Listen with me to the words of the 13th Century Persian poet, Rumi:

“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing,
And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.”

What possible gift could that awful cousin of mine who annoys me every time I see him be offering me? How could that sad-faced woman who walks down my street every morning be a guide? Oh, I maybe I can understand how my four-year old neighbor’s child with his bright eyes and amazement at every insect he sees gives me another way of seeing the world, but how could the resentment which surprises me when it bubbles up on my way to work as I see someone with unscheduled time enjoying the summer’s day be offering me anything? Would it help me to pray about it and place it before God, asking God’s help to discern its meaning? Would that help me
cultivate a more hospitable attitude both without and within?

To see the gift in each experience, we are asked to cultivate a new way of seeing, a different vision of the world. In our lectionary passages today, we are asked to see the world, the law, and our place within it in a different way. The law can free us or it can chain us and bind us. It is for us to learn the difference. What is the eternal perspective that we are being asked to understand?

In Deuteronomy, we read that we are to turn to our God with all our heart and with all our soul, and we will find that the Word is very near to us—it is in our mouths and in our hearts. It is not impossible or too difficult. It is not found up there in the heavens or way beyond the seas, but, we are told, is in our mouths and in our very hearts to observe. “The Word is very near you.”

T. S. Eliot reminds us of this in his poem, “Ash Wednesday”, when he says:

“Where will the Word be found?
Where will the Word resound?
Not here,
There is not enough silence.”

Ah, the paradoxes of the spiritual life—where Truth is held. This is one of the very reasons we take time in our Healing Prayer Service each month here at Old South for silence. To listen within for the Word that is very near us. To remember that the gift of God’s love, grace, and healing presence for our bodies, our minds, and our spirits is as close as our breath, and is found in each other as well as within our own hearts, as we turn to God, holding nothing back.

As we take time for letting this Word speak to our souls, a new vision begins to develop. Light shines into our shadowed way of seeing things. We see something we hadn’t seen before. And we are to let that Light shine.

In our lectionary Gospel passage in Luke, we witness an encounter between Jesus and a lawyer, or scholar of the religious law. This is perhaps one of the most familiar passages of scripture, one of the best-known stories of the Bible. How might it be offering us new light today?

Clearly, the lawyer knew the “right answer” to his own question about what he must do to inherit eternal life. Wisely, Jesus let him answer it for himself: “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.”

But that wasn’t enough for the lawyer. No, scriptures tell us he wanted to “justify himself.” Ah, self-justification! One of our favorite, and most seductive power plays in life. It ranks right up there with denial, defense, and rationalization as ways to avoid more light from breaking into our lives. Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to give up self-justification for Lent? The vulnerability felt overwhelming. Relying on God and not my own self-image that much? Let’s just say it didn’t go very well, but it taught me a lot about myself, most of which I didn’t really want to see! But to be freed is to be enlightened, to be undeceived. Such a task of being freed from the slavery of legalism is probably the work of a lifetime.

Back to the story. Seeking to justify himself, the lawyer asks, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus gives him (and us) the story of two religious people who could justify themselves and their actions, hiding behind those justifications as ways not to be open to compassion, empathy, and care.

Let’s look at the setting of this encounter and set the stage for the way people who were listening in Jesus’ day might have heard this story. Jerusalem sits at the top of a mountain range, and the path down to Jericho is rugged, twisting back and forth, with mountains and passes and many hiding places for thieves. Jericho is at the base of the Dead Sea, the lowest point geographically in Israel. So the journey from Jerusalem to Jericho is dangerous in and of itself. Another interesting point is that Jericho was a kind of resort area on the Dead Sea. People went there for time apart, vacationing, if you will, relaxing. So we might hear something like “ a priest was on his way
from Boston to Provincetown or Chatham.” One, a city of work, the other, a place of leisure.

Jerusalem was, of course, the location of the temple, where the priest would do his ceremonial duties. The Levite was a member of the priestly tribe, the tribe of Israel from whom the priests were selected, and who were kind of like the temple assistants. These men were held to strict observances of the law. To touch blood or a dead body (if this beaten man had died during their effort to help him) would render them unclean and they would need to return to the temple for up to two weeks of a cleansing ritual. This would hardly be appealing if I am finally on my way down to Jericho for a hard-earned time of rest. “I just can’t risk this. It is too much to ask. I need my vacation!” The law does not free here, but binds. Which law am I to follow? What is written on my heart? What happened to the law of kindliness, empathy, and compassion? They walk by on the other side of the road.

