The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for April 6, 2008

Texts: Acts 2:14a,36-41/Luke 24:13-35

Title: “A Random Act”

              Two men sharing a meal in a Brooklyn diner, nothing at all noteworthy there, as to the circumstances that led to their being there, well, that’s a different story. 

              Julio Diaz’s workday ended with a subway ride from his Manhattan workplace to his apartment in Brooklyn, only on most days he exited the train one stop before his destination, making the short walk to his favorite diner where he often took his evening meal before going home.  It was a well established routine, interrupted this particular night, however, by an experience none of us would ever hope to have.

              Julio was accosted by a teenage knife wielding robber who demanded his wallet.  Julio surrendered his wallet, offering no resistance.  It was the kind of incident that happens all too frequently on the streets of America.  It is probably fair to say that a dozen or more persons were victimized on the streets of New York within the hour Julio came face to face with his assailant, I would venture, however, that none of those incidents took the turn that this one did.

               The robber, Julio’s wallet in his pocket, made his way down the subway platform, and out of Julio’s life.  The robber was finished with Julio.  Julio, however, wasn’t finished with the robber. No, he wasn’t suddenly emboldened enough to take after the robber.  Instead he called out to the robber with an offer. "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm." 

               Julio stated that the would-be robber didn’t know what to make of his offer, looking at him with an expression that said, “what's going on here?" The robber put his curiosity into words, “Why are you doing this?" He didn’t have to wait long for Julio’s answer, "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.”

             Julio Diaz’ motive for making the invitation?  “I just felt, maybe he really needs help.”

             Seated in a booth in the diner, first the manager came up to greet Julio, then the cashier, the waiter, and the dishwasher.  Observing all this, the young robber asked a very logic question, “Do you own this place?” “No,” Julio said, “I just eat here a lot.” “But you’re even nice to the dishwasher,” the teenager responded.

“Haven’t you been taught to be nice to everyone,” Diaz replied.  “Yeah, but I didn’t think that people actually behaved that way.”

             Continuing the conversation, Julio asked the teen what he wanted out of life. The teen, a sad expression on his face, gave no response to the question.

             When the bill arrived Diaz told the young man that he would have to pay because he didn’t have his wallet.  When the teen returned his wallet, Diaz handling him a twenty dollar bill.  Having handed him the money, Diaz asked for something in return. “I asked for his knife and he gave it to me.”

               Summing up his experience on that extraordinary night, Julio Diaz offered this, “I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they will treat you right.  It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”   

                “If you treat people right, you can only hope that they will treat you right.  It’s as simply as it gets in this complicated world.” One of the most profound observations to which any of us are ever likely to be exposed, and it didn’t come from some giant in the field of ethics or philosophy, it came as a consequence of one man’s random act of kindness to another over a meal in a Brooklyn diner.

                 Many of you have seen the bumper sticker, I think. It reads “practice random acts of kindness.” Julio Diaz’ act would definitely qualify, but particularly when we consider the broader meaning of the word, “random.”  “Random,” according to Webster’s can mean “haphazard,” and “impetuous.” There is little or no forethought involved in a random act.  A random act can be wasteful.  It can be risky.

               It would be fair to say that “Presbyterian” and “random,” are not likely to appear in the same sentence, words such as “prudent,” and “thoughtful” being a much better fit.  We come by our disposition to prudence and thoughtfulness honestly enough, our forbear John Calvin, was a great promoter of orderliness and control.  “Decently and in order,” is the Presbyterian creed.  In fairness to Calvin we must take into account that the world in which the people of Calvin’s era lived was anything but orderly, with events in nature like storms and tornados, plagues, and wars constantly demonstrating how fragile life could be.

              You can’t control random, and therein also lies its beauty.  Random are the surprises we experience in life, the surprises that make us think more deeply about life and what might be going on in another person’s head. Random events shatter monotony and add spice to life.  

