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June 21st marked the summer solstice – the longest day and shortest night of the year. For many it signifies the beginning of summer when people are planning for the end of school, time outdoors at the beach, in the woods or at home gardening, and time for vacations. The pace is different as we settle into summer. It seems slower and more relaxed. In many ways we feel free – free from layers of clothes, free from cold weather, free from the more heavily programmed seasons of the church, and free from a pressing calendar.
But other parts of life do not change around us because of the season. Everywhere we hear of people turning against others who do not look like them or speak like them and have different cultural or religious practices. Although we are not yet to the mid-point of 2023, there have been 315 mass shootings in which at least four people have been killed or injured. Now we hear of people getting shot for pulling into the wrong driveway or getting into the wrong car. Many of these situations are White people shooting at Black people or other people of color. Black people continue to be killed by police for a driving violation or as a result of a warrant for a wrong address, or a claim of fearing for one’s life when a cell phone video tells a different story. Refugees who fled violence and economic despair in their countries have traveled under unbearable circumstances to try and have a better life for their families are put on planes with the promise of jobs and homes only to be dropped off in the middle of a strange city unprepared to care for them. Books are removed from school library shelves based on the complaint of one parent – books that hold up the history or culture of non-white peoples; books that lift up people exploring or celebrating their gender or their sexuality. It almost seems that people believe that the banning of books will make the people associated with those books either as the authors or as the subjects disappear as well.
We know so many parables in the Bible that tell us how we are to act practically and spiritually with one another. The Good Samaritan parable (Luke 10: 25-37) begins with a reminder from the Old Testament to: ‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[”. When Jesus is asked “and who is my neighbor?” he responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. We are told that the priest walks by on the other side of the street and does not stop to help the injured person who is not like him. Then a Levite walks by on the other side of the street and does not stop to help the person who is likely not like him. It is the Samaritan who stops, bandages the wounds, puts the person on his donkey, takes him to the inn and tells the inn keeper to care for him. Not only does the Samaritan help this person who is probably not a Samaritan himself or the person would have been identified as such, but he tells the innkeeper he will be back to pay him for any extra necessities that were required. This is Jesus’ answer as to who is our neighbor and how we are to act with a person in need.
God created the world. I have always been convinced that if God had wanted all people in the world to be the same – the same language, the same food, the same culture, the same dress, the same skin color, the same gender, the same ethnicity, the same then God would have created us that way. We can see diversity everywhere in God’s creation – when we look at trees and plants, at animals, at birds, even at bugs. All of God’s creation is to be celebrated and enjoyed by us for the miracle that it is and the diversity it provides.
As more and more people pull away from each other and cause physical violence or spiritual and psychological harm to “the other”, let us enjoy the beauty of the summer solstice around us while we remember the lessons of Jesus’ parables. This season let us dedicate ourselves to choosing ways to express love to our neighbors as we love ourselves.
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