Unmerited Grace: Carmanie Bhatti’s sermon for District Committee of Ordained Ministry
Can I invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Luke and to the 10th Chapter and we are going to read from the 25th Verse. It will appear on the screens as well. [Pause for one sec]
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify …show more content…
When I was new to the United States, people often asked me, how does it look like to grow up in Pakistan as a Christian? They were curious because they knew it's not easy and we see in the news how Christians are persecuted in the Middle East.
Loved ones, I always replied, “it’s not easy. But, isn't this what real Christianity is, to go out of our comfort zone to love and forgive those who hate us?
When Jesus told this story to the lawyer it was the time when Jews showed extreme prejudice toward Samaritans. Jews made daily petitions to God that no Samaritan would receive eternal life. Jews did not hesitate in cursing samaritans in synagogues. Rabbis of that time prohibited Jewish beggars from receiving money from Samaritans because their money they told the beggars was contaminated. Isn’t it horrible? Just imagine how difficult it would be to live as a samaritan in Jesus’ time.
Brothers and Sisters, if you pay a close attention to the story today, you will realize that Jesus could have put no more offensive hero to place into the very middle of this story. A Hero which was not from a privileged background, instead from a marginalized, social class. What a dilema! [Pause for a