Ramblin' with Roger

My church is participating in a Lenten series, “Everything In Between,” which “invites us to navigate the polarities in our lives with more faith, intention, and openness to be transformed… Each weekly sub-theme explores two supposed binaries, like ‘faith & works’ or ‘rest & growth,’ or ‘grief & hope.’ We often consider these ideas to be opposing. However, as we explore these concepts within the scriptures, we find nuance and complexity… these dichotomies are false. We might begin to see a full spectrum instead of black and white. We might find that God is present in between.”

The first sermon on finding God was about ‘stranger’ and ‘neighbor.’ The text was the hyper-familiar Good Samaritan parable.

First, the pastor painted the enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans. Here’s a useful comparable narrative I found. “Imagine the hatred between Serbs and Muslims in modern Bosnia, the enmity between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, or the feuding between street gangs in Los Angeles or New York, and you have some idea of the feeling and its causes between Jews and Samaritans in the time of Jesus. Both politics and religion were involved.”

The hymn afterward, I Saw a Stranger, Words: Anna Strickland (2024), to the tune KINGSFOLD (I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say or Oh Sing A Song Of Bethlehem)  amplified the sermon:

NEIGHBOR:
“I saw a stranger on the road in need of help and care
No clues to their identity, just human flesh laid bare
A thought had fluttered through my mind: ‘Is this one of my own?’
My tribal mind made me forget that they’re bone of my bone

What if you’re in the neighborhood and see someone who is an “other” in need? Do you aid them or fear that those in your tribe will chastise you?

From the other side

STRANGER:
“I laid there desperate by the road in need of help and care
As one by one they passed me by, too busy or too scared
Then one approached and my first thought was ‘Do they mean me harm?’
To my surprise, they met my eyes and held me in their arms”

If you are the injured party, you may wonder: Is that “other” person really going to help me?

BOTH parties are afraid. In Luke’s story, the injured person and the Samaritan are actually terrified. See how much they are alike! It was the best Good Samaritan sermon I ever heard, and I’ve listened to a LOT of sermons on the topic.

So when so-called evangelicals call Jesus “Liberal” and “Weak,” I disagree wholly. Jesus is radical.

The Weekly Sift explains: 

“Maybe you were horrified by Musk’s statement [in a Joe Rogan interview] about empathy.

The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.

(I’ve seen this in other administration officials, who bloviate, “You’ll just have to get used to it.” These are mean, schmucky people.)

Let’s keep that empathy in check!

“Well, you should know that seeing empathy as an exploitable weakness isn’t just a psychological quirk Musk has because he’s on the spectrum. It’s become a thing on the Right. A conservative Christian author has a book out called Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.

We are told that empathy is the highest virtue—the key to being a good person. Is that true? Or has “empathy,” like so many other words of our day—“tolerance,” “justice,” “acceptance”—been hijacked by bad actors who exploit compassion for their own political ends?

So, compassion is a…sin? Weekly Sift hears them saying, “Yep. If you find yourself feeling sorry for bombed-out communities in Gaza, hungry children in Africa, or working-class families losing their health insurance in the US, it’s a trap. Jesus wouldn’t want you to fall for it. ‘Love your neighbor’ now means something else entirely.”

But no, it does not. Matthew 22, Mark 12, and Luke 10 record Jesus’s two greatest commandments: “Love God and love other people.” A theology that preaches that empathy is in short supply is simply an abomination.