God's Love is Personal

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

July 13, 2025

Year C, Proper 10: The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 7:7-17

Psalm 82

Colossians 1:1-14

Luke 10:25-37

God’s Love is Personal

I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that I spend a lot of time thinking about how best to lead our church during this tumultuous time in our country’s history.

The wardens and I talk about it pretty regularly.

How do we hold together our beautiful community, diverse but united, when the forces of division are pushing and pulling all around us?

In a time such as this, how do we remain faithful to our baptismal promises to seek and serve Christ in all people, respecting the dignity of every person, loving our neighbor as our self?

In my sermons over the last few months, I’ve tried to sort of nod toward what’s going on around us, acknowledging it, while not taking it on directly – both because preaching is not a current events class and because it is my great hope that we will all stick together, no matter what.

But today, I would like to speak a little more directly about one of the most divisive and complex issues of our time: immigration. 

If you watch the news or read the paper, you may have seen a particular kind of immigration story – it keeps getting repeated, over and over.

Some people who have been certain that all immigrants without the proper paperwork should be deported, have gotten upset when that happens to a person – a particular person - in their own community, in their own lives.

You know, the guy who works at the bagel shop on Main Street.

The waitress at the diner, who’s been here for years and is loved by everyone in town.

The father of the high school valedictorian.

Just the other day, I read a story in the paper that was an extreme version of this phenomenon. It was about Chris Allred, a 48-year-old man who works as a recruiter at a trucking company in Arkansas. For all the familiar economic reasons, he was – and still is – in favor of deporting undocumented people.

Well, it turns out that Mr. Allred had never married. But after his dying grandmother shared her prayer that, at last, he would find a wife, he tried dating apps and, guess what, he found someone he liked, a woman named Geleny – and to make a not very long story short – they fell in love and got married.

Chris Allred believes Geleny is the answer to his grandmother’s prayer.

There’s only one problem: she is an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador.

After trying their best to navigate our maddeningly complicated immigration system, it became clear that Geleny would have to return to Ecuador.

And because he loves her, Chris Allred has chosen to go with her to Ecuador, a place he’s never been, where the people speak a language he does not understand.

It’s a touching and fascinating story in large part because this man from Arkansas recognizes both the complexity of the immigration issue, and also the deep contradictions in his own heart and mind.

In the article he describes himself as a “walking contradiction.”

But here’s the thing: in the end, it was his encounter with a person – with this particular person – that led him to take the biggest chance, the biggest leap, of his life.

You know, stories like these shouldn’t surprise us.

We’re really not so good with abstractions, which is why Jesus so often taught by telling stories – parables – about particular people, characters who come alive each time we repeat the stories.

And these parables about particular people are meant to startle us, to shake up our preconceptions, to make us uncomfortable, to help us see life in new and different ways.

Today, of course, we heard one of Jesus’ very best-known parables, what’s usually called the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Luke frames the parable with an exchange between Jesus and a lawyer, a lawyer who wants to know what he must “do to inherit eternal life.”

Jesus knows that the lawyer knows the correct Jewish answer to that question: love God with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as yourself.

But then the lawyer asks a more provocative question, “And who is my neighbor?”

As Amy-Jill Levine writes in our summer reading book, really the lawyer is asking, “Who is not my neighbor?”

And rather than give a general answer, Jesus tells a story – a story about some particular people.

The road between Jerusalem and Jericho was known to be dangerous, so the first hearers of this parable wouldn’t have been surprised to hear what happened to the poor man, assaulted and left half-dead by robbers on the side of the road.

But they would have been shocked by the behavior of the priest and then the Levite, both religious men, who both crossed to the other side of the road to avoid dealing with the man in distress.

The first hearers of this parable would have expected that these religiously knowledgeable men would have helped. After all, that was and is God’s Law. Helping someone in need is more important any other obligation.

But perhaps the priest and Levite were afraid that what had happened to the man would happen to them – I mean, the robbers could still be nearby, looking for more easy targets. Or maybe these religious men thought they were just too busy to help. Or maybe they just didn’t want to get involved in someone’s else’s mess.

I’m sure most, maybe all, of us can relate.

So, the first hearers of this parable would have been surprised and disappointed by the behavior of the priest and the Levite.

But that surprise was nothing compared to what comes next.

To begin to appreciate the shock of this parable we must remember that, although related to each other, Jews and Samaritans in the first century did not get along at all.

It might have been difficult for a Jew to imagine that a Samaritan could even be good.

And vice versa. 

Now when this particular Samaritan sees the beaten man by the side of the road, he could have acted like the priest and Levite and crossed over to the other side. 

        He could have grumbled and tsked, saying something like, “They really need to beef up security on this road.” Or he might have blamed the victim, thinking that this man should have been more careful. Or he might have hoped and prayed that “someone” would come along and help this man before it’s too late

But no.

This particular Samaritan shatters all expectations, going above and beyond, offering healing by pouring oil and wine on the man’s wounds, bringing this man - who was likely Jewish – bringing this man to an inn, paying two days wages to an innkeeper so the man had time to recover, and promising to return and pay whatever he might owe.

This Samaritan saw the half-dead man not as a problem or a danger but as a person, a neighbor, in need of mercy.

        God’s love is personal.

        So, God came among us not as an abstraction but in and through a person, Jesus of Nazareth.

        And God continues to dwell among us, not as a theory or as a set of rules, but in and among all of us, each and every person.

        So, here’s what I think about how we go forward together as a church during these tumultuous times.

        First, as I said last week, we pray.

        We are always, but especially now, called to be people of prayer, remembering that God lives in our own hearts, that God gives us strength to face the future, and that God uses us to bring healing to others.

        So, first we pray.

        And second, we stay focused on persons.

        We must not live in a world of abstractions, a world of labels, ideologies, talking points, and judgments.

        No, we are called to love and serve people, right here and now.

        That’s why I keep talking about our Afghan friends and the kids at Owls First over at Owings Mills Elementary. 

        They are not abstractions.

        They’re not “the immigration system.”

        They’re not “the school district” or even “kids today.”

        No, they are people, loved personally by God.

        And so, whatever we might think about the issues of the day, we must not look away, we must not walk away.

        No, we must see our neighbors, walk beside them, offering what we have, offering even more than might seem necessary or prudent.

        We are called to love, and show mercy to, our neighbors.

        God’s love is personal.

        And so, our love must be personal, too.

        Amen.