85th Anniversary of The Rotary Club in Stafford

Luke 10. 25-37

          Yesterday was St Valentine’s day. I hope you all sent your loved ones a suitably romantic card. I have to make a confession: I was going to take my wife out for a special Valentine’s dinner at my gym, which has an excellent restaurant; but in the end the sheer cost and palaver was too much and we settled for a cosy dinner at home and a nice bottle of wine from Whitebridge Wines in Stone. What was it called?  “Château l’Amour.” I strongly recommend it.

          And yet I have to confess that in one sense I do feel guilty. I read recently that 5 pubs in the UK are closing every day, partly because of the recession, but also because there are now so many inducements to tempt you to stay at home - central heating, DVDs, high-quality ready meals, and so on - and as a result people are much less likely to venture out when they don’t need to. And there’s an even more important point. Whereas a century ago the only way you could meet people, or get to know them, was to go outside - to a hostelry, or church or whatever - now, with the internet, texting, email and Skype (video telephoning), you can get to know people without ever leaving home at all. The result is that it’s not only pubs that are threatened - churches, social clubs, and organizations like Rotary are as well.

          But does that mean that people no longer need organizations or meeting-places like pubs or churches or Rotary clubs? No, it doesn’t: it means exactly the opposite: we need them more than ever. And in order to explain why, let’s have a look at today’s second reading, Jesus’ famous Parable of the Good Samaritan, which suggests three clear priorities for all who want to “inherit eternal life” (Lk 10:25b) - in other words, for all who want to experience and share the fullness of what it means to be human. It suggests that we must put doing above believing, neighbour above friend, and (to use the Rotary motto) service above self.

          First, then, the Parable of the Good Samaritan tells us that what we do is more important than what we believe. You could say that the key word in the story is the word “do.” It comes three times: “what must I do [to inherit eternal life]?” (Lk 10:25); “do this, and you will live” (10:28); “go and do likewise” (10:37). The lawyer doesn’t say to Jesus: “what must I believe to inherit eternal life” but “what must I do?” It’s perfectly true that Jesus asks him in effect what he believes: he asks him what he finds written in the law (i.e. the Old Testament scriptures), and when the man replies “you shall love the Lord your God...and your neighbour as yourself,” Jesus says “You have given the right answer.” But Jesus goes on to say: “do this [not just believe this] and you will live” (10:28). And at the end of the story, when Jesus asks the lawyer which of the three characters in the story - the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan - was a neighbour to the person in need, and the lawyer gives the right answer, Jesus says “go, and do likewise.”

          The danger in a highly individualized, home-based, internet-dominated society is that nothing matters more than what I think, what I happen to believe, what I choose or want. Morality gets reduced to “I-don’t-care-what-you-do-as-long-as-it-doesn’t-affect me.” Religion gets reduced to a private set of personal beliefs that may not have the slightest effect on the way I actually live. And the result is that society gets atomized, or broken up into millions of tiny fragments. Before you know where you are, the most horrendous things start happening behind closed doors - a couple systematically abuse and finally murder a helpless two-year-old child; a thirteen-year-old boy and a fifteen-year-old girl have a baby; and more and more people get addicted to something like drugs or alcohol or internet porn - because there are no longer any larger and higher moral and spiritual values that as a society we try to live by. That’s why we need organizations like Rotary, just as we need schools and churches and other such places - because these are where private beliefs get challenged by public values, where a me-centred world-view gets enlarged by a we-centred world-view, and where we are taught and reminded again and again that, as Jesus says to the lawyer, what matters most is not what you say, or even what you believe, but what you do, and how you live.

