April 15, 2025 • 20 mins
Luke 10:25-37
When disaster hits, it is time to ignore those divisions among us and help our neighbors, beyond barriers and whatever the cost. The Good Samaritan models for us how to do that beautifully.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Nelson (00:04):
Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist
Church in downtown Bentonville.
If you have questions related to whatyou hear today or just want to find
out more about the ministries at FirstUnited Methodist Church, please visit us
online at FUMCbentonville.org or checkus out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.
This week's podcast begins witha clip of a short video that
(00:27):
was aired during Sunday service.
Roy and Shelly Lee (00:30):
We
got in bed looking at, at the newsbefore we went to church that morning.
And as soon as we got out of church,we drove up here and we got a motel
and we visited the affected areas, uh,clicked in with the people who were
on the ground, checked in with ourconference and, um, started our process.
Big part of early response are calledMarx, the multi-agency Resource Centers.
(00:55):
Uh, those were held, I thinkthere were, or were there,
five of them were five of them.
Five.
Five of those across the area wheresurvivors could come and check in
with agencies to see what resourcesthey offered and to get what they
needed and to get on the list forthings that were important to them.
Adam and Rebecca Kingree: During our recovery, (01:10):
undefined
um, we had help from so many people,um, immediately the next day.
You know, I think, uh, what wesaw all over northwest Arkansas,
but here too was neighborshelping neighbors really quickly.
The church reached out to say,who's impacted, who needs help?
(01:31):
Um, and so the churchprovided help for us.
I had texted our parents in themiddle of the night and said, Hey, you
know, tornadoes are hitting Arkansas.
We're all okay.
Our house is damaged.
And Adam's dad drove through thenight and was here the next morning.
So immediately following thetornado, it was really that
sense of just your strongestcommunity being there to help you.
Rev. James Kjorlaug (01:55):
After everything had passed, it was a sea of making
sure that my family was comfortablein the room, but then going around my
neighborhood with a lantern to checkand see how my neighbors were doing.
The odd, surreal experience ofseeing kind of the varied degrees
of damage around the neighborhood.
Uh, everybody kinda standing outreally kinda in shock at at what
(02:15):
had HA unfolded and just checking inon everybody that you camp, right?
That, that process of, ofprocessing what you've just been
through, but also being aware of.
You know, Hey, what's, what'shappening with my neighbors?
Um, that sort of stuff.
In fact, actually a block and a halfaway, um, a couple doors down from some
church members actually got a lot ofchurch members that live in our, in our
vicinity, like a block and a half away wasa, a house where a significant gas main
(02:41):
ran through and it had been bust open.
So.
Walking around the neighborhoods, there'ssomebody standing out in their yard
warning people, don't use your cell phone.
Don't, don't do all this kind of stuff.
We're okay.
But if you hear that sound, that soundslike a water faucet running on high.
That's, you know, it's, it's a gas pipethat's broken and spraying everywhere.
Once the sun finally came up and Ihad kind of done the quick once over
(03:03):
of the damage at my house, uh, itwas a process of navigating my way
here to check on everything at thechurch in the immediacy of everything.
It was trying to navigate, uh, thepriority list of, of what, what can be
done right away, what needs to be doneas fast as possible in everything else.
(03:23):
In that regards, I was really.
Thankful for, uh, our board of trustees.
They did an absolute banger of a job.
It was fantastic.
And their priority list was beautiful.
I mean, we wanted to find some way tobe able to get back in worship with
each other as quickly as possible.
Uh, but beyond that, theprimary focus was less about
getting right back in this room.
We knew it was gonna take a while, thatthat was gonna be a long-term project.
(03:46):
So, so the focus was what,what can worship look like?
What will worship look like,um, as fast as possible.
And as safely as possible.
And then the immediate conversationsafter that were, how can we get back
to feeding people in the community?
How can we get back to hosting Boy Scouts?
