Luke 10:25-37
“Am I Right? Or Am I Right?”
Preached Sunday, July 10, 2022
Have you ever met someone who thinks they are just 100 percent RIGHT about everything? Show of hands? Yeah…any chance any of you are that person sometimes too? Show of hands…I’ll keep mine up.
I have a friend who, in her own words, “grew up in a family that prizes being right and correct about EVERYTHING. To the point where, as a gag gift, [she] got [her] mom a personalized blanket that says ‘Dear Mom, you were right. Love, Sarah’” And it’s her mom’s favorite gift EVER. My friend says that everyone who visits the house is shown the blanket.
And as the blanket is a prized possession, we certainly live in a world that prizes being right. And I don’t think that’s necessarily anything new - we’ve seen it play out throughout history. And this morning I’m thinking of our Gospel reading and the lawyer - also my apologies to lawyers in our congregation this morning - I swear this isn’t a personal attack - but a lawyer comes to Jesus and asks him a question. But the lawyer isn’t coming to Jesus with a question because he wants to know the answer. The lawyer is coming to Jesus because he wants to justify himself and to prove that he is right. Our reading starts, “Just then a lawyer stood up to TEST Jesus.” And he asks him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus then said to him, truly in a fashion I think lawyers could appreciate, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answers a question with a question - in true Jesus fashion. The lawyer answers, “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.” And Jesus says, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
Now, two things here: Note that Jesus doesn’t technically fully answer the lawyer’s question, the lawyer asked about “eternal” life and Jesus just answered “you will live.” And I’d love to dive deeper into that…BUT that’s another sermon for another day. The thing I want to focus on is the second thing…The text then says, “But wanting to justify himself…” and he asks Jesus another question, “Who is my neighbor?”
Wait, what, are you catching this? The lawyer came to test Jesus and Jesus tells him "you're right" but he's so concerned with being right, or being more right than Jesus, that he asks another question to justify himself.
Have you ever been in an argument with someone and you actually AGREE with them but you’ve been arguing for so long that you still keep on arguing even though you are in agreement? It sounds absurd, right? But we do it ALL THE TIME.
I actually think of how there is middle ground in a lot of issues in our world but we tend to go scorched earth, all or nothing. Just look at the hot button issues of our times. Those who are pro-choice and most of those who are pro-life both both agree that medical intervention in the form of abortion is needed when the mother’s life is in danger, such as cases like ectopic pregnancies and beyond. WE AGREE. But we just…shout over each other, draw lines in the sand, my side, your side - and on this point that we AGREE on, with our arguments and scorched earth policies, our instance on no gray areas, we make it harder for women to get life-saving procedures - procedures that most of us, on either side, actually agree they should be able to get.
A colleague, friend, and father recently shared that he got into a conversation with a mother about gun control in the school pick-up line. Because, of course as parents they have concern for their kids’ safety: The mother said she would be for background checks and bans on assault riffles but “those democrats” want to take away all the guns. Give an inch, take a mile. My friend said something like, “We actually agree. And most people aren’t for taking your grandpa’s hunting rifles, but we agree, we’ve gotta do something.” However, the woman didn’t seem to believe him. If we’re constantly told “This is what WE think and this is what THEY think” it can be hard to accept that there is more common ground than we’ve generally been led to believe.
On more light hearted, smaller stakes scale arguments, I know I’ve been in an argument with my husband before where the argument devolves into “I AGREE WITH YOU” And then the other goes “SO WHY ARE WE FIGHTING?” And the other goes, “I DON’T KNOW!” Anyone done that one? I know for a fact we’ve had this argument before…multiple times. But looking back I can’t remember what we were even arguing about. I asked Zach and he definitely agrees we’ve had this argument but he couldn’t remember over what either. He thinks probably over the new Star Wars movies. But that’s besides the point.
“Why are we arguing?” indeed. And I may have shouted back “I DON’T KNOW” to my husband - but deep down, I do know. It’s not about the subject of the argument. It’s about being right. Being right above everything else, including love.
We talked last week about not growing weary of doing what is right - Paul’s exhortation to us from the closing of the letter to the Galatians. Through Paul we defined doing right as fulfilling the law of Christ. What is the law of Christ? It’s the lawyer’s answer from today’s Gospel reading: “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 doing right and being right aren’t the same thing. Doing right is doing love. Being right, insisting on being right, and prizing being right above all else actually leads to a lack of doing right - a lack of love. Sadly being right often trumps doing right, trumps love.
To love God and love neighbor as self, doing right, is way more important than BEING right. Except that's not how our world tends to work.. Just look at Facebook arguments, shouting past each other, talking heads on the news, my way or the highway mentalities, complete lack of compromise, not listening to people who have different views - or only a shallow listening to we can correct them as soon as its our turn to speak - you get the point. We all live it on an almost daily basis. Our world prizes being right.
But we are called be LOVE above being RIGHT.
So I would like to daydream with you today: What would it look like if we showed love over being right? Perhaps it would look like sworn enemies helping one another, caring for one another, even saving one another like in the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told in our reading. To briefly shed more light on this story, make no mistake that the Jewish man in the ditch and the Samarian were sworn enemies. There was an intense history and present of ongoing fighting, pain and violence between their communities. If the Samaritan wanted to be RIGHT in their ongoing conflict, maybe he too would have left the man, robbed him, beat him up more. But the Good Samaritan chose love over being right. And love makes way for new opportunities. When we show love over being right ,opportunities for healing and new relationships are brought forth. And we too are called to put love of God and love of neighbor over arguments and being right - even with sworn enemies.
My spiritual director shared with me this week that she sometimes defines love as showing radical attentiveness and I haven’t been able to shake that. Love as radical attentiveness. To be radically attentive to God and radically attentive to neighbor means listening to God and our neighbors - and maybe even God’s voice through our neighbors - listening with curiosity and open hearts and love - to build relationships with our neighbors across all kinds of dividing lines - including lines of “I’m right and you’re wrong.”
Love as radical attentiveness to God and neighbor means that we have to admit that it's not our way or the highway. It means we need to be more humble; to leave ourselves open to the possibility that we may not always be right! (Shocking, I know!)
Humbling ourselves to listen and love also comes with the reminder that minds aren't changed through arguments and facts and debates. They simply aren’t. Minds and hearts are changed by relationships and listening and love. So maybe it’s time we stopped insisting on how right we are. And started showing people how loving we are.
And to put aside being right, to humble ourselves, to listen with open hearts - to admit that we may be wrong…these are scary things! They take courage. It's easier to be certain that we are RIGHT and to let that overtake everything else. It takes bravery to listen, to be open to change, to build radical relationships with people who don't think like you, like us.
This isn't to say that the truth doesn't matter, I don’t want you to hear me saying that today. The Truth does matter. And it matters even more in our world of lies and disinformation and bias. And as Christians we called to be people of Truth, of the Gospel Truth. Jesus said HE is the Truth, the Way, and the Life. And that’s the Gospel Truth. Jesus is the Gospel Truth. That God so loved the world, that God took on flesh in the form of a babe, to be God with us. The Gospel Truth is that God IS LOVE. The Gospel Truth is that we are to love God and neighbor as self. We are called to be people of the Gospel Truth and that is, we are called to be people of Love.
So maybe it's time we focused less on BEING right and instead started DOING right - and what is doing right? It’s the lawyer’s answer: “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.” To which Jesus replies, “You have given the right answer. Do this and you shall live.”
Friends, let us DO right, let us live love - so that others will know we are Christians - not by all our right answers, right doctrine, right opinions, right belief - but that others will know we are Christians by our love.
Amen.
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