Lent 1 :: Feb 17 :: Luke 10:25-42

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Our two lessons for today might seem like they don’t have very much in common, but they share one, fundamental theme: distraction. Perhaps you’ve met some of the people who are the easily distractible types. You know, the one’s whose trains of thought keep hopping the tracks and you can never keep up. I know that there are even a few of you here who are like that.

Me, I’m the kind of person who has to follow a train of thought until it comes to a complete stop. But I want to twist this around a little bit and make you think about this all very differently.

Those of you who are much more like me, the kind of people who have to follow a train of thought until it comes to a complete stop, are guilty of distraction as well. How, you ask? Let me tell you.

As much as my kind of brain is applauded for being on task and for being perseverant, my kind of brain is also missing everything that it is not able to focus on. Every little piece of information that doesn’t happen to be on the same train as the one chugging through my head is completely missed. I fail to notice, when I am reading a book, the wonderful conversations going on the hallway. I fail to notice the beautiful sunset when my eyes are glued to the TV. I fail to notice my beautiful little girl twirling in her princess dress when my mind is fixated on the frustrating thing that happened at church that morning.

While I might not be easily distractible, I am also missing out on much of life. You see, life happens in the interruptions. Life happens in all the little things that go on around you, some of which you might notice and some of which you don’t. Life happens in the distractions.

Those of us with one-track minds, who cannot possible jump the track for some other distraction, are cursed with blinders, causing us to miss everything going on around us.

That’s the kind of distraction we are talking about in our lessons for this morning. It’s the kind of singularly focused, unshakable attention of the lawyer and Martha, the law keeper.

In the first lesson, we have the lawyer, who is out to test Jesus. He asks Jesus, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now, you have to understand a thing or two about Jesus if you are going to understand why Jesus responds the way he does. Jesus is the master storyteller, a master teacher, he is a true Jewish rabbi. Turning the question right back around, Jesus asks the lawyer, “You’re the lawyer. What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

And the lawyer responds with the Greatest Commandment from Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6, “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 your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “yes, you’re right. So get out there an do it.”

Imagine the offense the legal expert took when Jesus assumed he hadn’t been following the law. So, to continue to test Jesus, the lawyer asks, “Well, who is my neighbor?”

And this is where Jesus’ mastery comes in. He tells the legal expert a parable. It’s a story about a man who’d been traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho (just the opposite of Jesus who was traveling from Jericho to Jerusalem were he would be beaten a crucified). On the road, the man was mugged, and left half dead. Two priests walked right past the man left for dead, a regular priest and a priest of the Levitical order, one who knew the law from Leviticus about loving your neighbor as yourself. Except that neither one of them must have understood who their neighbor was.

And then Jesus works his story telling magic. Just then, Jesus said, a Samaritan walked by. A SAMARITAN! Can you believe it? He stopped, helped the man, cleaned him up, got him a place to stay and anything else he needed. A Samaritan! Now, Jesus reminds the lawyer, who followed that law of loving neighbor as yourself?

The one who showed him mercy, the lawyer chokes out, unable to even say the word Samaritan.

Precisely, Jesus says, now get out there and do the same.

Jesus uses the story to show just how distracted by the law the two priests were. In doing their very best to avoid being made unclean by the dying man, the priests walked right past the man left for dead. These two priests were so distracted by the law of uncleanness that they completely avoided the law to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. Their singular focus, their one track minds, led them to completely avoid a hurting, dying man on the road.

Sometimes in life, in fact more often than any of us would care to admit, we are so distracted by our singular focus that we completely avoid loving our neighbor as ourselves. Even when we are trying to be virtuous and morally good, we forget that we are called and commanded by God to love God and to love our neighbor. This great commandment goes unnoticed by us because our one-track minds are focused on other things, even if they are virtuous and good.

Our mission, our calling, God’s commandment, is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving God means stopping when someone is hurt and caring for them. Loving God means forgetting about our own, singular agendas, even if they are good, to sit with someone who is in pain, either emotionally or physically. Loving God means loving your neighbor.

Our virtues often get in our way. Our best efforts are often our biggest enemies. This is why I believe Sunday worship is so important. We are all out in the world, doing our best to live good and decent lives, but we are distracted by those things. We need someone to tell us to remember to love God by loving our neighbors. We need someone to throw us off track.

Just like in our second lesson where Martha was so distracted and worried about making sure the house was in perfect order for her houseguest, she forgot the better part of all of it: that Jesus was in town and he was there to preach and teach.

Our distractions, even if they are good ones, keep us from loving God and loving our neighbor. Our focused attention, even when it is on something worthwhile and worthy, often blinds us to the real life that is going on around us.

In the first lesson, the lawyer wanted to know how to inherit eternal life, but Jesus showed him what real life was all about. Jesus pointed out to the lawyer that eternal life has its roots and origins in what life is like here down on earth. These parables are down to earth stories about how to love God and love neighbor.

So, people of God. You are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing: and that one thing is Jesus Christ himself. He will show you what real life is. He will show you the love of God in the little princess dancing while you are distracted by that bad thing that happened at work that day. He will show you the beautiful sunset while you are sucked into the TV. He will show you the wonderful, fruitful conversations while you are stuck in a book. Even if your focus is a worthy one, pay attention. God has a gift for you. In Jesus Christ, his gift is being made known and it is life-giving.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.