              Wait a minute, you say, there is another side to random I am ignoring.  What about the random shooting, the random murder, or the other dreadfully random things that drop in our laps? Such randomness shocks the senses as few events in life can do, but I would argue that such randomness only exposes the desperation of persons who feel they must turn to violence as a means of controlling situations that would not otherwise be under their control. Those who turn to such random acts are fear driven and destructive, the very opposite of Julio Diaz’ motivation for acting.

                  Julio Diaz committed a random act of kindness.  Truth be told, he could have been seriously injured or even killed for not leaving well enough alone when his teen robber left him standing on that subway platform. There have been random acts of kindness that have had tragic consequences.  The Good Samaritan who stops to offer another motorist help on the freeway only to be assaulted and robbed.  The elderly spinster who invites the “nice young man” to clean her gutters only to have him return days later to rob her. There is no discounting the fact that random acts of kindness can be risky.

               A random act of kindness, that’s what it was.  It was nearing evening as the two men were walking along.  They were on their way to Emmaus, a village about seven miles out of Jerusalem, but the two weren’t thinking about their journey, or Emmaus.  No, they were trying to process the events of the last three days, and extraordinary events they were, extraordinary to this very day.

So deeply engaged in their conversation were they that they failed to hear the approach of a man gaining distance from behind them.  When the man at last caught up to them he wanted to know the subject of the conversation they were having.  They had a lot to tell, didn’t they? Prophet mighty in deed and word…handed over to be condemned to death and crucified.  Not only that, he was a prophet who many thought had come to redeem Israel.  Dead.  He was dead.  But no, there were reports that day that he had been seen alive. 

               The risen Jesus heard the two men out, the two failing to recognize that it was Lord to whom they were speaking. Now Jesus set the two straight, didn’t he?  Beginning all the way back in time with Moses and the prophets he summarized the entire history of salvation leading up to his resurrection. 

               The two men listened as Jesus said his piece, but you have to think they were too caught up in the events that had so recently occurred in Jerusalem to listen all that carefully.  That Jesus himself was the speaker hadn’t apparently occurred to them. Bottom line, they didn’t recognize him.

               There things may well have stood, had it not been for a random act of kindness.  As the two approached their Emmaus destination they invited the stranger, the scripture says, “urged him strongly,” to stay with them, for night was fast approaching.     

               It was a random act of kindness the men committed, spontaneous and unpredictable.  It was the kind of random act that has opened new possibilities where none were thought to exist before. It is the kind of act that brings a robber and his victim to a table for a meal together.  It is the kind of act that opened that robber to a generosity and compassion that may well have challenged his whole outlook on life.

               Let’s thank God for random acts of kindness.  There was a day not too long ago when I was the beneficiary of a random act of kindness.  I own a carbon fiber bicycle---they are expensive---that I train and race on in triathlons.  One Saturday, after a particular grueling training session, I propped the bike against a tree while I parked the car in the garage and put my gear away.  I promptly forgot all about the bike. This was Saturday noon.  Sunday morning I went into the garage and happened to glance at the rack on the wall where I normally hung my bicycle.  It was gone.  Heart pounding I went to the tree where I had left the bike.  You don’t leave a bike leaning on a tree all afternoon, overnight, and expect it to be there the next morning.  It wasn’t. 

                 Before I left for church I left a note on the tree where the bike had been, providing a description of the bike, my phone number, and the offer of a reward.  I hung that note with little hope that the person who took it would read it, let alone, act on it.

Sunday after church I found a message on my cell phone from a guy in the neighborhood who said he had my bike.  He had passed the bike twice Saturday afternoon while walking his dog, and figured out that someone had slipped up.  On Sunday he saw my note and called me.  He declined the reward.  I insisted.   

                 I would venture that many of you would not have to search terribly far to identify some random act of kindness that came your way. Jesus himself was the recipient of a random act of kindness, but then, as we get to know Jesus better, we find that Jesus knew a good bit about random acts of kindness himself.  His kindness is so random, so haphazard, so impetuous, so “out there,” that he doesn’t quibble about who might be worthy to receive it.  You’re a hopeless case in your own eyes, you have missed the mark, you have failed even to meet the meager standards you have set for yourself, let alone those of God, Jesus’ random kindness keeps looking for new ways to break in on your life.

