Second Sunday after Pentecost
Theme introduction given by Ruth Grayson, from SAVE (Sheffield Agencies for the Vulnerable and Excluded)
The parable of the Good Samaritan is well known, but we always tend to focus on the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan when reading it. We rarely talk about the victim, far less about the innkeeper. Yet the latter was surely as important to the (apparently satisfactory) outcome of the story as the Samaritan, which might not have been the case if the Samaritan, after tending the victim's wounds, had left him by the roadside, possibly to await another mugging or to die of exposure.
Therefore, if we want to help those in need, we cannot draw the line at the ‘first aid' of soup runs, daytime provision of centres and hot meals etc., of which Sheffield has an excellent supply and among which St. Andrew's Church has an excellent reputation. These have their place, particularly in providing both physical and spiritual nourishment. However, shelter is one of the most basic human needs and at certain times of year may be even more important than food in the battle against homelessness.
Sheffield has no dedicated emergency night shelter. There may, very occasionally, be a bed available in one of the hostels but there is no guarantee of this. Moreover, the way the statistics are gathered, the City Council argues that there is insufficient evidence of a problem; and the ‘cold weather provision' of emergency beds that is supposed to be available during the severest winter nights may not function if the temperature is not low enough for long enough, however bitter or wet the nights may be.
SAVE has as one of its aims the need to fill this basic gap in services for the homeless in this city. A small working group has been set up, mostly drawn from volunteers from some of the church soup runs but also now comprising others, including clergy, with a concern for this issue. We are exploring different possibilities and different models with regard to premises, etc. In the longer term we hope to acquire a permanent base, but in the meantime we are looking for churches that might be prepared to lend their premises, on a rota basis, to provide a very simple, basic night shelter during the coldest months of the year. We are not planning to duplicate existing services - we would not provide meals, for example - and every care will be taken to ensure that those who use the shelter are genuinely homeless and normally resident in Sheffield. There is some funding available for overheads and other expenses.
Jesus concludes his Good Samaritan parable by saying ‘go, and do likewise'. Some of us may already be counted as Samaritans. Can we be innkeepers as well?
R&S 474 is a contemporary hymn from New Zealand, written tune and words, by an Anglican author, Richard Gillard.
R&S 198 comes from the pen of the 19th century poet John Clare, originally written as a poem beginning ‘When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?' The tune Carey's or Surrey originally accompanied a paraphrase of Psalm 23; it was written by Henry Carey.
R&S 520 was written by Fred Kaan during the third assembly of the All Africa Conference of Churches in Lusaka in May 1974. The tune All Saints is a 17th century German hymn melody, adapted by W.H. Monk for a hymn for All Saints Day called ‘Who are these like stars appearing'.
Ruth Grayson, whom some of you will know from St Luke's Lodgemoor, has been helping us think about the traveller whom the Good Samaritan aided when he lay bleeding on the road, about Jesus' approach to people in need and about one possible response we as a church in Sheffield might consider getting involved with, an emergency night shelter for people needing a roof over their heads in the coldest part of the year. Sadly, it's not too hard for any of us to think of ourselves in that traveller's shoes, unsafe on a deserted country road; but maybe it's one step further for us to imagine the plight of someone in Sheffield in 2009 with no home to go to, no friends or family to put them up for the night, and no money to pay for a room. It would be easy for us to look at someone in that position and wonder how they could have gone so badly wrong as to drift away from all the support we normally take for granted. It would be easy, too, for us to assume they must have done something terribly wrong, must somehow have earned their misfortune.
But our psalm this morning explodes such lazy thinking. In the long run, people of faith whose energy comes from God have staying power, like evergreen trees. But right now, the writer reflects, some people who are flourishing like summer grass really don't deserve to do so. That underlines what we all know - that in spite of our efforts, the world's resources are not always handed out fairly. And it is unnervingly easy to turn from one of the haves into one of the have-nots. All you need is to lose your job, your health or your relationship -given our economy, any of these events singly may set off the others - and your ability to pay rent or mortgage on your home is in danger. If, to avoid thinking about your situation, you turn to alcohol or other drugs, things may get worse fast. Before you know what's hit you, your family can't cope any more, friends don't want to know, and you may end up at 10pm on a cold winter's night looking desperately for somewhere safe to stay. That's looking at things from a human point of view: if we can sympathise with someone's plight enough, we can be persuaded to help them - yet, according to Paul, that's not enough.
Paul started off his religious life knowing exactly who was right and wrong, who deserved God's love and human approval and who did not. Those who did not, those revolting Christians, deserved to be thrown in jail till they'd seen the error of their ways. Yet after he had met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul could no longer be a hardliner about who was in and who was out of God's favour.
In this passage from his second letter to Corinth, we can see that he still believes strongly that all of us are accountable for our actions, and will have to answer for them before God. He would by no means be soft, for example, on addictions of any sort: we must focus no longer on our own self-gratification, whether we focus all our time and money on drugs, on alcohol, on shopping or even on golf or bridge, to the exclusion of God and our fellow human beings. Yet rather than writing off people who have gone wrong, Paul believes equally strongly that it is possible for anyone and everyone to turn and be transformed by the power of God working within them. He has seen it in his own life: an addiction to righteousness which led him towards violence and death has been turned by God, on the Damascus road, into a passion for sharing the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection: the ultimate sign of God's love for all people, even those we might naturally hold in suspicion or contempt.
And that very same love is at the root of the rather strange snippet from the prophecy of Ezekiel we have heard this morning. At the beginning of chapter 17, Ezekiel has reminded his hearers of the power politics of the time: the king of Israel, exiled into Babylon with all his court, has tried to rebel by making links with Egypt, the other great superpower of the time. His designs have failed: Israel, transplanted in Babylon, seems to be withering like a transplant that did not take. But now, through Ezekiel, God promises to start again, to transplant Israel back into her own land, where she can flourish like the cedar of Lebanon in our psalm. We, of course, are not God. We cannot transform lives, though like the Good Samaritan, we can choose to offer beaten-up people a safe resting place on their journey. But we know Jesus, who understands what it is to be despised and rejected, promises to make new all lives - even our own.
