I have found what I believe to be the shortest sermon ever preached.  No, I did not say that I would preach, this morning, the shortest sermon ever preached, but rather, that I have found the shortest sermon ever preached.  It’s four words long, and this is how it came to be.

It seems that there was once an old, senile priest on his last year before a long-overdue retirement.  These lessons, of course, are on a three-year cycle, and when this story of the Good Samaritan came up on the lectionary, he realized that it would be the last time that he would ever preach it.  And so, he put everything he ever thought or heard or knew about this parable into one, great, blow-out final sermon. 

He ended up with 18 pages—single-spaced pages—of this sermon of his life.  It was certain to last over his usual 45-minute sermon (you guys are so spoiled!), but when the time came, and he mounted the pulpit, he suddenly realized that he had left the manuscript on his desk.  There was only, in front of him, an empty pulpit. 

So, he thought for a moment, then looked out over the congregation and said, “Go and do likewise”.  And he sat down.  And in some ways, it doesn’t get any better than that.  The story preaches itself.  Love your neighbor.  What’s that mean?  Here’s a story.  Do like that. 

I can imagine the kinds of things that were in the eighteen-page sermon.  This story has been studied, interpreted, allegorized, meditated over, and preached on for just about 20 centuries. 

The Desert Fathers in the earliest centuries saw very clearly that the traveler, the victim if you will, was a Christ figure, and the story invites us to help the unfortunate—that when we help the least of these, we help Christ Himself.

The Middle Ages saw it as an Allegory, where everything represents something else in detail.  So, the Traveler was the soul going through life, the thieves represented Evil and Death, the Good Samaritan represented Christ (who saves us from evil and death), and the Inn was the Church, a place of healing.

2.

Not to be outdone in the Allegory department, the early 20th Century “psychologizers” of the Gospel saw the story as a Freudian parable of the journey towards mental health.  Each character, in other words, represents a part of our personality.  The traveler is the ego, the thieves represent the dark and dangerous hidden part of our personality called the Id, and the Good Samaritan represents that part of us which knows right from wrong and wants to do good, called the Super-ego.  The whole story is one of psychological healing and wholeness. 

Which one is “right”?  Well, the truth is that, in each generation, the powerful and dynamic words of scripture speak the Good News in ways that that generation needs to hear.  So what about us?  What parts of this story speak especially to us, especially at this moment in our journey?

I’ll tell you what jumps out at me from this Gospel lesson, and that is the lawyer, the one who asked Jesus the question that prompted the story in the first place. Why the lawyer?  One reason is his hunger—his spiritual hunger.  He is like us, I believe, on the higher end of the economic spectrum, successful, prosperous, and yet hungry, hungry for that which really satisfies and feeds, that which fulfills.  “Master, what must I do to obtain eternal life?”

The answer of which he already knows, even as Jesus knows that he knows—academically, at least.  “Love God, love your neighbor”.  And this is more than just pulling over on the interstate and helping out someone with a flat tire, though that’s included.  It means make a difference in the world, look out there and see what’s happening and take action to heal it, to fix it, to make it better.  To feel the pain of the world, and respond with thoughtful action.  He is like us in his hunger, to know God and to make a difference in the world.

But he is also like us in his busyness and his feeling of being overwhelmed by it all.  That’ why he asks that second question:  “Yes, but who is my neighbor?”  Meaning, who is not my neighbor.  In other words, whom can I exclude?  If loving my neighbor means doing good and making a difference, then, for gosh sakes, where do I draw the line?”

3.

Why does he ask this question?  I’ll tell you why.  It’s because he’s just gotten back from vacation, and his pile of mail is about ten inches deep.  And this is what falls out of the box into his hands:

Invitations to participate in the Hunger Walk, the Cancer Run, the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Picnic, a DEO Volunteer Meeting, plus letters marked “urgent” from the Red Cross Disaster Relief, Food for the Poor, Christian Children’s Fund, the Lakota Indian College Fund, the Sierra Environmental Fund, Amnesty International, the Dalton Education Foundation, the Make-a-Wish Foundation for Children with cancer, and yes, the Church. 

There are times for this lawyer that the needs of the world seem just overwhelming, and, frankly, it would be easier to just draw a line somewhere, or spend a little more time talking about it, studying the situation, something, anything, to keep from being overwhelmed. 

And yet, it is against that spiritual hunger for abiding life on the one hand, and the sense of being overwhelmed, on the other, that Jesus tells this story.  So what is the secret of this story for the lawyer?  Maybe the secret to the story for that lawyer, and for us, is this: that finally, there was only one victim in need for that one day, and the Samaritan did what he could—for that one person, for that one day.  That is what we are called to do, in the end: what we can, for whom we can, when we can.  And, all of us doing that will be enough to make a difference.

Once there was a little girl who walked on the beach with her father.  There had been a storm at sea that week, and the tide had been especially high, so that, all over the beach were hundreds, thousands of beautiful starfish, all stranded on the sand as the tide went quickly back out.  The little girl started scurrying around, picking up the starfish and tossing them into the ocean.

The father said, “Honey, there are thousands and thousands of starfish out here.  There’s no way you can save all these starfish, even if you were here all night.  It’s not going to make a difference.”  Whereupon the little girl took a starfish, tossed it into the water and said, “It did to that one”.

Now, go and do likewise. Amen.