How can we get back to hosting, uh,our, the Narcotics Anonymous group that
(04:07):
meets here in our facility like it?
How can we get our childcareback up for people that need to
go to work and need to, need totake care of stuff on their own?
Like all those were the concerns, theconcerns blatantly turned to, to the
full community, uh, that is impactedby the life of the church, not just the
idea of being back in our sanctuary.
Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris (04:28):
We are in this series called Mitigated Disaster,
and we are looking at how we respondin disasters as people of faith.
And today we reach response andI can think of no better passage
to talk about how to respond.
Then this one from the Gospelof Luke, a legal expert stood
(04:49):
up to test Jesus teacher.
He said, what must I doto inherit eternal life?
Jesus replied, what is written in the law?
How do you interpret it?
He responded, you must love theLord your God, with all your heart,
with all your being, with all yourstrength, and with all your mind
and love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus said to him, youhave answered correctly.
(05:11):
Do this and you will live.
But the legal expert wantedto prove that he was right.
So he said to Jesus,and who is my neighbor?
Jesus replied, A man went downfrom Jerusalem to Jericho.
He encountered thieves whostripped him naked, beat him
up, and left him near death.
Now, it just so happened that apriest was also going down the same
(05:33):
road when he saw the injured man.
He crossed over to the other sideof the road and went on his way.
Likewise.
A Levite came by that spot, saw theinjured man, and crossed over to the other
side of the road and went on his way.
A Samaritan who was on a journey cameto where the man was, but when he saw
him, he was moved with compassion.
(05:55):
The Samaritan went to him and bandaged hiswounds, tending them with oil and wine.
Then he placed the wounded manon his own donkey, took him to
an end and took care of him.
The next day, he took two full days worthof wages and gave them to the innkeeper.
He said, take care of him, andwhen I return, I will pay you
back for any additional costs.
(06:19):
What do you think?
Which one of these three was a neighborto the man who encountered thieves?
Then the legal expert said the onewho demonstrated mercy toward him.
Jesus told him, go and do likewise.
This is the word of Godfor the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Lord, open our hearts, our minds, andour eyes that we might see and know
(06:43):
the word you have for us this day.
In your holy name we pray, amen.
So, I've mentioned this before, butI have a tendency to occasionally be
accused of being a heretic, and I justthink that that is proof that I'm a
very good Methodist because the realityis that, and I've shared this before
(07:06):
as well, I had a professor in seminarywho said, if you wanna understand how
Methodists understand church, it isthis Methodists understand church as
we have these hard and fast rules.
Except when we don't.
And the reality is, isthat we, we do have rules.
(07:26):
We have a method for doing everything,and we're very good at that.
But what we do is we throw thoserules out when it gets in the
way of truly loving our neighbor.
Or it gets in the way of loving God.
And most recently, I have beenaccused of being a heretic
in my relationship with God.
I relate to God most closelythrough the Holy Spirit.
(07:49):
That is how I've encountered God.
That's how God has moved me.
That's how God called me.
And so there's a piece ofthe Trinity that I lean on.
It's the Holy Spirit, and wehave a good relationship, me and
the Holy Spirit do, which meansthat, you know, I can be honest.
And so I was sharing in a blog one timethat I was really mad at the Holy Spirit
for calling me to do something, and Ithought the Holy Spirit was being a jerk,
(08:13):
and some well-meaning person wrote to meand said that I had blasphemed the Holy
Spirit, which I said, no, blasphemy iswhen you don't believe in the Holy Spirit.
Clearly, I believe in the Holy Spirit.
Otherwise, I wouldn't think theHoly Spirit was being a jerk.
Right.
And so it was during this time when in theimmediate days after the tornado that at
(08:37):
some point I turned to the Holy Spirit andI said, well, now, now you're just showing
off because I wanna share with you someof the things that happened in those days.
And I share these with permission fromthe people whose stories I lift up.
