Of Loaves and Fishes and Grinches and Beads

Of Loaves and Fishes and Grinches and Beads

Len Niehoff

A sermon shared at the Suttons Bay Congregational Church

March 24, 2019

Scripture: Mark 6:35-44

            As some of you know, although I practice law and serve as an occasional itinerant preacher, my actual full-time gig is teaching at the University of Michigan Law School. My courses there include one in Evidence—the rules that determine what a jury may and may not consider during a trial. I’ve taught this subject for more than thirty years and I find it fascinating. If we’re ever seated next to each other at a dinner party, I will bore you senseless talking about it.

            Early in my teaching, I realized that many of my students assumed that the best evidence comes in the form of eyewitness testimony. In my experience, most non-lawyers think this way, too. If we want to know whether something happened, we often begin by asking whether anyone saw it happen. We tend to view eyewitness testimony as uniquely reliable.

            Social scientists and trial lawyers will tell you that it doesn’t exactly work that way. In fact, eyewitness testimony can suffer from all sorts of problems. A witness’s testimony can be distorted by their memory, their suggestibility, their assumptions, their biases, or their failures of perception—especially their failures of perception. Indeed, none of us is as observant as we think we are;  when Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson “You see but you do not observe” he might as well be talking to everyone but himself.

            To make the point to my students, I engage them in a little exercise. At the beginning of a class, I hand out small pieces of paper for them to write on. I say: “Okay, I’ve been standing right in front of you for a few weeks and you’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe me. I’m going to leave the room. While I’m out, please write down your estimates of my height, my weight, and my age. And please describe the clothes I wore to class yesterday.” About ten minutes later I return and collect the results.

            Every year, things play out the same way: the students’ perceptions of me vary wildly. Guesses at my height range from 5’6” to 6’2”; my weight ranges from 150 pounds to 230 pounds; my age ranges from 50 to 70. And almost no one has the foggiest idea of how I was dressed the day before—even though I stood before them for more than an hour. (By the way, since you’re now all staring and trying to guess the answers to these questions I will tell you that I’m about 5’8, weigh around 195 pounds, and am 61 years old, which explains why the students who put me at 6’2 and 50 always receive A’s.)

Eyewitnesses perceive things differently—sometimes very differently. And having more witnesses does not necessarily help. Indeed, as my class experiment shows, additional witnesses can just mean additional variations.

            I think that understanding this reality about eyewitness testimony helps with the business of biblical interpretation. Religious skeptics sometimes point out that the scriptures give us inconsistent accounts of what happened around a particular event. For example, the four gospel accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection differ significantly in their details. And that’s a story we might think the Bible would report consistently given the fact that, well, it’s sort of important, being the foundation of our religion and all.

But those differences do absolutely nothing to undermine my faith. To the contrary, they are exactly what I would expect to find in reports of what eyewitnesses say they saw. If people did indeed see something, they will vary in how they describe it.

            In this sense, inconsistencies serve as a paradoxical source of comfort. They reassure us that the thing witnessed actually happened. So, sure, my students may vary in their guesses about my height, weight, age, and clothing. But not one of them harbors any doubt that I am indeed the guy who has been standing in front of them for weeks, talking to them about Evidence. No student has ever written on their piece of paper: “I do not know who you are. I have never seen you before.” In other words, testimony from multiple witnesses can differ in its details—and it usually does—but it tends to be consistent with respect to “the big picture.” And that can also help us understand what the big picture is.

So it goes with the eyewitness narratives we encounter in the Bible. Stories may differ in their details, but often the details frankly don’t matter much. The point of the story is that something amazing happened, and the stories will align in general terms about what that something amazing was.

 

            This brings us to our scripture for today, the story of the loaves and the fish and the feeding of the multitude. The scriptures give us a number of different versions of this story. Some passages describe this as a miracle involving five loaves and two fish, some as involving seven loaves and a few fish; some say that Jesus fed five thousand, some say he fed four; some say the disciples collected the leftovers in twelve small baskets, some say they used seven bigger ones; some versions suggest we’re talking about one miracle on one occasion, others indicate we’re talking about two miracles on two occasions.

            Should these variations trouble us? I think not at all. As I’ve suggested, these sorts of differences in accounts are completely consistent with what we routinely find when multiple witnesses see the same thing. Besides, all of the versions agree that something amazing happened and agree in general terms about what that something amazing was. And remember: in life, we want to strive to become seers of miracles—not counters of fishes.

