The Heart of Christianity

The Heart of Christianity

A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Randy K. Hammer, August 29, 2021

Luke 10:25-37; reading from Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity

There is a delightful story about a 13^th century monk named Brother Juniper.  Brother Juniper was a companion of St. Francis of Assisi.  The story goes that Brother Juniper had so much pity and compassion for the poor that whenever he saw anyone who was badly clothed he would immediately rip off a piece of his own clothing and give it to him.  Such was Brother Juniper’s habit that his superior at the monastery ordered him under obedience not to give all or even a part of his clothing to anyone ever again.

A few days later it happened that Brother Juniper met a poor man who was almost naked and who begged him to give him something out of his love of God.  And Brother Juniper said to him very compassionately, “My dear man, I have nothing to give you except my habit [the robe worn by monks].  But my superior has told me under obedience not to give it away to anyone.  But if you pull it off my back, I certainly will not prevent you.”  The poor man immediately jerked the habit off Brother Juniper’s back, inside out, and ran away with it, leaving him standing there naked.

When Brother Juniper went back to the monastery, the friars asked him where his habit was.  And he answered, “Some good person pulled it off my back and went away with it.”¹  This story gives a whole new meaning to giving someone the shirt off your back, doesn’t it?

The compassion we see in the life and actions of Brother Juniper accords well with that we see in the actions of the Good Samaritan.  This beloved story—one of my favorites in all the Bible, and perhaps one of yours as well—needs to be read and understood within its context.  Notice that the story immediately follows Jesus’ conversation with a lawyer about what constitutes true religion.  What must we do to attain life? the lawyer asked.  What do you say?  Or to put the question another way, What is the heart of religious faith that puts one in right standing with God?

From the earliest days of religious practice, I suppose, there has been disagreement between those who say true religion is one thing and those who say true religion is another thing.  It is a battle still raging in America today between those who say true Christians are those who believe the right things and those who contend that true Christians are those who do the right things.  The question the lawyer posed to Jesus—“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”—has never failed to generate controversy.

The answer to the lawyer’s question is twofold: (1) “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and (2) you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  But who is our neighbor?   And how do we love our neighbor?  That is the question, isn’t it?  The way we love our neighbor, according to the story of the Good Samaritan that follows, is through compassion—to feel with, to enter into, to do something about the sufferings of others.  Eternal life is found not just in believing, not just in knowing or reciting the creeds or commandments, but rather, in doing them.  Notice the action verbs in the story of the Good Samaritan.  The Samaritan had compassion, went, bound, poured, brought, took care of, and gave.  The scripture before us seems to be quite clear in stating that true religion is love (or compassion) in action.

In part because of his comments on this passage, contemporary theologian Marcus Borg helped me gain a whole new understanding of what it really means to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus.  You know how sometimes you run across a book or an article that turns out to be one of those epiphany or light bulb experiences?  You encounter an idea or a kernel of wisdom or truth that turns your life in a whole new direction?  Well, reading Borg’s book titled Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time proved to be one of those life-changing experiences for me.  Of the hundreds of books I have read over the years, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time definitely ranks in the top ten.  And Borg’s book, The Heart of Christianity, comes in near the top as well.  To be faithful, truly religious in the best sense of the term, Borg explains, is to be compassionate.  Borg points out that a couple of verses that are translated in most Bibles as “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mathew 5:48 NRSV) or “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36 NRSV) can also be translated “be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate” (Luke 6:36 NLT).

Borg goes on to explain that two systems of religious thought prevailed in Jesus’ day: those who preached that the primary goal of religion was purity.  And then there was a very small minority who believed that the primary goal of religion is compassion, which had been proclaimed by a few of the ancient Hebrew prophets and was the way of Jesus.  Borg contends, “For Jesus, compassion was the central quality of God and the central moral quality of a [faithful] life centered in God.”  “Compassion, not holiness,” Borg explains, “is the dominant quality of God, and is therefore to be the ethos of the community that mirrors God.”²  Jesus’s way of compassion, which stood up for the rights of the marginalized and outcasts, clashed with the way of the religious right who were only concerned with keeping themselves pure.  Religious purity void of compassion can easily become self-righteousness, and carried to extremes can become religious fanaticism.  A similar battle rages off and on in America between those whose goal is purity and those who believe true religion is compassionate justice.  Borg’s work helped me to understand this.

One person who believed that Christian faith is compassion in action was Mother Teresa of Calcutta.   Some years ago, when Mother Teresa visited Washington, D.C., she did not go to the centers of power and prestige.  Rather, she went to the slums, the centers of poverty in the nation’s capital.  A news reporter asked her, “What do you hope to accomplish here?”  Mother Teresa replied, “The joy of loving and being loved.”  “That takes a lot of money, doesn’t it?” the reporter asked.  Mother Teresa shook her head and said, “No, it takes a lot of sacrifice.”³

Mother Teresa would also write, “I would like more people to give their hands to serve and their hearts to love. . . and to reach out to [the poor] in love and compassion.”⁴

A heart-warming story from Israel that I ran across this week is a modern-day Good Samaritan story.  Idit Segal was celebrating her 50^th birthday.  She decided upon a gift – a gift that she wanted to give.  Segal decided to donate one of her kidneys to a total stranger.  The Israeli kindergarten teacher hoped that her gift would set an example of generosity in a region that has known continual conflict.  Segal remembered something her late grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, had told her about living a meaningful life and a Jewish tradition, which holds that there’s no higher duty than saving a life.

So Segal contacted a group that connects kidney donors with needed recipients.  The match turned out to be a three-year-old Palestinian boy from the Gaza Strip.  Segal wrote a letter in Hebrew to the boy.  “You don’t know me, but soon we’ll be very close because my kidney will be in your body.  I hope with all my heart this surgery will succeed and you will live a long and healthy and meaningful life.”  Segal’s family opposed the surgery and many of them got very upset with her for unnecessarily risking her life for a total stranger.  And they didn’t even know who the recipient was to be.

The surgery was successful.  Segal’s kidney saved the boy’s life.  But it also inspired the Palestinian boy’s father to donate one of his kidneys – to a 25-year-old Israeli mother of two.  Segal and the boy’s family stay in touch now.  And all her family members who were so upset came around and understand.  Segal – a Jew – in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, reached across cultural barriers to show mercy and compassion.⁵

It is as Robert Fulghum observes in his book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, “The invincible weapon against the evils of this earth [is] the caring [compassionate] heart.”

Well, you, no doubt, have heard the phrase, “Getting to the heart of the matter.”  Clearly, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, with its emphasis upon compassion, is at the heart of the gospel, the message of Jesus.  And compassion is at the heart of what is required to live an authentic spiritual life.  Christianity, as I have come to see it, is more a compassionate way of life than a way of right belief.  And this move toward putting more emphasis upon compassion is the trend now in theology.  In the words of Marcus Borg, “Christian practice is about walking with God, becoming kind, and doing justice.”⁶

The challenge before us is to order our thinking and order our lives and order our actions in such a way that compassion becomes paramount.  For compassion, I have come to believe, is the heart of Christianity and it is at the heart of any true religion, for that matter.  Amen.

 

¹The Little Flowers of St. Francis (New York: Doubleday, 1958), pp. 226-227.  ²Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (San Francisco: Harper, 1994), pp. 46, 49, 54.  ³reported by Chuck Colson.  ⁴Mother Teresa, My Life for the Poor.  ⁵Laurie Kellman, Associated Press, reported in CHRISTIAN CENTURY, Aug. 25, 2021.  ⁶Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003, p. 205.