Later, a Samaritan comes by on his journey. Now of course it is important also to know that Samaritans belonged to the tribe of Israel that was considered unclean. The rejected class, basically good for little more than grunt work. He would be seen as one of the least, last, or lost. Ceremonially unclean, socially outcast, and religiously considered a heretic, the Samaritan was hardly about justifying himself. He knew he was far beyond that possibility. Freed from the legalisms, he opened his heart to the Word and saw there what the others had blinded themselves from seeing. A brother in need, one more like himself than different. He let the light shine, and it revealed a vision of one family on one little planet, trying to learn to love one another and offering ourselves in the struggle for justice, healing, and peace.

And his extravagance was amazing. He goes far beyond the law of what he is to do and offers himself, his time, his goods. He is freed to care. He even makes plans for the future needs of this unfortunate one and will pay other expenses incurred on his way back through the area. “Which of these three was a neighbor to the man?” Jesus asks. “The one who showed him mercy.” “Go, and do likewise,” is Jesus’ directive.

According to the “action science” model of life, we live in a world of “designed blindness”. There is much both within and without that we simply choose not to see. How far from being the hospitable guest house we have come as a society, as a culture! But Jesus is clear on this one. We do belong to one another. And not to see this is and act upon it is to risk our very soul’s wellbeing.

In my own work with a boy who was only eight years old, yet who had faced a grievous loss and affront, I came upon another layer of enlightenment and wisdom. I use his reflection with permission. He wrote:

“He has seen it,
The painful light.
And now the world has changed.
We must look into the painful light,
Or it will overwhelm us
With unexpected despair.”

The light shining in the shadows sometimes is painful, but always is a healing light. And it reveals a new way of seeing things. Perhaps it is my growing up as a young gay person on a South Dakota farm that makes me love this poem of Louise Gilpin that also shines a new light on an experience of rejection called “The Two-Headed Calf”:

“Tomorrow, when the farm boys find this “freak of nature”,
they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight, he is alive in the north field with his mother.
It is a perfect summer’s night:
The moon rising over the orchard,
The wind in the grass,
And as he looks into the sky,
There are twice as many stars as usual.”

Stars shining in the darkest night, showing us the way to compassion.
There is value in the least, the lost, the last. How might my heart be a guest house for God’s creation? Dare we let the light shine that shows us the way to care for one another?

These acts of kindness/ acts of valuing another change the person receiving them. They heal. They also change the person offering the kindness and valuing. They heal. And perhaps surprisingly, they change the witness who hears, who sees, who experiences such acts. They heal. Thus community builds, a community of Christ, based on “going and doing likewise.”

Sometimes our having a new vision comes slowly, like the fog receding over the ocean on a hot summer’s morning to reveal a sailboat in the distance. Sometimes we learn to read the signs of the new light over time, practicing being the guest house, practicing the presence of God one day, one moment at a time, practicing gratitude for the things in life to which I so easily can become blind.

At other times, the new light shines and we are almost overwhelmed by God’s revelations. Lisa Weins Heinsohn, a colleague who is also a spiritual director and advisor puts it this way:

“I have been selling peanuts at a little tourist stand
my whole life
with my back to the Grand Canyon,
and until yesterday
never once have I turned around.

Yesterday, someone passed me with a mirror
and I split wide open.
Trembling,
trembling with my eyes shut, almost afraid to see,
I turned,
dared to look,
and before me was the ecstasy of light,
of red rock, of immensity beyond imagination
right in my back yard.
Ahhhhhh, my heart cries, it sputters, it groans
All the years!
All the years selling peanuts!
What have I done, dear God, where have I been?

Abandoned,
I have not waited even to tie my shoes.
My peanuts lie, torn paper bags, strewn on the ground,
the cash register open,
dollar bills flapping in the wind.
All forgotten, relics.

I stumble around,
around the vastness of this unimaginable beauty,
my heart breaking at each new crevice,
each new canyon wall
of light and dust and rock and pinion pine,
each sunrise,
sunset,
the possibilities only beginning,
a galaxy of rock and splendor to explore.

Let my bones lie in some corner of this miracle,
this mystery.  I will die happy.”

19th Century Swiss Protestant Huguenot, Henri Ariel, reminds us:

“Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the shadowed journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, and make haste to be kind.”

Yes, “This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
Be grateful for whoever comes.
For each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”

Amen.