            But here’s the main thing: I believe there is one number that matters more than all of those others I just gave you—the number four. The feeding of the multitudes is the only miracle reported in all four of the gospels: Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6. Clearly, something very important is going on in this story. I can almost hear our heavenly parent saying—as parents around the world do with considerable frequency—“how many times do I have to tell you this?”

            It’s tempting to think that the importance of this story lies in the magnitude of the miracle. After all, feeding thousands of people with a handful of bread and fish makes for one impressive feat. But I don’t think that’s the answer. After all, raising Lazarus from the dead seems at least as remarkable and that story appears only in the gospel of John.

            No, in my view this story derives its importance primarily from the attitude of the disciples that prompts Jesus to perform the miracle. In other words, I think this story matters so much—and has so much to teach us—not because of what Jesus does but because of why he does it. Of course, to some extent he multiplied the loaves and fish because he had lots of hungry people on his hands and felt compassion for them. But I think he also did it (and perhaps mainly did it) because of something his disciples said that he felt compelled to correct.

            On this point, the gospel narratives are extraordinarily consistent. In every one of them, the disciples say it is impossible to feed the gathered crowd with what they have. The details vary: for example, in Matthew 14 the disciples say: “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish” while in John 6 they say “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” But the thrust of their remarks is identical in every gospel: we don’t have enough; it can’t be done. In each of the gospels, the disciples express an attitude of scarcity—and in each of the gospels Jesus shows them to be wrong. “Not enough? Here, start passing the fish.”

            Jesus conveys this anti-scarcity message over and over and over again throughout the scriptures. Indeed, it lies at the center of many of the most familiar gospel stories. Remember the story of “the widow’s mite”: A poor widow contributed all she had to the treasury of the house of God. She could have held back—after all, money was scarce. But she did not and Jesus blessed her for it. (Mark 12) Or this story: A woman broke open a bottle of costly ointment and rubbed it into Jesus’s hair. Some of those present complained that she had “wasted” it—after all, such ointment was scarce. But Jesus admonished them and blessed her. (Mark 14)

            Now, I want you to notice something about all of these stories—they involve real scarcity. In contrast, we human beings can sometimes indulge in an attitude of  false scarcity. We manufacture a scarcity concern that does not actually exist and then use it to justify our behavior. Let me give you a trivial—but pointed—example that comes from a recent experience … because, you know, when you do sermons you walk through life looking for parables. And you find a lot of them. So here’s my latest.

            Lisa and I love New Orleans and the festive weeks leading up to Mardi Gras. As many of you know, lots of beads get thrown during Mardi Gras, sometimes under circumstances that have given the practice a regrettably sketchy reputation. But here’s what you need to understand if you’ve never been: thousands and thousands and thousands of strands of beads get thrown to people during Mardi Gras, mostly during parades from floats. Late at night, the streets are littered with them—they crunch under your feet. And all you need to do to get someone to throw some to you is wave and yell.

            A grand Mardi Gras tradition holds that if you catch a strand of beads, and you’ve already got some, then you look around to see if anyone near you needs any. If so, you give them away. On Mardi Gras itself—the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday—Lisa and I found ourselves in a parade stand surrounded by people who were giving beads away as fast as they could catch them—to strangers, to children, to the less mobile among us. An elderly woman visiting from England, who couldn’t stand up to catch any herself because of her physical limitations, laughed in delight as people around her draped dozens of strands of beads about her neck. “Does she have purple?” I heard someone yell. “I’ve got an excellent purple!”

            But then there was “that guy” and, as we all know, in life you never want to be “that guy.” He caught lots of beads, sometimes snagging them from the outstretched hands of others—and then kept all of them! He accumulated quite a stash, at one point bragging that last year he had brought home many pounds of them. Lisa leaned over to me and whispered conspiratorily: “We have a bead hog in our midst.” And here’s my point: the bead hog had brought an attitude of scarcity to an activity where there was anything but. My friends, whatever other shortages exist in the world, I’m here to tell you that there is no deficit of beads in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the days leading up to Lent.

            Now, contrast this with the Bible stories I referenced a moment ago. If you’ve got thousands of people to feed, then having a few loaves and fish is genuine scarcity. If you’re poor like the widow, then the money you give the church comes from genuine scarcity. If ointment is rare, then by definition there is a genuine scarcity of it. And yet, even in those circumstances where true scarcity exists, Jesus tells us that we must have an attitude of abundance.

