May 10, 2008

The moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA asked members of the Class of 2008 to walk where Jesus walked during her baccalaureate address to graduating seniors on May 9. 

PC alumna Rev. Joan Gray, a parish associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Ga., and the national denomination’s chief ambassador, said that God's people first set their feet on that path when they ask, as did the lawyer in the Gospel of Luke who asked Jesus, "What must I do to have eternal life?"

"We come to attention and we listen for the answer, don’t we, because like the lawyer in the story, we, too, are interested in wading in the river of life," she said. "Seekers crave something more than the same old, same old. Seekers want something beyond the dry routine of just existing. We want life with a purpose, where every day is an adventure. We want to wade in the river of life up to our armpits, and be soaked in its joy and its power and its peace.”

The answer, Gray said, was in the law all along, as Jesus directed the lawyer – in the scripture that reads: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus response – "Do this and you will live" - caused the lawyer's heart to sink, however.

"Why does his heart sink?" Gray said. "It's not the God part. It's the neighbor part. His heart sinks because he's remembering that there are a hundred beggars between him and home. His heart sinks when he remembers all those appeals for good causes he gets every day in the mail. His heart sinks because he is remembering that bad neighborhood he drives through on his way home. His heart sinks because he has a shiftless brother-in-law who is always after him for money, and a neighbor who is always borrowing things and never bringing them back."

In self-defense, she added, the lawyer asks the question, "Well, who is my neighbor?"

"But Jesus proceeds to tell a parable that only makes things worse. He lifts up as the epitome of the good neighbor a despised foreigner, a religious heretic, a Samaritan, who risks his own life to save the life of a stranger lying in a ditch beside the road."

Gray said it is beneficial to examine the parable from the point of view of the man in the ditch. No matter what background a person comes from, when they are in the ditch, help is welcomed no matter the background of the person who lends their hand in aid.

"This is the view from the ditch, and it strikes me that at the heart of the Christian faith is the clear sense that whether we remember it or not, we all started out in the ditch," she said. "We didn't get to be where we are by ourselves. We started out in the ditch. We were lost and we were helpless, the river of life was forever beyond our grasp until Jesus found us in the ditch and gave His life so we might have life. Once we realize that we all started out in the ditch, and would still be there except for the grace of God, then the question becomes: How are we going to live in relation to others who are still in the ditch?"

Gray said she traveled to Israel several years ago and discovered that there are two roads from Jerusalem to Jericho - one paved and modern and the other the same old road traveled by the Samaritan from Jesus’ parable. At the end of her trip, Gray said she and some fellow travelers decided to walk the last eight miles of the old road to Jericho.

Along the rugged winding path on bleak terrain is an old Roman aqueduct that still carries water. Along its path, said Gray, there are trees and flowers and grass. There is life, she said.

"It seems to me that we have a choice to make about how we are going to live our days on earth," she said. "We can take the superhighway route through life, and zoom along keeping the windows of our soul rolled up, wrapped up in ourselves, protecting ourselves, conserving ourselves. There are few dangers on this road, but there is little life either.

"Then there is the other road, the road with the ditches, the road you walk on foot through many dangers, toils, and snares. A road where we are constantly reminded that we know something about being in the ditch, and where we feel we are somehow kin to those who may find themselves in the ditch at any particular time."

Gray said she has encountered several examples where people have traveled the road with the ditches – a pair of college students who gave up a trip to Europe to work with children living in slums in the Philippines.

Her own path to serve as moderator of the PCUSA took Gray near ditches, she said, as she never chose to be moderator – instead leaving her comfort zone to serve her denomination.

But the rocky road is often where God would have his people walk to find and serve those who are in the ditches, she added.

“Yes, on that road there are dangers, toils, and snares,” Gray said. “And you never know what all you might get mixed up in when you set your feet on that path. But the promise is that Jesus walks that road with us, and in his company we will find the river of life we have been seeking flowing right there beside the ditch.”

posted by Stacy Dyer '96