out for what the French priest – scientist Chardin (Shahr DAN), called “The Omega Point”. That great final goal of goodness and love that our Creator calls each of us to.  There is a Jewish Hasidic story that talks of our souls that have descended from heaven to earth on a long ladder. Then the ladder is taken away. Now, up there, in heaven, they call the souls home. They  call us back. Some don't budge, for how can one get to heaven without a ladder? Others leap and fall and leap again and give up. but there are those who know full well that in our fallen humanity, we can not achieve it, but we try and try over and over again until God reaches down and catches hold of us and pulls us up. Our Christianity tells us that this is God’s Grace pulling us up as we each seek to reach the Omega Point of perfection in our lives through an awareness….a relationship…an outreach to God and neighbor.

 Several years ago, an Ivy League school set out to test the “Samaritan” responses of students. The students were divided into three groups Each group was told to report to a building across campus to take a test. The first group was told to be there immediately. They were dubbed the “high hurry” group. The second group, instructed to arrive within minutes, were labeled the “moderate hurry” group. The third group  was simply told to report to the building and were known as the “no Hurry” group. Unbeknown to the students, they had been “setup.” Along the way to the appointed building, various individuals poised as persons in need. Some were crying. Some pretended to be sick. Some had flat tires or other problems requiring assistance.

Results ?

None of the students in the “high hurry” or “moderate hurry” groups stopped to offer help. However, every student in the “no hurry group” did stop! Might we conclude that as the hurry in our lives increases, our caring decreases?

So….how does it go for us? Which are we? Levite or Samaritan? What is our matter of importance? What is our matter of consequence? What is our daily agenda? Does our agenda have any outreach? Do we really care? Are you and I in too much of a hurry to notice outside our own tiny little worlds?

 Just as was the case with the students on campus and the three travelers in our Gospel story, we all know that each of our paths in life are lined with people in need. Most of us are busy, and that is good. All of us have important appointments to keep, and that is good, but in all reality, there are shades of gray in everyone of our agendas, is there not?  There are those in need of someone to listen to them…..really listen! St Francis De Sales once said:
“Half an hour’s listening is essential except when
you are really busy
Then a full hour is needed”

Those in need of listening could be our own children who need to know once again that they matter. They may be our spouses to whom we have pledged our lives. They may be friends or acquaintance

And what has our agenda been? What has put us in such a hurry? A project to complete? A newspaper to read…. A worry to attend to….a cup of Starbucks coffee to pick up on the way to work…..What have we deemed our matter of consequence and importance for the moment?

 In the final analysis, it is so much easier to emulate the teacher of the law in our Gospel story who was in such a hurry to justify himself than he was to slow down. We might learn a better way of behaving if we slow down long enough for the Gospel message to go beyond our recitation and even beyond our intellectual assent to the core of our behavior.

Jesus described the final judgement as the time when the real matters of consequence will be brought to light. How will we experience it?  Will we be ready? 

 When we begin to show the real love of God to our neighbors, then stopping to care becomes more important than whatever else our hurry is about. For the man in the Gospel, self-justification and a list of rules were the matters of consequence. That is what he was in a hurry to proclaim. If we studied ourselves, what would emerge as our matter of consequence? Would we resemble the hurried students crossing the campus, or the Samaritan?

 A final thought: I think if we ponder how God stopped and stooped down to mankind in the preciseness of time and sent His only Son to show us how to live….

That He really does care and love us, our gratitude would spill over into an outreach that touches the lives of others even more than it does now.

Remember our opening passage from Deuteronomy which told us that we have all the ingredients for making the right decisions planted within us at creation.

 The neighbor-love that Jesus portrays in our Gospel is without limits or preconditions. It is the epitome of  Chardin’s  “Omega Point” we discussed earlier seeking the perfection of love in our lives. This love has no national boundaries. No color or gender requirement. It allows for no religious discrimination. As the sun and the rain fall on the just and the unjust, so should this neighbor love be bestowed freely and spontaneously…..without any thought of payback.

 A religious faith that remains solely philosophical, one that keeps itself unsoiled from contact with a hurting world (“Passing by on the other side”) …..that religious faith is a fraud! “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the Will of the Father, says Jesus and He could not be clearer.

 Will what I do help? Will what I do help the world? Will it change the world? Will what you do change the world?  Will it make a difference in the greater scheme of things? ……………I think it will..

 An elderly man and his granddaughter were walking on the beach one bright blue morning. Everywhere they looked, to their surprise, were grounded starfish….thousands of them had washed up on the shore overnight. Many had already dried up, and the gulls were diving on the live ones in a feeding frenzy. The little girl bent over and picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean. She did it again and again for several minutes. Finally her grandfather said: “Honey, there are literally millions of starfish in the sea. Spending the morning here, throwing them back into the ocean, is not going to make any difference.” The little girl picked up one more starfish and hurled it into the sea. She looked up at her grandfather and said, “I bet it made a difference to that one.”

 The Good Samaritan made a difference. You and I can make a difference as we strive for God’s Grace, to reach the Omega Point of love,. and compassion to God………..and, of course, to our neighbor

Amen