Luke 10:25-37

25 A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to gain eternal life?”
26 Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?”
27 He responded, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
28 Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”
29 But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus replied, “A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death. 31 Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 32 Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 33 A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. 34 The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ 36 What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?”
37 Then the legal expert said, “The one who demonstrated mercy toward him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

The Self-Differentiated Good Samaritan

It’s good to be back!  I very much enjoyed my vacation.  We took the train to Yuma and spent some time with my wonderful in-laws.  I had a perfectly good sermon written using the holidays as the present day example of how to have healthy self-differentiation like Jesus demonstrates with the parable of the Good Samaritan, but then I took the train to Yuma on election day.  So I want to preface this story by saying that there are no Good Samaritans on the train.  There are only fellow travelers.

The train to Yuma only runs twice a week, so we boarded the train on election day.  The conductor had two rules:

1. Flush the toilets, and
2. No arguing, or fighting, about politics.

Suffice it to say, at least one of our fellow passengers broke both rules and they had to detrain a person at one of our stops!

When the election returns stopped coming in around midnight, we decided to try to get some sleep.  We didn’t get a sleeper car, because coach on a train is pretty much like first class on an airplane.  I had just managed to fall asleep when the 3 year old, sitting across from us, woke up.  The little fiend was loudly awake.  She demanded that her weary mother wake up and play with her.  Alternating crying with loud laughter, in the way that an infant will often do.  They laugh to try to get their parent to mirror their emotions so the parent will get in a good mood.  I know this.  I’ve studied a fair amount of child psychology.  But at 3am on a train, my ability to be understanding was severely impaired.  I had many uncharitable thoughts towards the little fiend and her incompetent mother, but I managed to not say them outloud…unlike the little fiend who said everything out loud, loudly.

Around the time the cafe car opened around 6:30am, I woke up to the sound of the little fiend complaining that she didn’t like her breakfast sandwich.  With all of maybe 2 hours of sleep under my belt, I myself was approaching the crankiness of a larger and snarkier fiend, but I managed, just barely, to keep it to myself.  Then, the little fiend’s older brother broke THE RULE.  In response to the little fiend complaining about the quality of her prepacked, microwaved breakfast sandwich, the little boy commented that he also thought the eggs were kind of weird and started picking apart his sandwhich.  The mother snapped at him that he knows THE RULE.  The little boy began to beg.  “Please, I’ll eat it.  I’ll put it back together.  See?  I’ll eat the whole sandwich.”  She commanded him to go throw it away.

I was absolutely furious.  A hungry little, and I mean little.  He looked like he was maybe 7 years old, and he was actually 10.  A hungry little child being told to throw away his food because he complained about the quality of a microwaved, prepackaged breakfast sandwich???  This is literally how angry, violent men are created!  By demanding authoritarian level obedience and completely neglecting their tender little hearts!  Of course that little boy is going to grow up to be angry at women after watching his mother allow his little sister to get away with the same behavior that he is being starved for!

I was so mad!  I was mad about the abuse that thin little boy was made to suffer.  I was mad about the election results.  I was mad that I was watching, in real time, the next generation of angry, violent men being formed.

I think the steam coming out of my ears woke Tom up.  My husband is a well prepared man, so he had brought ear plugs and a sleep mask and slept through the whole experience.  So hissing like a steam train I updated him on the whole nighttime experience and showed him the updated election results, and quietly ranted that THIS is how such voters are made!

Then the little boy, quietly and plaintively whimpered that he was hungry.  His mother ignored him.  He was quiet for a while.  Then he softly said, I’m so hungry.

I was just outraged!  Because I had heard her saying that she had a bag of snacks, while on the phone for the upteenth time, and I had noticed her giving snacks to the little fiend.  So in my rage, I dug into my backpack, pulled out my bulging bag of honey-nut cheerios, turned around in my seat in the least subtle way possible and handed the little boy my cheerios, without a word to his mother.

But what does that have to do with the Self-differentiated Good Samaritan?

We’ll come back to my story later.

