25 th October: 21 st Sunday after Pentecost

Knowing is not doing

I should really only speak for myself, but nine times out of ten I know exactly what I should do. But I don’t. A decade ago in The Preaching of Jesus I argued that Jesus is consistently, and shockingly, clear in the teaching recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. ¹ We know what it means to follow Jesus, but all too often we do not do those things. Why is that?

Jesus comes, ‘proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”’ (Mark 1:14–15). We write dissertations on the meaning of repentance, or Mark’s understanding of pistis, and mumble about a more personal piety, turning our backs on others, and on the community it takes to build and sustain the kingdom of God.

Jesus comes, ‘curing every disease and every sickness’ (Matthew 9:35), and we turn our eyes from the messiness and sadness of illness and suffering, assuring ourselves that our health care system is second to none, trusting the pharmaceutical industry for prescription solutions that overlook the prevention which might keep us from illness in the first place. How 2019 of us.

Jesus says, ‘There is one thing still lacking. Sell all you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’ (Luke 18:22). We wonder at the impossibility of the words, using Jesus’ love of hyperbole as an excuse to keep it all for ourselves. Did Jesus not also say, ‘You will always have the poor with you, and can show kindness to them whenever you wish’ (Mark 14:7)? Confident, no doubt, that one day we will in fact wish to help the poor.

Jesus comes, teaching ‘as one having authority’ (Mark 1:22), and telling us to love the Lord ‘with heart and soul and mind and strength’ and ‘our neighbors as ourselves’ (Matthew 22:37, 39). We still dare to ask, ‘Who is our neighbor?’ while ignoring the sad truth that we do not even know our neighbors’ names.

Our obfuscation of Jesus’ clear words takes many forms—denial, ignorance, willfulness, fear, dependency, selfishness. But we know. God knows. So why don’t we do?

There is an entire arm of religious publishing devoted to books on finding God’s will for our lives. Many of us have read them and recommended them to others from time to time, myself included. When it comes to the big decisions—what vocation to pursue, what position to accept—we all need a conversation partner, and benefit from sound advice. But when it comes to the day-to-day we usually have a pretty good idea what God wants of us, be it the commandment to love God and neighbor, or Micah’s, ‘Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God’ (6:8). What would Jesus do? We know what Jesus would do. So, to borrow another slogan from time past, Just do it!

In writing to the Thessalonians St. Paul reminds his friends that his behavior among them was exemplary. He emphasizes his sincerity, honesty, and humility, and likens himself to a nurse, the Greek text suggesting either a wet-nurse or a nursing mother, ‘tenderly caring for her own children’ (1 Thess 2:7). A few verses later he boasts of, ‘how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was toward you believers’ and that he, ‘dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God’ (1 Thess 2:10–12). There is nothing elsewhere in the undisputed Pauline epistles that sounds even remotely like these verses from his first letter. Paul as loving parent is still a bit of a surprise. But it is a helpful metaphor. Despite the much greater arm of publishing devoted to parenting, and the fact that, indeed, children do not come with an instruction manual, most parents (nine out of ten?) seem to know how to love and raise their children. It comes naturally. So, I think, does following God’s will come naturally to the believer. Two examples may help.

Deuteronomy 30 gives the conclusion to Moses’ great farewell address. The book’s list of ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s seems formidable, but the conclusion suggests otherwise. ‘Surely this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you …’ It is not in heaven, nor beyond the sea. ‘No … it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe’ (Deut. 30:11–14). Or as the Revised Standard Version has it: It is on your lips and in your heart, that you may do it. It is as if Moses is saying, ‘I know keeping Torah seems challenging, but trust me, you’ve got this!’

For a long while the lectionary paired the reading from Deutoronomy with the parable of the Good Samaritan. It took me awhile to realize why. We are accustomed to thinking of the Samaritan as one of the great heroes of the faith, endangering himself to help a wounded enemy. We name hospitals after him, and Christian movements. Except this: he was not a believer and he did not do anything all that extraordinary, at least as Jesus told the story. The NRSV, in yet another poor translation, tells us that, ‘When he saw him he was moved with pity’ (Luke 10:33). Then he stopped, helped, took the injured man to where he could receive more care, even pledged to cover the cost of that care. And then he went back to work.

We learn the wrong lesson from the Samaritan when we emphasize his heroic and saintly intervention. He was just a guy on the way to work who stopped and helped, and then went back to work! The parable does not teach us to drop everything, make any sacrifice, and travel to the end of the earth to do all we can to help other people; the parable teaches us to stop and help.

We can do that. But we need a better translation of Luke 10:33. ‘Moved with pity’ is not going to get us to ‘love your neighbor’. The key word is and must be, ‘compassion’. The Samaritan did not have pity for the injured man, the Samaritan was filled with compassion. He was literally, ‘moved to the depth of his being’ (Gk. splangnizomai).

What is missing in too many parts of our world and our lives is compassion. Self-pity we have in abundance. Compassion makes it possible to do what God asks.