Last week we discovered how to please Jesus.  We found out, at least one way, to make him full of joy.  It begins with a paradigm shift.  We must think of ourselves as harvesters.  Have you been working on this?  If I want to please Jesus I must be a harvester.  I am in this huge field of the world; a field full of grain needing harvesting.  People all around me need faith in Jesus.  I must adopt a new persona. Have you ever adopted a persona?  This new persona is of a powerful harvester carrying the sickle of the Gospel into the world with a sense of urgency.  We recognize that not all grain wants to be harvested, but we don’t allow that to discourage us.  Instead, we move on to grain that does.  But the real part about how we go about pleasing Jesus is in our method of our harvesting. 

We don’t use John Deere tractors; instead we use our own joy! We don’t hammer people with the Gospel; we share the celebration of our own faith.  We don’t recruit.  We live like people whose names are written in heaven, because they are! Our sickle is the celebration of being a child of God, with emphasis on the child part.  It is the contagiousness of joy.  It is in humility and praise of God that our harvesting naturally flows.  Isn’t that exciting?  Don’t you want to celebrate?  Celebration is harvesting!  That is the paradigm shift to the new persona.  That was a cool sentence.  I think I will say it again.  “Celebrating harvesters” is the paradigm shift to the new persona!  Wow!

But Luke doesn’t leave us hanging with this concept.  He gives us some help with how to be celebrating harvesters.  The next two stories in Luke tweak our persona and help us overcome two major obstacles to us being celebrating harvesters.  There are two questions we must answer for ourselves, before we can go on to be our new selves.  But before we get to those questions, let me read a story.

In December 1970, psychologists John Darley and C. Daniel Batson conducted an experiment inspired by the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the biblical parable, thieves beat and rob a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, leaving him naked and half dead by the side of the road. A priest passes by and crosses the road rather than help the wounded traveler, and a Levite, a religious functionary, does the same. Then a Samaritan—in those days a religious outcast—comes upon the scene, applies balm and bandages to the victim's wounds, loads him on a donkey, brings him to an inn, nurses him through the night, and the following morning leaves money with the innkeeper for the traveler's continued care.

Darley and Batson thought that the tale was based on some notions of human behavior worth testing. They reasoned that the priest and the Levite were probably preoccupied with religious thoughts as they traveled down the road, and given their high social standing might have been in a bit of a hurry to get to their next appointments. The two psychologists speculated that the Samaritan was probably thinking about more mundane matters at the moment of ethical decision and, as someone who occupied a low rung of the social ladder, might not have had so demanding a schedule as those of the priest and the Levite. In an article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1973, Darley and Batson wrote, "The parable implies that people who encounter a situation possibly calling for a helping response while thinking religious and ethical thoughts will be no more likely to offer aid than persons thinking about something else . . . [and] persons encountering a possible helping situation when they are in a hurry will be less likely to offer aid than persons not in a hurry."

To test those hypotheses, Darley and Batson gathered a sample of 40 students from the Princeton Theological Seminary. In individual sessions, half the students were given a copy of the parable of the Good Samaritan and told they would be required to deliver a sermon on the subject in a few minutes. The other half were told they would be talking
extemporaneously about employment prospects for seminary students. All subjects were told to report to an office in another building to deliver their talks; some were told that they should hurry because people were waiting for them, while others were led to believe that they had slightly more time to report to the test site.

On the way to the test site, each student passed a poorly dressed figure slumped in a doorway, head down, eyes closed, not moving, a man described by the two psychologists as an ambiguous figure, possibly in need of help, possibly drunk, possibly dangerous—a situation not unlike the one that occurred on the road to Jericho, except that in this case the ambiguous figure was clothed. As the subject passed, the man coughed twice and groaned.

Sixty percent of the students walked on without offering help. A student thinking about the parable was no more likely to stop than one given a less lofty topic, and on several occasions a student  going to talk on the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the man. Only 10 percent of those who were told to rush to the test site offered help, while 63 percent of those who thought they had a few minutes to spare offered aid. In examining psychological tests given to their subjects, Darley and Batson found no personality characteristics that predicted helping behavior; the only factor that seemed to predict helping behavior was degree of hurry.

The psychologists were drawn to conclude that as the speed of daily life increases, ethics becomes a luxury.

Wow.  This experiment illustrates both of the obstacles we have to address before we can become harvesters.

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

Luke 10:25-37  On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  26 answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"  27 He your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." 

