Look for the helpers

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10)
July 13, 2025

The Reverend Dr Adam J Shoemaker

I speak to you in the name of the God who loves us  XXXX of life. Amen. (Amen.)

This morning we hear from the prophet Amos who was a favorite of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because of the way in which Amos was called by God to critique religious hypocrisy. [We wouldn't know anything about that, would we?] The Bible tells us that Amos was a shepherd and a sycamore tree farmer when he was called by God to cast judgment on the people of his day, particularly the powerful people that included the religious elite for the ways in which they used or misused religion to subjugate the poor, to marginalize the oppressed. to self-agrandize themselves. They walked around so puffed up with piety, but that piety was belied by their actions.

For Amos, if this is what religion leads to, then he rejects it whole cloth. In this biblical book of the Bible, the prophet Amos says, "I hate your praise and your worship. I hate your religious festivals, your public displays of piety, if it is devoid of justice," for Amos yearns for the day, looks for the day, when justice would be in such ample supply that it would roll down like waters in righteousness, like an ever-flowing stream. Amos challenges the people of his day, in light of our gospel reading today, to consider how they might increasingly be a good neighbor to those around them.

This is, of course, the focal point of the gospel reading that we just heard read that begins with an encounter Jesus has with a lawyer who is puffed up with pride and he comes to Jesus and he asks him what do I have to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus says well what is written in the law, and the lawyer responds, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” But then this lawyer, as some lawyers are want to do, rhetorically goes a step further and, wanting to justify himself, he asks Jesus a provocative question. He asks, "And who is my neighbor? "

In response, Jesus tells a story, a parable, a well-known parable that has become known as “The parable of the good Samaritan.” It begins with a faithful Jew traveling on the Jericho road who is assaulted, beaten, and robbed. He's left for dead. Then we're told that a priest and a Levite come by in succession. Two publicly pious people, two people who would have been seen as righteous and respectable in their day. We're told that they see the need of this man, but they ask themselves, “If I take the risk of reaching out to help this man in need, what is going to happen to me?” And so they cross the street and pass on to the other side. But then we're told that a Samaritan comes along, which would have been just about the last person that a faithful Jew would have wanted or expected to come to their aid. Samaritans and Jews were in conflict with one another.

This Samaritan sees the need of the man on the side of the road and asks himself a very different question than the priest and the Levite. for the Samaritan asks, "Well, gosh, if I don't come to this man's aid, what is going to happen to him?" And he immediately runs, bandages the man's wounds, takes him to an inn and pays the innkeeper to care for him. At the end of the story, Jesus turns to this lawyer and says, "Who do you suppose was a neighbor to the man in need?" And the lawyer responds, "Well, I suppose the one who showed him mercy." And Jesus says, "Go and do likewise."

So my friends, we who strive to follow Jesus in our daily life, we who all constitute the body of Christ out in the world, are called, I would argue, to understand the concept of being a neighbor as something more than a physical point on a map, something more than those who are physically approximate us. For I believe we are called today to understand that call to be a neighbor as a moral commandment and to push past all of the foolish ways, as our seminarian Shawan Gillan said in her recent sermon, that we separate ourselves, divide ourselves one from another and be mindful of our common humanity, of our connections, our inextricable able connections to the whole human family, to all God's beloved children, and to be especially mindful of our neighbors who are crying out right now for mercy. Our immigrant neighbors, our refugee neighbors, our neighbors who are suffering from natural disasters.

Our neighbors who are all too often scapegoated and victimized due to hatred and discrimination and prejudice. We are called to consider how we might increasingly be a good neighbor to the “least of these”, as the Gospel of Matthew puts it, for Christ's sake, for love's sake. But as Dr. King once famously said in regards to this passage, "The call is to do more than simply see the need and flip a coin to a beggar on the side of the road." No, the call is to increasingly challenge all the proverbial Jericho roads in this world that leave far too many people abused and left for dead crying out for mercy. The call is to be about the work of transforming those noxious systems, which my friends has to be at least a part of what it means to faithfully strive to answer our new presiding bishop Shawn Rose’s call to the church that he issued just a week or two ago. The Episcopal Church, so long a privileged institution, is called to be an engine of sacred resistance when we see injustice in the world, in conflict with the values that we hold dear as followers of Jesus.

Now the problems are overwhelming. We could spend all day coming up with lists of situations of injustice and inequity that trouble our souls. There is so much chaos. It can be overwhelming. But we mustn't forget that God has given us all agency. God has graced us all with gifts that we can use to be a good neighbor out in the world. You know, very recently the Diocese of New York, the Diocese that I was born into, kicked off a moral campaign. We at St. Stephen’s have gone through a capital campaign. The Diocese of New York, under the leadership of their still new bishop Matt Hyde, has begun a moral campaign that they kicked off at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where my mother's ashes are interred and it is called one single act, one single act. And Bishop Hyde is challenging his Diocese, all the people of his Diocese, to consider how they might lean in and be a good neighbor by committing to do one act of care and courage in this world, to extend the kind of grace, mercy, and compassion that we have all so freely received from our God.

We all have the capacity to be a good neighbor. And the promise of this gospel reading, as our former presiding bishop Michael Curry once said, is that the hero in the story that Jesus tells is not the only good Samaritan. Not by any stretch of the imagination. For we are surrounded by good Samaritans. As chaotic as this world seems, we are surrounded by good Samaritans. If we only have eyes to see and ears to hear, we are surrounded by activists and peacemakers and advocates, by upstanders, not bystanders.

Which calls to mind that wonderful quote attributed to the late Reverend Fred Rogers, the late Presbyterian pastor of Mr. Rogers neighborhood, who once famously said that when he was a child and he saw scary and overwhelming things on the news, his mother would always tell him to look for the helpers. Look for the helpers. You will always find people in this world, even in the seemingly godforsaken places in this world, who are helping. And that, my friends, is what we are called to be about for Christ's sake, for love's sake, for the sake of this world that God has made and love so very much. We are called to be a good neighbor and take acts large and small of care and courage, trusting in the power of God's love to ultimately make all things new and have the last word in this world.

That's what we are called to be about. And as I begin to close this sermon today, I I would be remiss in not acknowledging that in just a short while, in the context of this service, we will offer prayers for two faithful longtime members of St. Stephen’s, Michael and Colleen Fenwrick, who are moving away to Portugal to begin a new life together. They have faithfully been a part of our fellowship of faith. And during all those 20 years, 20 years ago, I wasn't even an ordained a priest yet. In those 20 years, they have laughed with us and cried with us and lived life with us and in their own way have been excellent neighbors, have been helpers who have given of themselves again and again and again and helped us in so many ways to be the best version of ourselves. And Michael and Colleen, we will miss you. We will miss you, but I know and trust that you will always be a part of St. Stephen’s. You will always be a part of this fellowship of faith because we all share the same call. Whether we be in Charleston or Lisbon or anywhere else around the world, we are all called to be a good neighbor, following in the footsteps of Jesus and trusting the love of Jesus to ultimately have the last word in this world. Amen.

© 2025 Adam J Shoemaker

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