Much of this sermon is based on a chapter in the book, “Images of Pastoral Care,” edited by Robert C. Dykstra.  Chapter 6 is “The Self-Differentiated Samaritan,” by Jeanne Stevenson Moissner.  She is writing from a 1990’s White Feminist theological perspective so she begins with the problem of our culture’s traditional feminine stereotype: The ultimate caregiver.

The ultimate caregiver:

• Works in a caring profession
• Cares for her children
• Cares for her aging parents
• Cares for her spouse
• Cares for her community by volunteering for all the things
• Cares for her church by volunteering for all the things
• Is probably also involved in some kind of charitable work – another form of caring.
• And, typically does all the heavy lifting of planning and making the holidays happen for others
• She cares for everyone, but herself.

Now I would like to point out that feminist theology has moved forward since the 1990’s and most of us now recognize that women are not the only ones who get caught up in multiple caregiving roles.

Other minoritized people like, single fathers, gay uncles, people of all genders from cultures with high expectations for family involvement, parentified older children, parents of severely disabled children, and many others can find themselves pushed into the role of ultimate caregiver where they take care of everyone but themselves.

And for Christians there is additional pressure to be “Christlike.”  Which too often is defined as self-sacrificing to the point of death because much of our theology is focused on just 3 days of Jesus’ life where Jesus was tortured, rejected and crucified,  while we ignore the bulk of Jesus’ 3 years of ministry where Jesus spent time doing things like:

• Taking naps
• Having dinner with friends
• Taking time away from ministry
• Laughing and crying

Focusing just on the Easter story is problematic because if we think that being a Christian means being like Jesus but we’re only looking at this little part of Jesus’ life where he is betrayed, rejected, tortured and killed, then that can create a very toxic theology where we are normalizing a life of misery!

But Jesus said in John 10:10 that he came to bring life and life more abundantly!

And Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-29, 28 “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. 29 Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves.

And in today’s reading in verse 27, Jesus sums up the law and the prophets as loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

So how can we love our neighbors well, if we don’t love and care for ourselves well?

The Self-Differentiated Samaritain is an interpretation of this parable that helps us see how we can love others while still loving ourselves.

So let’s work our way through the parable.  You might want to reference the scripture in your bulletin.

The Story begins with a traveler.  We don’t know anything about the traveler, other than that he was mugged hard!  The thieves didn’t just take his wallet, they took his clothes, his shoes, his socks, and his health!  They beat him up and left him in the ditch near death.

Self-Differentiation is a psychological term, so we’re going to be psycho-analyzing every character in the story. Just, fair warning!

The thieves are the opposite of caring. Their attitude towards the traveler is, “what’s yours is mine.”  We encounter people like this in our lives, don’t we.  People who, maybe not always, but who in certain encounters are acting in ways that are so entirely selfish, that they completely ignore other’s needs.  And sometimes they catch us by surprise and leave us feeling beat up and very much in need of help.  This “what’s yours is mine,” perspective is referred to in psychology as “infantile.”  The baby only knows that they have needs and so the little fiend demanded that the little boy share his cheerios, and he did.

Then the Priest and the Levite pass by, but they have a narcissistic world view – what’s mine is mine, and “this looks like a you-problem.”  The Priest and the Levite didn’t rob the traveler, but they didn’t help either.  They took care of themselves and nobody else.  Much of our capitalist culture encourages this world view.  But we usually hear it spoken of in more positive terms, right?  Work hard, take care of yourself, and maybe your own, (if they’re not lazy) and other people need to be responsible for themselves.  But the reality of this perspective is that sometimes you have been working hard and taking care, as you travel through life, and life beats you up!  For example, ordinary, hard working people get cancer and lose their job.  Then lose their health insurance.  Then lose everything.  The response of this narcissistic/capitalistic world view is that they should have eaten a healthy diet and exercise so they didn’t get cancer.  People have literally said that to me when I use the cancer example for why we need to care for one another.  It’s a neo-calvinist worldview that bad things happen to people because they deserve them, that completely ignores the reality that bad things happen to good people all the time.