            And Jesus tells us this—as he tells us all things—because he loves us more than we can imagine. He understood that an attitude of abundance makes our lives—and the lives of everyone around us—better. An attitude of scarcity, in contrast, breeds a smallness of heart and a corresponding smallness of life. Have you ever met a sad person who had an attitude of abundance? Neither have I. Have you ever met a spiritually mature person who had an attitude of scarcity? Me either.

            This is, of course, the point of one of the famous stories of that other great gospel writer—Dr. Seuss. The greedy Grinch that we meet at the beginning of his story has a shriveled, tiny heart that is “two sizes too small.” The generous Grinch that emerges at the end of the tale has a heart three times bigger—and, to go along with it, the “strength of ten Grinches, plus two!” We are all human beings and therefore, alas, full of Grinch potential. The question is: which Grinch are we going to be? The petty and childish one at the beginning? Or the spiritually mature one at the end … who gets to join hands and sing with Cindy Lou Who?

            Now, Jesus does not promise us that maintaining an attitude of abundance will come easily. He knew that genuine scarcity exists—indeed, he was surrounded by it. And he understood how easily an attitude of scarcity can infect our hearts and the hearts of everyone with whom we interact. He realized the temptations that exist to become that Grinch and that guy.

            But he also understood that an attitude of abundance has its own infectious quality. If we sow it, we will reap it. If we model it, others will embrace it. Many of us give to worthwhile organizations that try to address the genuine scarcities of the world—like Leelanau Christian Neighbors—because someone else pointed the way for us out of their spirit of abundance.

            And, of course, a central point of this message has nothing to do with material things. It has to do with things like patience, and forgiveness, and compassion, and empathy, and love—things that exist in infinite quantities, but that can become scarce if we choose to make them so. Jesus tells us they are plentiful, indeed they are inside us all the time. Let ‘em out, he says, and pass them around like loaves and fishes.

  

Going through life with an attitude of abundance is like riding along on a float and throwing shiny gifts into crowds of people you don’t even know. By this, Jesus said, everyone will know that we are his disciples. They will know that we are Christians by our love.

*

            Perhaps you’re wondering: what became of the bead hog? Well, he wandered away for a while, and I assumed he was gone for good, but then he came back. At first, I thought he seemed a bit sheepish because of his earlier bead-hoarding. But then he sidled right up next to the street, in front of everybody else, where the opportunities for catching things were the best. I thought to myself: “Wow. He’s watching all these people give all this stuff away and he still doesn’t get it.”

But then a very special prize much rarer than a strand of beads—a bright yellow plastic horn, ideal for tooting—flew from a float, passed through his fingers, and dropped at his feet behind him. He spun around, snatched it up, paused for a moment, and then handed it to me. Then he caught another prize—a foam football—and stuck it in the hands of a boy standing next to him. A whistle, a medallion, a coin … he caught them and passed them around! Sure, he still kept some beads—as did we all. But he was giving them away as well.

When last I saw him, he was headed away from the parade with his wife, working his way through the throngs of people. In addition to some strands of beads, he was wearing something else—something I hadn’t seen on him all morning long. It was a faint, but clearly discernible, smile. For the first time, he actually looked happy.

Who knows?

Perhaps it was because his heart had grown three times bigger that day.

Ah, praise God that it might be so.

And the people said: Amen.

The Biggest Neighborhood in the Whole Wide World

A sermon shared at the Suttons Bay Congregational Church

December 30, 2018

Scripture: Luke 10:25-37

(the parable of the Good Samaritan)

         The end of the year serves for many of us as an occasion to look backward at how we’ve done so we can move forward with the goal of doing better. This often takes the form of regrets about past years and resolutions for the new one. Alas, the latter may fail to usher us down the storied paths of righteousness. As Mark Twain observed, “Now is the accepted time to make your annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

         Although the odds may not favor me, I cling to Jesus’s assurance that “with God, all things are possible” and so hold out hope. In that spirit, I have recently dedicated some time to looking backward—even way backward—to get a glimpse into the darker corners of my past. This has led me to an appalling, shocking, and dreadful realization that I will confess to you this morning. Here it comes: when I was young, I did not like Fred Rogers or his television show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

         My text says: pause here for gasps and to allow people time to leave in a huff or throw chunks of leftover fruitcake.