                Jesus knew a thing or two about random acts of kindness.  His kindness is so random that though our sins saw him nailed to a cross, he rose from the grave and came back to us.  His act was so random, so unexpected and mind boggling that his own disciples couldn’t believe what they saw, this despite the fact that he told him in advance what to expect.

                Living in this complicated world of ours that so often disappoints us with disorder and tragedy; we can’t quite bring ourselves to believe sometimes that such a random, grace-filled kindness really exists.  But we can thank God for the reminders he sends us through people like Julio Diaz.

                   Jesus was alive, and owing to a random act of kindness of two travelers on the Emmaus road, he ended a long day, the day of his resurrection, at the dinner table, much like Julio Diaz ended a very long day with the teen who had attempted to rob him.

                  When he was at the table with them he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  And then something very important happened, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…” Eye opening, it’s what God’s grace is all about.  AMEN.      

PRAYER

               Heavenly Father, even as we worship on this new day, and open ourselves to the potential the day affords, we know that you are the renewing force in each of our lives.  Source of hope, source of counsel, you, O God, are the source of life itself, the source of all we revere and cherish. 

               We gather here in gratitude, for you have pledged, O God, that you will never abandon us, that no sin we shall ever commit is unredeemable. We come rejoicing that your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is risen, the first born of the new creation you are preparing for all who trust in you. O God, our heavenly Father, prepare our hearts to receive the blessings of the abundant life.  Open our minds that they may grasp more fully what the Scriptures are prepared to teach us.

               Called to make you the center of our lives, Lord, we confess that you are often an afterthought.  Seldom in your Word, seldom in prayer, seldom in conversation about you or your mighty acts, we begrudge you more than an hour of our time a week.  We come to worship seeking to be inspired, to be encouraged, and are disappointed when the experience doesn’t deliver.  We don’t want to be reminded, O God, that we often offend you, that your expectations of us many times go unmet.  Even as we rejoice to hear the assurance of pardon, we refuse to pardon those from whom we are estranged.  We maintain are so-called “righteous indignation,” stubbornly refusing to concede that your grace shows no partiality.

              We live in stressed circumstances, O Lord, though we may have savings in the bank, a mortgage payment we can afford, a job that is secure, retirement income adequate to meet our needs, we know that many across the land are less fortunate.  We pray for them, even as we fear that we might ultimately join them. We wait for the tide to turn, for the housing crisis to bottom out, for gas prices to ease, for the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ to rise, fearing that we may never again enjoy the prosperity we once took for granted. We seek assurance, but deep down we know, O God, that the assurance we seek is not available in the assets on hand, in a reinvigorated economy, in gasoline at $2 a gallon.  Where but in you, O God, is the assurance we seek?  Where but in you, O God, is our hope and consolation?   

                 Abide with those who are grieving this day, O God.  Be with those from whom hope has fled, those whom job, children, or a marriage, have disappointed.  Strengthen the burdened, those who feel overwhelmed at work, overwhelmed by health concerns, overwhelmed with guilt or remorse.  Guard those who live in danger, who are exposed to the threat of death in foreign lands or on our city streets, and in your mercy heal and restore all this broken. 

                  O Lord, we rejoice with those who rejoice: the parents of newborns, students who have been accepted into their school of choice, persons who have received a clean bill of health, or have been given a new treatment option.  We rejoice with those who are watching their children mature into engaged and contributing members of society. We rejoice with those who have opened themselves to new experiences, who have exposed themselves to new ideas, who are excited by new visions, and who have discovered new talents and gifts.

                Lord, even as I pray in a single voice, you hear the prayers of each one of us who lift our prayers and petitions.  Even as Pam, Shane, Mary Ann, Rudy, and Joyce remain in our prayers, we pray this day for Amelie, for Ann…