The Priest and Levite characters *think* they are doing no harm by not helping, but in reality they are doing harm, because their refusal to help means the traveler gets closer to death the longer he is left in the ditch.  We encounter this kind of thinking a lot in our culture!  Sometimes inside our own heads.  Not because we are bad people, but because this message is soooo pervasive in our culture.  It’s hard to ignore, isn’t it?

I mean, how many times have all of us ignored the plight of our fellow traveler because we just didn’t want to get involved?

The Samaritan is often described as taking an altruistic posture, that is, the world view that what’s mine is yours.  And this is often what we’re taught in church, isn’t it.  Just give everything to God.  Sacrifice yourself, your needs, your wants, even your health, to care for others. Caring for yourself is defined as selfish and unchristian.  This message creates the Ultimate Caregiver.  The person who loves everybody except for themselves.  That is a first class ticket to burn out.

However, a closer reading of the parable gives us a healthier understanding of what it means to care for others while still caring for ourselves.

The Samaritan comes down the road on his way to do his own stuff.  The Samaritan is hard working, he has his own things to do, he is taking care of himself and his own.  What’s his is his, but…   He sees the traveler and has compassion for the traveler.  The Samaritan provides immediate first aid so the traveler doesn’t bleed out, then the Samaritan brings the traveler to the inn and the Samaritan shares both his time and his money to care for the traveler.

But here’s where Jeanne Stevenson Moessner offers us a different perspective:

The Samaritan helps the traveler, brings him to the inn and then the Samaritan continues on his journey, the Samaritan continues on his journey, with a plan to check in later.

The Samaritan was willing to be late to where he was going, but the Samaritan wasn’t willing to drop everything and abandon his own life to take care of the traveler.

1. That’s the first very important point. Keep caring for yourself when you care for others.  This is basically what the psychological term, self-differentiation means.  That we need to maintain our sense of self – maintain our self-care, our priorities, our values, ourselves, even when others want or need things from us.  Self-Differentiation is like saying to yourself over and over again, “your needs matter, and my needs matter too.”

I am not the Good Samaritan in my story.  I was a just a fellow wounded traveler, waking up to the realization of what Venus Williams said so much better than I could.  That I woke up to the same country I fell asleep to.  So I gave away my cheerios, not because I thought I could save that little boy, with something as insignificant as a sandwhich bag of cheerios, but because I love myself enough to not allow myself to sink into the kind of narcissistic self protection that is exactly what the the evil in this world wants us to do. Because I love myself, I will not look away and not speak up when they come for the immigrants.  I refuse to say nothing when they come for the Trans folks.  I will not just keep my head down and take care of my own in hopes that they won’t come for me.  Because that would kill my soul.

Point one is to love yourself and be true to yourself.

2. The second important point is that caring takes a community. The Samaritan doesn’t drop everything, but neither does the Samaritan abandon the man, the Samaritan utilizes community resources to help the traveler. Sometimes our modern version of a community inn can look like guiding the person in need to: a support group, an emergency room, a counselor,  a church community, or sharing the needs among a wider group of friends.

What matters is that we don’t go it alone.  This leads us to another problematic perspective that is common to our culture – saviorism.  The idea that we, especially we as Christians, can save others by helping them.  We can’t save anybody!  We’re not Jesus, we just follow Him!  Gamers like myself have a saying:  “Jesus saves.  All others take damage!” Trying to save people can lead us to taking on more responsibility than we should.  Which can not only burn us out, but can also be hurtful to the people we are trying to save.  The Traveler needed help, but only the Traveler can do the physical, spiritual, and emotional work of healing. The Samaritan doesn’t heal the Traveler.  The Innkeeper doesn’t heal the Traveler.  The Traveler and God co-create healing.  The Samaritan and the Inn Keeper simply provided some help in getting into a better situation where the Traveler could heal.   “Jesus saves.  All others take damage!”  if we try to do what only Jesus can do.

The work of the beloved community is to give and receive support, so that we all have a safe space for healing.  I knew that I couldn’t save that little boy.  I didn’t even have the ability to invite them to our church, because they were headed to Texas.  Without community, my ability to help them was limited.  I didn’t have an inn to bring them to.  So I chose not to do harm by trying to interfere too much.