         My defense, to the extent I have one, rests in my age when his show achieved its popularity.  Mister Rogers hit his stride in the 1970s, when I was approaching and entering my teenage years. I certainly had nothing against him; even through the skeptical and all-knowing eyes of adolescence I could tell that Fred Rogers exuded kindness.

But that was precisely the problem: in those years, kindness did not stand out to me as an quality or activity of the highest order. I associated kindness with softness and at that age I wanted nothing to do with that dreaded “s” word. No, I was fully focused on what I saw as the three most important rituals of fully realized manhood: driving, shaving, and figuring out how to get that girl in my homeroom class to talk to me.

         As I grew older, I came to associate two other “s” words with kindness. One is spontaneity. I think I acquired this idea by living in Ann Arbor and finding myself more or less constantly behind a car with a bumper sticker instructing me to engage in random acts of kindness. I took these to be small and spontaneous things, like holding the elevator door for someone, or giving money to a homeless person, or smiling at a parent who is trying to quiet a screaming child in a restaurant while everyone else glares at them.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of these small acts of kindness—but it also seems fair to ask if we should strive for more. Thomas Jefferson wanted his gravestone to note that he had authored the Declaration of Independence. Who among us hopes that ours will proudly declare: “Always tipped twenty percent.”

Then there’s that third “s” word that we associate with kindness. Actually, I can give you a few “s” choices here, all getting at the same thing: Sensitive. Sweet. Saccharine. Take your pick. Here we equate kindness with niceness or even with some sort of slavish warm fuzziness. A kind person, we think, does nothing to trouble us—except possibly make our teeth ache from the sugar.

Let’s be clear: all of these things contribute to the common good and deserve our praise. The woman with her arms full who has a door held open for her, the homeless man who gets a few dollars from a smiling stranger, the exasperated mother who receives a sympathetic glance from an adjoining table, the beleaguered waiter who discovers twenty percent added to the bill—these acts make their lives better. They matter. We need every last act of kindness we can get these days, regardless of its size.

But this morning I want to suggest that we sell kindness short—and may even inadvertently give it a bad reputation—if we think of it only in the limited ways captured by these characteristics of softness, spontaneity, and sweetness. Jesus had important things to say about this. I have come to realize that Fred Rogers did, too. And maybe, just maybe, we can find in what they have to tell us some useful instruction for how to go about making next year a better and more meaningful one.

Let’s start here. Its reputation for softness notwithstanding, kindness sometimes requires courage and can even come at a significant cost. Take the Good Samaritan. We meet him traveling in notoriously dangerous territory—the road to Jericho, famous for its robberies and assaults. He knew violent bandits were in the area because he discovered one of their victims. Rushing to the aid of that stranger put him at substantial personal risk: indeed, this explains why the priest and the Levite crossed to the other side of the road and hustled out of there.

But not our Good Samaritan. He did not flee. He stopped to help. He rescued the man. He cared for him. He paid for his room and promised to cover any excess expenses.

“Good” Samaritan? Talk about understatement! How about the “Gutsy” Samaritan or even the “Gritty” Samaritan? This guy stops in the worst part of town, field dresses a man’s wounds, lifts him up and puts him on a donkey, delivers him to safety, and foots the bill. To use the vernacular, the “Good” Samaritan must have been one “bad” dude.

I never thought of Fred Rogers in those terms—but then I saw a recent documentary about him called “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and it completely changed my perspective. Let me tell you: that Rogers guy, in his fussy little sweaters and colorful sneakers, he had courage.

At the time Fred Rogers entered the field, children’s television programming followed a well-established formula for success: a splashy and colorful set, lots of noise and action, and as little talking and thinking as humanly possible. Mister Rogers stood every single part of that formula on its head.

Do you remember the set? It looked like something your eccentric uncle had cobbled together out of cardboard, spit, and glue. You worried that if he sneezed it might topple over.

 More, importantly, though, Mister Rogers completely changed the substance of children’s programming. He spoke in a quiet and thoughtful voice. And, rather than offer kids more of the nonsense and slapstick violence that routinely washed over them from their television sets, he took on countless tough subjects: Death. Divorce. Prejudice. Segregation. Sickness. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. The Challenger disaster. 9/11.

Over and over again, Fred Rogers proved himself to be the Good Samaritan of children’s television. He never fled to the easier side of the road. He met kids where he found them. And he picked them up and took them someplace better, where they could heal from the world’s wounds.