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"  30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.  35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'  36 "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"  37 The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

In Bible times the concept of neighbor meant a lot more than it typically does to us.  We may not even know all of our neighbors.  Can you name the person who lives across the street and down two houses?  I can’t.  And that might be part of the problem we have being effective harvesters.  But in the days of Jesus the concept of neighbor was an obligation.  It was to be a part of a community.  It was to help, to share, to raise kids, to belong.  It was a social, economic, religious, and political bond.  You were obligated to love, in a real practical way, your neighbor.  So, you can see the importance of the question to the man who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”  It wasn’t just a nice rhetorical question, it was who am I connected to?

What the expert in the law wanted to do, like all lawyers, was limit the liability. Isn’t that basically the job of most lawyers?  Don’t we hire them to reduce our risk and keep us

from being responsible?  He didn’t want to be responsible for everyone.  He wanted to only have to love those who were Jews, like him, who observed the Law, like him, who believed like him, who looked like him, who agreed with him.  He didn’t want to be responsible for everyone. 

It is once again this lifeboat principle.  Remember the lifeboat principle from our transformation class?  In a lifeboat there is only so much space.  If you have too many people in your lifeboat then you need to throw some people overboard in order to have enough for yourself.  “There is only so much space in my lifeboat. I have to throw out as many people as I can.  There are only so many people I can love. There is really only so much I can do. There is only so much of me to go around.  If I spread myself too thin… I might break?  So, I need to throw as many people as I can out of the boat in order to minimize my responsibility.  So, I need to know who is my neighbor.”

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus dismisses the lifeboat theology and insists that to be a celebrating harvester we must love all who are placed in our boat. I think there is more going on than stopping along the road to help people. It is back to the paradigm shift.  All are neighbors.  Therefore we share our celebrated faith indiscriminately.  Race, religious background, disabilities, gender, age; we only see people as our neighbors.  “Lord, I want to see… show me everyone as my neighbors!”

Maybe we should sing a little Mr. Rodgers, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…Won’t you be my… neighbor?” 

To answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?”  perhaps the answer is, “Your neighbor is anyone whose need you see, whose need you are able to meet.” Or you may like this one better: “One cannot define one’s neighbor; one can only be a neighbor.” 

We become the harvesters we are intended to be when we learn that everyone is our neighbor.  But that is only one of the two questions we need to ask, and I think not the most important one for us.  I think the real obstacle to our harvesting lies in the second question. 

WHAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT?

Luke 10:38-42  As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.  40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"  41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things,  42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

“You are worried and upset about many things.”  Boy, does that hit us right between the kisser or what?  We are worried and busy and running around with a to-do list a mile long with our hair on fire wondering why we are not effective harvesters.  Busyness and listening don’t go well together.  Jesus told Martha there is really only one thing that is needed and that is listening to Jesus.

Years ago we studied a book called “Margin” by Richard Swenson. It discusses having emotional, physical, financial, and time reserves in our lives.  On the back cover is this admonition:

RX. From the Desk of Richard A. Swenson
Overload, is not having time to finish the book you're reading on stress.
Margin is having time to read it twice.
Overload, is fatigue. Margin is energy.
Overload, is red ink. Margin is black ink.
Overload, is hurry. Margin is calm.
Overload is anxiety. Margin is security.

Overload, is the disease of the 90s.
Margin, is the cure.

We cannot be effective harvesters if we live to fullest.  If every moment is allocated, if every dollar is spent before we get it, if all of our emotional energy is taken and we hit the bed each night… done, we are not going to be able to listen to Jesus.  If we did hear him we couldn’t schedule it till next Tuesday. Remember in the Princeton Survey only 10% of those who were told to rush to the test site offered help, while 63% who were not in a hurry stopped to help. 

We become celebrating harvesters when we choose the important over the urgent; when we choose to listen to Jesus over the busyness of the world; when we have the margins in our lives which allow us time to hear and respond to the voice of Jesus.   

I guess the answer is downsizing; carefully examining our lives and cutting the excess; ridding our lives of the superfluous. Cutting back until we are spending our time and money and energy on the things that are truly important and having margins to listen and respond as we sit at the feet of Jesus. 

Perhaps we need a prayer for both of our obstacles to being celebrating harvesters.

Lord, I want to see my neighbors.  I want to see the people you place in my lifeboat as neighbors. Help me to love them.  Lord, I want to hear you.  Bless me to be able to determine the important over the urgent.  Lord, send us forth as your celebrating harvesters.  Amen.