3. The third important practice of the self-differentiated Samaritan is to Define your boundaries. Notice that the Samaritan tells the innkeeper that he will come back later and pay.  The Samaritan is willing to be late for where he was going, but not willing to put his whole life on hold and stay at the inn and care for the traveler himself.  Also notice that the Samaritan clearly defined what type of caring he would provide.  The Samaritan was willing to get the Traveler to help and pay the bill.  That was it.  Not an offer to do more.  This is what the Samaritan could do, so that was the limit of his offer.   Paying the bill was the Samaritan’s boundary.

Boundaries have become a popular word, such that the idea of boundaries has become misunderstood by many people.

A Boundary is a pre-decided limit that helps us care for ourselves while caring for others.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say that your extended family wants to invite themselves to your house for the holidays and have you cook for everybody.

The mistake that many of us make is thinking that a boundary looks like telling your family that they aren’t allowed to invite themselves over to your house.

That’s not actually a boundary, because clearly they can, and just did, invite themselves over to your house!   Trying to control others’ behavior is not a boundary.  That’s trying to make them behave differently.

A Boundary is deciding how you will respond to other’s behavior.

A Boundary in this holiday scenario might look like:

• Saying no. Remember, no is a complete answer, so you don’t have to give a reason.  You really can say, “no I won’t be hosting this year.”

They may not like that answer.  They may try to persuade you to change your mind.  Once again, you cannot control their behavior!  You can only control your behavior!  They can totally keep asking, you can’t stop them.  And, you can continue to hold your boundary and keep saying, “no, I won’t be hosting this year.”  Sometimes you just have to keep repeating the same response until they accept it.

• Another option might be offering a compromise. You could say, “I would love to host, but not do all the cooking.  Everyone could bring a dish, or we could share the cost of ordering dinner.”

Once again, the family may push back.  They may try to change your mind.  They may try to butter you up and say, “but you’re the best cook, why won’t you cook for us?”  It can be frustrating when people push back.  We often wish that they would just respect our boundaries!  But, boundaries are not about stopping them from trying to change your mind.  Boundaries cannot control other people’s behaviors!  Your boundary is about saying what you are willing to do in a way that balances your compassion for others with your compassion for yourself.  It can be hard work holding your boundaries, but when you are able to enjoy the holidays instead of dreading them, the hard work pays off.

Of course the self-differentiated interpretation of the Good Samaritan parable is not just about how we survive the holidays.  It’s how we can live out our Christian value of loving our neighbors, while still loving ourselves, in all situations in our lives.

Later that morning, Tom went to get us breakfast sandwiches from the cafe. The kids were right, they weren’t great. While Tom was gone, the mother slid into his seat next to me and thanked me for the cheerios.  She told me that she had been living with her mother, but her mother’s live-in boyfriend was abusing her son, so she was taking her children to the home of her adult son in Texas, so she could get away.  She had left with just a few changes of clothes and her children’s favorite toys, pretending that it was just a visit, so the boyfriend wouldn’t stop her.

I felt like a jerk for judging her so harshly.

With a mother who will side with an abuser, there was no way she would have learned how to be a good mother herself.

Abuse is often multigenerational.

So I set a boundary in my mind.  I would do what I could do for this little family while we traveled together, then bless them on their way.  I could not save them.  Jesus saves, all others take damage!  But I could be true to myself, and be kind in that moment.  I offered to take the children on a walk to the observation lounge because as an experienced parent I know that children cannot just sit for days on end, and the journey to Texas was 5 days on the train.  I helped keep an eye on the little fiend, when we were changing trains in L.A., and firmly held her slippery little hand as we went down the stairs and she tried to run into the crowd on the platform.  I gave the mother a handful of small bills that I had brought for tips while on the train, and told her to take care of her babies.

Then we got off the train at 3:40am in Yuma, and they continued on to Texas.  May Jesus save them, my fellow travelers.  Just as Jesus used them to heal my election wounded heart.