The lessons of his program remain hauntingly relevant. Consider this: in a five-episode series in 1968, controversy erupts in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe when King Friday XIII—one of the puppets on the show—wants to build a border wall to keep people out who frighten him. Sound familiar? And that was fifty years ago.

All this kindness took a lot of planning on Fred Rogers’ part. And, indeed, while the kindness shown by the Good Samaritan probably qualifies as spontaneous—our second “s” word—we often have to do some advance work as we go about the business of God’s love. We may find we even need to be a bit calculating in the process.

We might bristle at the idea of associating kindness with calculation, but we shouldn’t. If we “love it when a plan comes together,” then we should love it even more when the plan is one of love. And remember that God’s greatest expression of compassion is reflected in a plan that took a few millennia to implement: the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy that brought a savior into the world.

Jesus understood that sometimes we will need to be calculated, canny, and crafty in our kindness. I think this explains why he said to his disciples: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves, so be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” Translations vary here, rendering the word “wise” as “shrewd” or even “cunning,” but they all get at the same point.

Spontaneous outbursts of love have their place. But we live in a hard world—one with disquieting resemblances to the Jericho Road. So we need to have our wits about us and to strategize kindness—not just respond warmly when an opportunity taps us on the shoulder and says “Hey you! Over here!”

        

This brings us to our third “s” word—sweetness. Fred Rogers certainly embodied this characteristic and, over the years, I’ve heard a few sermons on the Good Samaritan that cast him in this light as well. And, please, don’t get me started on all the songs and paintings that portray Jesus as this sweet, amiable chap who’d never offend anyone. As a minister friend of mine was fond of observing, “angry crowds do not call for the crucifixion of nice guys.”

Alas, this strong association of kindness with sweetness may trap us into thinking that compassion routinely comes to us coated in layers of gooey frosting. This ignores the role that candor—and even confrontation—can play in kindness. And we find that reality embodied in the person of Jesus Christ.

Think, for example, of the rich young man who comes to Jesus and asks what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds bluntly and offers no spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. He says: “Sell everything you have, give your money to the poor, and follow me.” The young man does not take this well, the scriptures tell us, because he has lots of cool stuff—again, translations vary.

This passage includes an important nuance that we might read past if we don’t slow down and notice it. The rich young man may not have welcomed these words, but Jesus clearly spoke them out of care and kindness. The Gospel of Mark expressly declares that Jesus looked warmly at the young man, felt love for him—and then delivered the hard news.

We sometimes call this “tough love” and, as the author Julian Barnes observed, it is “hard on the lover,” too. If you have ever loved someone who you had to confront about their drug addiction, their alcoholism, their gambling problem, their eating disorder, their unhealthy relationship, or their abusive spouse then you can attest to this. Kindness can demand that we say uncomfortable words to people who have become too comfortable in the wrong places and on the wrong paths. It can even require that we intervene in their lives to try to interrupt the unfolding tragedy.

I have had to do this a number of times in my life—perhaps you have as well. It is not for the faint of heart. In all honesty, sometimes it did not work. And this much is clear: there is absolutely nothing “sweet” about it.

So kindness may come to us as soft, spontaneous, and sweet. Or it may require courage, calculation, and candor. But here’s the thing: I don’t believe that the gospels view any of these as being the most important characteristic of kindness. In order to get at that, we need to return to the two geographic territories that have occupied our attention this morning: the Jericho Road and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Think back on the parable of the Good Samaritan for a moment. Jesus tells this parable in response to a question posed by a lawyer. This lawyer asked the same question raised by the rich fellow whom Jesus advised to go sell everything. Both asked: what do I need to do to inherit eternal life?

Now, I want you to notice something about this question: in both cases, these men are asking Jesus about themselves. They might as well have been asking about driving or shaving or getting the attention of the girl in homeroom—it’s all about them. They want to know what they need to do in order to get themselves a front row seat in the deluxe car on that great Amtrak to immortality.

In both cases, though, Jesus turns the question on its head: he moves the focus of the conversation away from the inquirer and toward others. Indeed, the rich young man experiences so much despair over the idea of selling his cool stuff that he misses the fact that Jesus isn’t talking about him or his beloved possessions—he’s talking about the poor.

