What if God is one of us?

The gospel for Sunday was the familiar story of the Good Samaritan. It’s a story well known, and if we are not careful, it can be an invitation to mental “cruise control.” So many sermons! Old story, with nothing new here. Sadly true. On the other hand, it’s a story that is at the heart of Christian understanding of who God is and how God operates in this world. I suppose one could say “incarnation” and people may yawn. I hope not. For me, the story brought to my mind an old chestnut by Joan Osborn called “One of Us.”

You can refresh your memory by listening to the song here

She asks: 
What if God was one of us? 
If God had a name, what would it be? 
And would you call it to His face
If you were faced with Him in all His glory?
What would you ask if you had just one question?

What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make His way home?

If God had a face, what would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like Heaven and in Jesus and the saints
And all the prophets?

Isn’t this the reason why we act in compassion for the suffering ones? Not simply out of moral duty, but because we believe that God came among us in human form? We believe that God’s children are indeed bearers of God’s image. Jesus taught us that we will never know when we are offering love to him, when we don’t turn away, but risk doing something, some small act of caring for the hungry. What if God was one of us? Jesus tells us that in fact we are to treat others as if we are treating God. That is why it’s important to act on behalf of those whose suffer. God is one of us, lying half-dead along the side of the road somewhere. To do nothing is to turn away from Jesus who meets us in the stranger.

The priest had his religious excuses for passing by the man. The rules were against it. We have our excuses too; all of them well reasoned and carefully crafted justifications for non-compassion. My dearest friend reminded me that the parable of the Good Samaritan is a cautionary tale directed to those who would allow their religion to keep them from stepping outside of their comfort zone for God’s sake. It was the one least expected, the outsider, who had compassion on the man. Every since then he has been called the Good Samaritan. 

Actually, he was only an ordinary man walking along the side of the road who saw a man nearly dying. He perceived him as his neighbor and in so doing, reached out to help him. That’s all; nothing heroic unless, of course, doing the simple good deed is heroism.

We see this in so many places where we live, day by day. Of course, we see it in the Texas deluge. And every other disaster. And not just disasters. Day by day in ordinary life, Christ is alive among us asking the same question. 

When the story was over, Jesus asked the lawyer: who proved himself a neighbor? 
Go, then and do likewise.