The Four Gs of Life Part 3

 

This week we are playing with the Good Samaritan and the 4 Gs of life ~ glance, glare, gnaw, and gaze.  Yesterday, we examined and explored a few definitions, and I invited you to listen to your own life when each of these ways of being/seeing/living showed up for you.  Today, I want to suggest that in the parable, the Rabbi and Levite (that is, the good religious folk) who passed the man in the ditch badly beaten and bruised were perhaps in glance or glare mode.  Ever wonder if the Rabbi and Levite were so busy trying to get to their destination that they really didn’t “see” the man in the ditch?  I wonder how many hurt people I pass by each day without realizing or recognizing?  I get in glancing mode and spend too much of my time there.  Or maybe they glared at the man, wondered how he got there?  Maybe their amygdala went into overdrive thinking that the bandits/robbers were still nearby.  Maybe they lost cell phone reception and thought they would call as soon as they got a signal for help.  Maybe they thought, “better him than me.”  Or maybe they gnawed on this scene when they tried to go to sleep.  The truth is that the line of good and evil is not just out there in the bandits and evil of the world ~ no the line of good and evil runs right through each of our hearts.  Maybe the Rabbi and Levite saw the man, feared for their own life, but that night stared at the ceiling thinking, “I shoulda done something.”  How many times do we rewind and review the movie of our life when we are trying to fall asleep?  Maybe the Rabbi and Levite felt awful about passing by on the other side.  The point is we don’t know.  Jesus doesn’t say.  If we judge the Rabbi and Levite, it might say more about us than it does about them.  Where/when do I wear the Rabbi and Levite’s sandals?  Sure, I want to be the Good Samaritan, I want to be Mighty Mouse with the cape singing, “Here I come to save the day!”  But most of the time I can’t save myself from myself.  To be honest about the places and spaces our humanness shows up is one of the ways we can let this story speak and sing to our story this day, opening our eyes beyond the default of glance, glare, and gnaw to gaze upon this world God continues to call, “Good”.  Amen.