An identical dynamic sets up the parable of the Good Samaritan. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” the lawyer asks. And Jesus answers: “Love the Lord with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as yourself.” Again, Jesus tries to reorient the inquirer away from himself and toward others. The lawyer persists: “But who is my neighbor?”

Now, when we read this passage, we tend to emphasize the words “who” and “neighbor”: “But WHO is my NEIGHBOR?” I think, though, that this misunderstands what’s going on here—and why Jesus answers the question by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. In my view, properly understood the question sounds like this: “But who is MY neighbor?” That seems to me much more consistent with the self-directed nature of the whole line of questioning.

So Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan and the answer becomes clear: everyone is YOUR neighbor. All people. No exclusions. No exceptions. Do you want to follow Jesus Christ? Then YOUR neighborhood has to be the biggest neighborhood in the whole wide world.

Do you remember how Mister Rogers started every show? He came in through his rickety front door and sang: “Would you be my? Could you be my? Won’t you be MY neighbor?” Now, think about that for a minute: he sang those words into a television camera, not even knowing who was watching and listening. He did not sing it to anyone in particular. He sang it to everyone in particular.

Notice how this message completely inverts the way we normally think about the concept of a “neighbor.” Here, YOUR neighbor is not the person with whom you share a street, or a property line, or a barbeque in the summer, or a cup of eggnog in the winter, or a church pew on Sundays. No, YOUR neighbor encompasses every last child of the living God. This concept stands the world on its head—and, as usual, Jesus says that is exactly the right way to think about things: upside down.

The great preacher Frederick Buechner wrote a wonderful sermon he called “the clown the Belfry” that gets at this theme. In it, he tells the story of an old New England church that had suffered some damage and so, in 1831, repaired the structure and topped it with a handsome new steeple. “When the steeple was added,” a written history of the church observed, “one agile Lyman Woodard [celebrated by standing] on his head in the belfry with his feet toward heaven.” Buechner writes:

“That's the one and only thing I've been able to find out about Lyman Woodard, whoever he was, but it is enough. I love him for doing what he did. It was a crazy thing to do. It was a risky thing to do. It ran counter to all standards of New England practicality and prudence. It stood the whole idea that you're supposed to be nothing but solemn in church on its head just like Lyman himself standing upside down on his. And it was also a magical and magnificent and Mozartian thing to do.

If the Lord is indeed our shepherd, then everything goes topsy-turvy. Losing becomes finding and crying becomes laughing. The last become first and the weak become strong. Instead of life being done in by death in the end as we always supposed, death is done in finally by life in the end.”

A savior—in a stable. A tomb—empty. A messiah—from the backwater town of Nazareth. A respected priest—cowardly. An obscure Samaritan—heroic. The world turned upside down.

Of course, turning everything on its head and seeing our neighborhood as the biggest one in the whole wide world has consequences. It’s not exclusive real estate. It’s not a pretty, tidy, orderly gated community. We will find ourselves rubbing shoulders with people we don’t know, with whom we have little in common, and who we do not particularly like. And it’s not the safest or most welcoming place, either: as Jesus, and the Good Samaritan, and Fred Rogers all understood, the Jericho Road runs right through it. But that’s precisely the point—that’s why we are needed there.

         Fred Rogers liked to refer to the Jewish concept of “tikkun olam”—the idea that through our acts of kindness we can be “repairers of the world.” But there is no fixing it from the outside. When it comes to healing the world, we have to be in it to begin it.

         In the next week or so, many of us will ask ourselves the question: “What resolutions shall I make to give myself a better trip around this sun this time?” There’s certainly nothing wrong with doing that: I’m confident that God has no objections if we hope to get in better shape or to eat healthier food or to engage in that vast archeological dig that we call the cleaning of closets.

         But the stories of the rich young man and the Good Samaritan tell us that we will not really change our lives until we change our questions, re-focusing them away from ourselves and toward others. So, as we ponder our new year’s resolutions, I think Jesus invites us to ask ourselves these questions as well:

How can I be sure that I don’t miss any of the chances at soft, spontaneous, and sweet kindness that come my way?

What do I need to do so that this year includes some courageous, calculated, candid, and even crazy kindness as well?

How can I put myself on the roads that will lead me to those who need to be carried and cared for?

         What can I do for my neighborhood—the biggest neighborhood in the whole wide world?

         How can I make sure everyone feels welcome there?

         How can I help fix it?

         How, how, how can I help it heal?

         And the people said: Amen.