The author of Luke’s gospel tells us that one day Jesus told a story to his disciples and the crowd that had gathered around him. Jesus’ listeners included a lawyer who was trying to test Jesus by asking questions that he thought Jesus would have trouble answering. The story that Jesus told in response to the lawyer’s questions is about a man who was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Along the way, he was attacked by a group of bandits, who beat him and robbed him and left him lying at the roadside.
Three other people came down the road, one by one: a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan. The first two passed by the beaten man, but the Samaritan stopped to help him: bandaging his wounds, taking him on his own animal to the inn, and paying for whatever care the man might need in the coming days (Luke 10:30 – 35). The Samaritan is clearly the hero of this story, while the priest and the Levite, perhaps even more than the robbers who caused the problem in the first place, are seen as the villains.
It is easy to see the heroism displayed by people who play a role in tragic or cataclysmic events. The soldier who risks his or her own life to protect those who are unarmed and vulnerable, the first responder who rushes towards a disaster that everyone who has any common sense is running away from, the military chaplain who provides comfort and consolation while surrounded by terror and destruction; all of these are undoubtedly heroes. They could even be called extraordinary heroes. And it is important to tell and to hear the stories of such heroes, especially in this season of remembrance.
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On a much smaller scale, it is also easy to see the heroism in someone who stops to help a stranger in need. Because of Jesus’ story, we call such people “good Samaritans.” This phrase is even used by people outside the church who have never heard the original story.
But what about those of us who live out our lives without finding ourselves in situations of tragedy or danger? What about those of us who never have the opportunity to be a hero in such an obvious and dramatic way? Can we still be heroes, too? Is there an opportunity for heroism even in our normal, mundane, peace – filled lives? We know what extraordinary heroism looks like. But what does ordinary heroism (if we can call it that) look like?
Well, there is a wonderful scene, near the end of The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wizard tells the Cowardly Lion that he is wrong to think of himself as having less courage than those who are seen as heroes. As a token of this, the Wizard gives the Lion a medal for courage. The Lion, the Wizard says, has courage and heroism, but those qualities have never been recognized in him, either by himself or by others. And I believe that this is the case with most, if not all of us as well. All of us have within us what it takes to be heroes.
But if we can all be heroes, what is heroism? Albert Szent – Györgyi, the Hungarian – born physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for discovering vitamin C, is credited with saying that “genius is seeing what everyone else sees, and thinking what no one else has thought.” I would propose that heroism, perhaps, is seeing what everyone else sees and doing what no one else has done. This, in a nutshell, is the message of Jesus’ story of the man who was beaten by robbers. What sets the Samaritan apart from the priest and the Levite is not that he sees something they don’t see. All three see the beaten and bleeding man lying by the side of the road. What sets the Samaritan apart as the neighbour or the hero of the story is he does something for the man, while the other two merely see the man and continue on their way.
I have been an ordained minister for seven and a half years now, serving two small congregations in the east end of Toronto. In that time, I have done a lot of thinking about what ministry is. And I am convinced that the work of a minister consists of doing those things that no one else in the church has the training, the skills, or the time to do. Some of those things are obvious, like preaching on Sunday morning, leading Bible study, or visiting the person in palliative care when no one else can quite bring themselves to do so. Some of those things are less obvious, like being on – site to meet the furnace repair technician, or sprinkling salt on that icy patch on the sidewalk early Sunday morning, or taking a plunger to the clogged toilet. That is to say that ministry is about more than what we train ministers to do, or even set them apart to do. And while doing the mundane things around the church may not be seen as ministry, as long as they are done to make it possible for the community of faith to gather together to worship, study, and fellowship, they are forms of ministry. Now I am not suggesting that no one else does anything; people in my congregations see and do things that I see and don’t do, and are therefore engaged in ministry as well.
And all of that means that ministry in the contemporary world is itself a form of heroism, for it consists of doing something about things that others see and do nothing about. And by ministry, I mean not only the ministry carried out by ordained and diaconal women and men like myself, but ministry carried out by lay people as well. The difference between the church and much of contemporary society is not that the church sees different things than society does. It is that the church does different things than society does. Society, like the priest and the Levite, sees things and passes by. The church, like the Samaritan, sees things and does something about them. That is ministry. And that is heroism.
Ministry means not just seeing the person who is lonely, but stopping to talk to them (and seeing them again and again if necessary). Ministry means not just seeing the person who is hurt, but doing something to take away their pain. Ministry means not just seeing the person who is afraid, but holding their hand to show them we are with them. Ministry means listening to the person no one else will listen to (and trying hard to understand their perspective). Ministry means hugging the person no one else will touch. Ministry means loving the person no one else will love. Ministry means not only recognizing that people in the world are searching for meaning and spirituality, but having the courage to offer Jesus Christ and the community of faith to them as a way of quenching that thirst. All of this is ministry. And all of this is heroism.
Some months ago, I got a call after supper telling me that a member of one of my congregations, who was in hospital, was not doing well. The family wondered if I would visit him. It was a Monday, and while I hadn’t taken the day off, I had not intended to see anyone, so I hadn’t shaved and was dressed even more casually than usual: a faded pair of blue jeans and a T – shirt that had seen better days. But when I got that phone call, I pulled on a hoodie and headed out the door without a second thought.
At the hospital, I prayed with the patient, spoke with his wife, and then went into the lounge to talk to their daughter. The daughter was speaking with another person when I came in; she introduced her as one of the hospital chaplains and said that I was her parents’ minister. I looked down at my clothing, shrugged my shoulders, and apologized that I didn’t look very much like a minister that particular day.
The chaplain smiled and said, “I saw you a few minutes ago. I walked past the room and saw you, on your knees, beside the bed. You were holding the patient’s hand in your hands, and your face was pressed up close to his face and you were praying. If that isn’t what a minister looks like, then I don’t think I know what a minister looks like.”
So what does an ordinary hero in this contemporary world look like?
Perhaps we should ask the Samaritan. Or, perhaps we should ask our minister who accompanies people through the various stages of their lives. Perhaps we should ask the elder, who makes the phone call no one else makes, to ask if things are okay. Perhaps we should ask the member, who knocks on the door that no one else bothers to knock on, to drop off a loaf of banana bread.
Or perhaps we just need to look at ourselves and notice those times when we saw something that others saw, too, but we were the ones who actually did something.
And then we need to make sure that we are heroes more often.