          So, first, we need reminding that doing comes above believing. Secondly, we need reminding that neighbour comes before friend. The story of the Good Samaritan is about enlarging our sense of kin, enlarging our sense of who is important to us. A few weeks ago I was in London visiting my brother and his wife, and I had a chat with their son Phillip, who was at home on vacation from Leeds University. And Phillip asked his Dad and me how many friends we had when we were at uni. And we said “how many friends? It never occurred to us to count them. Why, how many have you got?” And he said, “I’ve got 308.” And what he meant was that there were 308 people on his MySpace or Facebook account; 308 people he was in some kind of electronic contact with. And on one level that’s terrific. Modern technology enables us to keep in touch with vast numbers of people, all over the world. The trouble is that we can become so busy keeping in touch with all these friends and contacts that we no longer have time for those who are not like us, but who happen to live over the road, or (even more important) who happen to be in need. Loving your friend as yourself is one thing. Loving your neighbour as yourself is quite another - because your neighbour is someone with whom you may have absolutely nothing in common apart from the fact that he’s there.

          And that too is why we need organizations like Rotary, or like this or any other church - because in such places you don’t just meet people like you. You meet people whom you don’t choose, who have quite different views on things, who vote differently, and have different personality types, different ethnicity, different gender, and so on. The risk with MySpace or Facebook is that everyone spends all their time engaging with other people who are just like them - the same age group, the same background, the same interests, and so on. That’s better than not engaging with other people at all. We all need good friends. But we also need to be good neighbours - which means taking time to get to know those who are not like us. That’s harder than it sounds. You will remember G.K.Chesterton’s famous quip about

The churches and the chapels where

I learned with little labour

The way to love my fellow man,

And hate my next-door neighbour.

          And that brings me to the last and most important point of all. Doing above believing; neighbour above friend; and finally service above self. The Good Samaritan doesn’t just put his beliefs into practice, although he does that. He doesn’t even just acknowledge that his neighbour is anyone who is in need, whether or not that person is from the same background as him or not - although he does that too. He goes further.  He serves him. He is “moved with pity” (10:33 - a lovely Greek word σπλανγκνιζεσθαι which literally means “stirred in the bowels”); he goes out to him, bandages his wounds, lifts him onto his donkey, and  “takes care of him” (10:34).

          The trouble with all that emailing and surfing the net is that it can lead to an alarmingly superficial model of relationships. After all, it’s much easier to be rude to someone or just drop them when you only encounter them virtually, via email or texting, rather than when you meet them face to face. You may know the story of the married couple who have an argument and the man goes, “God, I was a fool the day I married you,” and the wife answers, “Yes, dear, you were, but I didn’t know that then.” Really getting to know people is time-consuming; it means stepping out of your comfort zone: it means, in one way or another, serving them - opening yourself to them. And the best way to do it is still to sit down, have a meal together, and enjoy a conversation. Jesus spent much of his short and busy life doing just that: having meals and conversations, not just with his disciples, but with tax collectors and all kinds of other people who weren’t at all like him. We don’t value that way of relating to others nearly as much as we should. The entire Potteries industry is threatened, not just by global recession, but by the fact that people no longer buy china or dining room tables because families no longer have meals together - or, if they do, they spend them watching TV or sending texts.

          And all this is far more serious than it may sound. Politicians say things like “we don’t talk to terrorists”, whereas Jesus had no difficulty having meals with Judas Iscariot and prostitutes and conversations with Pontius Pilate and Roman soldiers and all kinds of other unlikely characters. Wouldn’t it be better for Israel and Hamas to talk to one another instead of just hurling missiles at each other? Even here at home, countless children go to school for the first time without any ability to talk - not because there’s something wrong with their vocal chords, but because no one at home has ever bothered to talk to them. What is most at threat in our present society is the opportunity to meet and get to know those who are different from you - whether because they’re older, or because they’re of a different religion or ethnic background or way of life.

          So, although it may be a good thing to stay at home and crack open a bottle of Château l’Amour, we also need to step out of our front doors and get to know those who are different from us. And that is why we need Rotary. We need organizations that remind us that how we live, and the values we live by, matters more than what we believe; we need places where we can come to value our neighbours as well as our friends, and especially those most in need around us; and we need opportunities to enjoy table fellowship, and come to know and care about, those who are not like us, and to offer them the same care and love and service that we may one day need ourselves. Today we thank God for all those here in Stafford who during the past 85 years put service above self. And we hear again the urgent challenge of Jesus to the lawyer: “go and do likewise.” Thanks be to God.