An early Juneteenth celebration

LOUISVILLE — The Rev. Gregory J. Bentley, Co-Moderator of the 224^th General Assembly (2020) and the pastor of Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama, shared his considerable preaching skills Wednesday with PC(USA) national staff members during a Juneteenth-themed Chapel Service.

Bentley used Luke 10:25-37, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, as the preaching text for a sermon he called “Left for Dead.” Members of the Partnerships Beyond the PC(USA) ministry area of Presbyterian Life & Witness led the online service, which was attended by more than 80 people.

It’s “quite fitting” that one of Jesus’ most memorable parables would focus on someone left for dead, Bentley noted, because “God’s preferential option for the poor and the powerless, those who have been written off and written out, the most vulnerable among us — those who have been pushed aside and left behind — runs through the Bible like a golden cord,” he said.

At the top of the story and like any other ancient rabbi did, Jesus answers a question with a question: what is written in the law? What do you read here? More accurately, it’s “how do you read?” Bentley said. “How we read is just as important as what we read.”

The biblical scholar answers Jesus well, who answers him with words like these, Bentley said: “My God, man — you know the Bible. I can tell you never missed Sabbath school. You had perfect attendance at Vacation Bible School. You know the Bible. You have given the right answer. Do this, and you will live.”

Note that Jesus didn’t say “preach this and live” or “write a position paper and live” or “call a board meeting on this and live” or even “bring an overture to General Assembly and live,” Bentley pointed out. “No, Jesus said, ‘do this, and you will live.’”

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At times we’re all guilty of focusing “on being right rather than doing right,” Bentley said. Jesus had “the moral clarity about the task at hand,” according to Bentley, using what gets translated in Greek Ζάω, “the fullness of life, abundant life, Spirit-filled life, a heaven-blessed life, a life that is grounded in and guided by the purposes of God,” he said. “Jesus points us beyond merely existing and surviving to thriving, flourishing and living into the fullness of God’s design and desire.”

“Not to be outdone by this,” the Bible scholar retorts, “who exactly is my neighbor?”

“This time, instead of answering a question with a question, Jesus tells this stupendous story that has been guiding and grounding the church for 2,000 years,” Bentley said.

The first thing to notice is the Samaritan, unlike the priest and the Levite, gets involved. “Too often we are like the priest who is more concerned about ritual purity than about justice,” Bentley said, reasoning that “it’s too much to ask of a man of my status and standing and station, so I’ll just pass by on the other side.”

The Levite follows suit, Bentley said. “Maybe he saw what the priest did and said, ‘If a man of God crossed over to the other side and kept on truckin’, then I’ll follow his example and do the exact same thing.’”

“Too often in life,” Bentley said, “we let old paradigms, old prejudices and old practices rob us of living into the fullness of the life of God.”

But “thank God for the Samaritan,” Bentley said. “He pays no mind to ritual purity and the purity code and artificial fear-induced boundaries. He gets involved, even at the risk of his own safety and security.”

To be moved with pity “literally means to feel the pain of another in your belly,” Bentley said. Leo Tolstoy taught that to feel pain is to be alive, but to feel somebody else’s pain is to be a human being, Bentley said. The Samaritan “felt the plight and pain of the man left for dead on the side of the road. He felt it in his belly.”

“We need a church with some belly sensitivity,” Bentley said. Too often, all we in the church exhibit is “a surface sympathy, a paltry pity that does not move us to do anything beyond giving lip service for syrupy statements that do nothing to address or rectify the problem, statements that are just thrown on top of a mountain of other statements that have achieved the exact same result: nothing.”

Even if we can feel someone else’s pain in our own belly, “it takes courage to overcome the cowardice and callousness that far too often keeps us from expressing compassion,” he said, reasoning that “I would have done something, but it was just too risky” or “I would have said something, but I’ve got too much to lose” or “I would have stood up, but I’ve got to look out for me and mine.”

Not only does “Brother Samaritan” get involved, he makes an investment, Bentley noted, adding, “in this society, what we claim we care about, we put some money behind. In America, if you are really serious about something, you put some money on it.”

During their time as Co-Moderators, Bentley and Ruling Elder Elona Street-Stewart expressed what Bentley called “the spirit of the Matthew 25 vision” with a rubric they called the seven R’s: remembrance, remorse, repentance, repair, reconciliation, resurrection and rejoicing. “Too often we want to jump straight to reconciliation without even dealing with remembrance, remorse, repentance and repair,” Bentley said. “Much of that is due from having drunk from the cup of cheap grace for too long.”

“It’s going to take an investment to bring back and to make whole those who have been left for dead,” he said, comparing what’s needed today to the Marshall Plan implemented by the United States in 1948 to rebuild Western European economies devastated by World War II.

“We must make a similar commitment in our day and time to do at least as much for those in our own country who have been left for dead,” he said — left for dead by racism, by predatory capitalism “that places profits over people,” left for dead by medical apartheid or by redlining or left for dead “because if we are honest with ourselves, mammon has become our god, and not the God of Israel, who was revealed most fully in Jesus of Nazareth,” Bentley said.

In the parable, the innkeeper also makes an investment. “Somebody had to feed that man as he was convalescing. Somebody had to help him get to and from the bathroom. Somebody had to clean his wounds and change his bandages to prevent infection,” Bentley noted. “Nursing and nurturing those who have been left for dead is messy business. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty, beloved.”

He thanked God “for the Good Samaritans of the world who join with God and God’s work of Tikkun Olam, the work of repair and regeneration in the world,” for those “who are committed to deep spiritual healing.”

“The work of repair and restoration, the work of Tikkun Olam, is too big,” he said. It’s too much for any one person or congregation or presbytery, or “even a whole denomination to do. We need all hands on deck. We need all hands on the gospel plow, all shoulders on the gospel wheel,” he said, closing his sermon by reciting a couple of  verses of “If I Can Help Somebody,” a favorite hymn of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“If I can help somebody as I pass along, then my living —  then your living, then our living — shall not be in vain,” Bentley said. “Amen, and glory be to God.”