The Sermon . . .

Rev'd Dr. Brian Porter

I have been ordained for 36 years and have probably preached 36 sermons on the parable of the Good Samaritan. They say somewhat quaintly in old-fashioned Victorian parlance that eventually preachers are reduced to only one sermon, but that each time they give it a new collar and cuffs. My one sermon may well turn out to revolve on the hub of this quintessentially Christian message embodied in today's Gospel. Its very title needs careful enunciation if its impact is to be realised. The title is to be recited in an especially querulous tone of voice as one handles the adjective: the Good Samaritan? The questioning tone is vital. It's akin to saying the Good Nazi or the Good Saddam Hussein or the Good Osama Bin Laden. It seemed inconceivable to a 1st century Jewish audience that a Samaritan could be good.

This is the gist of the matter. To Jews the Samaritans were like Arab terrorists today. Like Yassir Arafat they were regarded as bad people and Samaria was a bad and dangerous place. Yet here we have the enemy doing the right thing by Jewish practice while those two paragons of Jewish piety, the priest and the Levite, men of political correctitude failed lamentably. It's Oscar Schindler all over again: you remember the story made popular by the Australian novelist Thomas Kenneally in Schindler's Ark, later the film version, Schindler's List. This is the true story of a Nazi factory owner who rescued 1100 Jews from the ovens by employing them in his factories: he was a Good Nazi in the eyes of the survivors who have erected a memorial to him in New York. Hence the importance of the adjective Good. Our God is a God of surprises who often turns things upside down: there is my favourite and perhaps my chief sermon mantra.

So I turn next to a new collar and cuffs:

The familiar parable has a lot to say to our multi-faith world and our increasingly multi-faith Australian society. It reminds us that at the heart of all religion is a quest for the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Loving Creator outworking through us. All good religions strive to rescue people from a sense of unimportance by affirming them and impelling them to reach out to others in love and compassion. Bad religion deifies doctrines and exclusivities and creeds and texts. Let us not forget that it is doctrines which have supported slavery and the subjugation of women. Let us not forget that doctrines were behind the Inquisition and Apartheid. Let us not forget that the persecution of blacks and gays has had and still does have a doctrinal basis. The Holocaust was certainly a key element in Nazi ideology as Mein Kampf testifies. Doctrines divide while compassion unites. Down the ages, individuals, communities and nations have been stripped, beaten and left lying in the ditch. That is why the need for rescue is perennial. Christianity, let us never forget, is a religion of rescue. There's my collar. Now to the cuffs.

It's all very well to support the needy close to hand - remember my exhortation the last time I stood here, to act locally - but what about thinking globally? Try this: our tormented and endangered planet also needs to be rescued and restored to its paradisal state. Its very survival is in danger if you think about that apocalyptic trinity of holocausts which is confronting us all on Spaceship Earth; environmental degradation, pandemic poverty, malnutrition and disease and a world awash with weapons of mass destruction.

A sustainable future for our planet requires the commitment of latter day priests, Levites and Samaritans alike if we are to survive. The very Earth itself needs rescuing from such down in the ditch abandonments as are evident in statistics gleaned from any responsible news magazine which you might chance upon these days: 37 million people are suffering from AIDS in the world today with 25 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa; 20 million children have been orphaned by AIDS in the past 5 years; 120 million children of school age nowhere near a school; third world countries spending as much as 3-5 times their basic survival expenditures on paying off debts to rich nations in the first world. Why is Mary's Magnificat so reversed - filling the rich with good things and sending the poor empty away? Then there is military expenditure: ¼ of current world expenditure on war and war preparedness would alleviate most of the world's running sore problems and allow a sustainable life for everyone on Spaceship Earth. Instead aboard, we chuck grenades at each other. How long O Lord? How long?

So there is my collar and cuffs for today.

Thus the parable of the Good Samaritan has a pressing urgency for us as we journey from our Jerusalems to our Jerichos. Here at St John's is our Jerusalem. Are we travelling well? Recent encouragements have been the Indonesian/Uniting Church evening which was such a delight as a symbol of good neighbourliness. Then there is the Friends of St John's which the Vicar has so enthusiastically affirmed as a chief outreach to the elderly. We are acting locally but there is much more to be done. At the same time let us not forget that we are priests. We are Levites. We are Samaritans. We are Australians and we have a Federal election on the horizon. We must also think globally. The Camberwell Sunday Market up the road is a wonderful testament to compassionate secular outreach through Rotary. On display up there are signs informing passers by that in the past couple of years $2 million dollars has been distributed by Balwyn Rotary to a range of worthy causes. But the Body of Christ is Rotary plus. The plus is our very special contribution as the Body of Christ, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Saviour. That's why we are here rather than up at the Market. We are here not as righteous paragons dressed in Sunday best virtue thanking God that we are not as others are, but as wretched sinners looking up from our individual and corporate ditch, hoping to have our wounds bandaged in this, our St John's heavenly inn where we are fed with manna from heaven and taken care of by the innkeeper so that we can respond to Jesus' command to 'Go and do likewise'. That is why the moment we go out the door when this is over is the most important moment in the service.