A Fourth Church Sermon by Calum I. MacLeod

July 15, 2007 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Alienation and Transformation

Calum I. MacLeod
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 82
Deuteronomy 30:9–14
Luke 20:25–37

“He was moved with pity.”

Luke 10:33 (NRSV)

Who is my neighbor? The neighbor was the Samaritan
who approached the wounded man and made him his neighbor.
The neighbor is not he whom I find in my path,
but rather he in whose path I place myself,
he whom I approach and actively seek.

Gustavo Guttériez

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” Thus one of the most famous opening lines of a story in modern literature. Some of you may have recognized it as the opening line of Franz Kafka’s great short story “Metamorphosis.”

Kafka was writing in the early years of the twentieth century in central Europe, in Prague. He wrote stories about individuals struggling with affliction, with alienation. This is a shocking and disorienting beginning to a bizarre—some people find it darkly humorous—certainly tragic tale. From this starting point, Gregor Samsa—an ordinary, middle-of-the-road, traveling salesman—because of his condition, the change, the transformation, starts to encounter fear and lack of understanding on the part of his family. As time goes on, he experiences increasing estrangement. His sister, the reluctant primary caregiver for him, starts to be neglectful, stops putting into his room the simple food for her brother to eat. As time continues, Gregor suffers derision, even abuse, from his father. And in the end, Gregor Samsa’s alienation is complete as he festers and dies of starvation in the bedroom he has not left, bereft of love as his family moves on, glad to be rid of his bothersome presence.

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.” Thus, one of the most famous opening lines of a story in ancient literature, a story perhaps all too familiar to us. Joseph Cuneen, coeditor of the journal CrossCurrents, suggests that too often we are numbed by the familiarity and don’t get the real heart of this story—a story told, of course, by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. A story we call “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”

A shocking, disorienting beginning to a tale. We begin in a rather comfortable situation, we might say: an erudite discussion or disputation in which a rather smug and self-justifying lawyer is testing Jesus. And in just a few words we are transported by Jesus to a hellish place.

A place of fear and anxiety and danger where there are criminals, thugs, robbers present.

A place of shame and humiliation and abuse. It strikes me strongly that the first act of the robbers against the man is to strip him, to make him naked, perhaps the ultimate act of public humiliation.

We’re transported to a place of violence, for this certain man has been beaten to, as they say, within an inch of his life. And as if that’s not hellish enough, this poor man experiences further suffering. A priest happens by on the road in that area, the upholder of the religious rites at the temple. And he passes by, he wants nothing to do with this man’s suffering. Then he’s followed by a Levite, kind of an “associate pastor” at the temple, who also walks by. And so this broken, hurt man lying on the road experiences an estrangement compounded by being ignored by these religious men. He enters into extreme alienation until the unlikely figure of this Samaritan shows up and helps him.

Contemporary preacher Fred Craddock calls him not the “good” Samaritan but the “helpful” Samaritan, and I think that adds some humanity to the story. He’s helping the man. Samaritans, as we know from other places in the Gospels, are not a part of the mainstream Jewish culture. They come from a different place geographically. We know that they are, in fact, themselves outcast, aliens, alienated from the mainstream community. And yet here is the Samaritan kneeling down to bind the wounds of the broken and hurt man.

Both these stories—the story of Gregor Samsa, the story of the man on the road to Jericho—have been interpreted and reinterpreted many times. Many meanings have been found in these rich stories.

I think one thing we can say for sure is that they’re stories about alienation, about being estranged from the mainstream, the experience of being an outsider and not because of anything in particular the person has done.

These two stories touch on deep truths about the human condition. The twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich wrote this about the human condition in his second volume of Systematic Theology. He writes, “The state of existence is the state of estrangement. The person, the individual is estranged from the ground of being (God), from other people, and from the self.”

In both stories alienation comes up as a theme, but only the second story, the story of the man set upon by robbers, explores the overcoming of that estrangement, the defeat of alienation—through the actions of the Samaritan, who helps that that transformation, that redemption, that takes place.

It’s important for us to recognize in this story that there are two aliens, two outcasts: the broken man and the Samaritan who helps him. Old Testament scholar and teacher to the church Walter Brueggemann writes this about the story: he says, “The Samaritan expresses a new way that displaces the old arrangements in which outcasts are simply out.” Brueggemann points out that there’s a new thing that is happening here: there is new life being given. And that story is central to the Christian teaching—the focus on the other—the estranged, the alienated—and how reunion can come about when one sees a neighbor or when one is a neighbor to another.

There’s a great interest in the ancient writings of the desert fathers, early church fathers and mothers wandering around the Egyptian desert from 350 AD and on for about 100 years. One of them has the unfortunate name of John the Dwarf. He’s a very wise man, and the story is told of John the Dwarf speaking with the community. He says to them, “You don’t build a house by starting with the roof and working down. You start with the foundation.” They said: “What does that mean?” He said: “The foundation is our neighbor. The neighbor is where we start. Every commandment of Christ depends on this” (Rowan Williams, Where God Happens, p. 15).

What an extraordinary insight into the heart of the gospel. As you know, it’s part of my privilege and ministry around here to meet with people such as those who’ve joined this morning who are learning perhaps about this church, some learning about Presbyterianism, some people coming new to faith, and often questions revolve around the practice of spirituality, of prayer, of what is to be a Christian. And here is John the Dwarf helping me: “The neighbor is where we start.”

The Samaritan, the scripture tells us, is moved with pity at the man’s plight. In the old King James Version, which will be familiar to many of you, it says this in place, “And [the Samaritan] had compassion on him.”

I prefer the King James version in this case. The word compassion is made up of two Latin words which mean “suffering with.” The Samaritan was “suffering with” the man beaten by the robbers. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent book in which he writes about sin as brokenness, as estrangement, as alienation, says this: “Sin is healed by solidarity, by identification.” The Samaritan, the outcast, identified with the situation of the man made outcast by the criminal act upon him.

Gregor Samsor, you see, had no one who was moved with pity for his plight, no one to identify with him in his pain and alienation.

“Which was a neighbor to the man on the road?” Jesus asked.

“The one who showed him mercy.”

“Go,” said Jesus, “and do likewise.”

Amen.