Happy International Women’s Day!
Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to join my friend Robyn Brown-Hewitt at a wonderful event to celebrate International Women’s Day at the Sanctuary Arts Centre in Dartmouth. What a feast of sound and joy, celebrating the artists who performed at the original Lilith Fair festivals in the late 1990s.
I was so impressed with the venue, a refurbished Baptist church in Dartmouth, and the music. If you have the chance to attend an event in this wonderful space, don’t pass it up. It is very impressive. Pictures are below.
This Sunday we celebrate communion and look at the familiar story of the Good Samaritan. My sermon will be short, as we will have a time for all ages each Sunday in Lent, and it is our tradition to have communion on the first Sunday in Lent.
So I will post an “appendix” (or, more like a prequel really) to the sermon.
In their commentary on Luke, biblical scholars Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III, the authors change the title of the story to “the parable of the man who fell among the robbers.” They argue that Jesus’ audience and Luke’s readers would have primarily identified with the one in the ditch, waiting to be rescued. They challenge readers to imagine themselves as this person instead of seeing the story from the perspective of the Samaritan who offers the help. I will explore this theme more in Sunday’s reflection. Check out Amy-Jill’s brilliant 6 minute lecture on this parable at:
Dr. Amy-Jill Levine 6-minute lecture: Who Is My Enemy? The One Who May Save Me
Levine ends by saying: “You are not the Samaritan. You are the person in the ditch. Who can save you? If you can acknowledge that everyone has the possibility of doing that … if you can do that then the parable has worked on you.”
The challenge was not lost on me. I wrote briefly in earlier blog about a fall that I had in January one evening outside a church in Dartmouth where I was to attend a meeting. It wasn’t snowy or slippery … I just stumbled on the uneven sidewalk in the dark … and had some momentum going so couldn’t quite stop myself from going down.
I went down hard on my hands and knees … and am very lucky that I didn’t crack my head on the sidewalk, or the concrete wall that was beside the sidewalk. When I did topple over, my head, thankfully, hit the ground between the sidewalk and the wall, which was still soft.
The problem is … once I go down, I can’t get up. I can if there’s a table or chair I can use to steady myself and push up … but obviously that wasn’t anywhere near.
So I took some deep breaths and tried and tried, but just couldn’t do it. For about 10 minutes I sat on the pavement trying to make a plan, fighting back panic, and tears. It was a busy street. Cars kept driving by.
I finally got out my phone and emailed my friend in the meeting (“I’ve fallen outside and I can’t get up.”) Two of them came running out, and one, who I think was a physiotherapist, took charge and had me up in under a minute.
While we were walking into the building, my friend asked “were there lots of cars that drove by?” “Yup” I replied. “They probably just thought you were another drunk on the street” she said.
When I tell the story, which I have a number of times, I laugh. I mean, it was kind of funny. And although I was very sore for a few days, it was my dignity that was mostly wounded. But this week I am challenged to think about that incident from the perspective of the person in the ditch. And how I might have felt had a stranger stopped to help me.
There’s lots more to unpack in this parable. Plus, in my sermon I will talk a bit about why Jesus taught in parables. It’s important to think about this as we will be looking at several parables during the season of Lent. Join us on Sunday … I don’t think I will have the answers, but I am sure I will have lots of questions!