So in the middle of thetornado, regular life went on,
including premarital counseling.
(08:59):
So I was working with a couple, Ben andCarolyn Diggins, getting ready for their
wedding, and we were coming out of our.
Counseling session as Tony wascoming out of her office and
said, someone just called andthey're desperate for a generator.
They really need a generator.
And Ben and Carolyn said, oh, wejust got our electricity back.
We have a generator.
So we just handed them themessage and said, go take.
(09:24):
There was one day I turned to the staffand I said, look, I'm gonna go grab lunch.
Who wants it?
I took down orders, and as I wasgetting ready to head out the door,
I got a text from someone who said.
My neighbor is in desperate situation.
He has a generator, but he is runningout of gasoline and he has to have the
generator in order to power his oxygen.
(09:44):
If he doesn't get help soon, it'sgoing to be a serious situation.
And I was like, okay.
And as I was standing there tryingto figure out how am I gonna get gas
for this man, someone walked in thedoor and handed me a hundred dollars
and said, I just was nudged by Godto bring you this a hundred dollars.
I don't know what it's supposed to be for,but use it for whatever you need it for.
(10:07):
And I'm like, I know whatI'm gonna use it for.
So I went and got gas cards and thendiscovered that the neighbor that
I was taking gas cards to was realclose to where I was picking up lunch.
I mean, holy Spirit makes it that easy.
There was one day I left the madnessof the church, went down the street
to Table Mesa, pulled up a chair atthe bar just to have lunch and there
(10:31):
was another man there and we were bothjust frantically in our phone answering
text after text after text, and Ifinally looked up and said, boy, this
is crazy Isn't Then he goes, oh yeah.
He said, I'm right now tryingto figure out how to get.
Housing for the women at Haven Wood.
They don't have any electricity andthey're staying in a hotel right now,
but they're running outta money inorder to be able to keep at that hotel.
And we neither need to find placesfor them to live or I need to
(10:52):
find some more money for them.
And I was like, I thinkI know some people.
And I introduced myself to thatman and said, I'm the pastor at
First United Methodist Church.
I bet you we can help.
And you may remember those ofyou that were around during that
time, the text that went outand said, Haven Wood needs help.
Within about two hours,we had it figured out.
And then all over town people losttheir food because electricity was out.
(11:18):
People who could not afford tolose their food, lost their food,
but we didn't lose power here.
And we have freezers full of food thatwe give out to anyone who needs it,
and that's why I turned the Holy Spiritand said, now you're just showing off.
(11:39):
Because the Holy Spirit was doingwhat the Holy Spirit does, which was
removing obstacles so that we hadthe opportunity to truly show love
to each other, and that's who we are.
We're the people of agood Samaritan faith.
And we saw that not just from ourchurch, but all over the city.
(12:00):
So many of you all talked about, theMormon church showed up and helped us.
The Baptist Churchshowed up and helped us.
This non-denominational churchshowed up and helped us.
The Muslims showed up and helped us.
It didn't matter.
Those divisions that we put betweeneach other, those Samaritan or Jew
realities that we tend to put on eachother, those didn't matter anymore.
What mattered was, you're my neighbor andyou're in trouble and I'm gonna help you.
(12:24):
And that's what we did.
We responded as that people.
The Good Samaritan people,and it was so striking.
It was so striking that Barry Moring,you'll see him sometimes in the video,
he's the county judge and he was helpingcoordinate all the response of the city.
And he was so taken aback by the faithcommunities of this town and how fast
(12:46):
they moved that he called me at onepoint and he said, look, we have people
showing up who want to volunteer andwe don't know how to coordinate them,
and we've noticed that the faithcommunities are really good at that.
So can you just take thatover and start coordinating?
And I said.
I mean, I can try, but uh, honestly,I'm making this up as I go along.
There's no real organization here.
(13:07):
I mean, I'm just hearing about aneed and sending people to that need.
That's all I'm doing.
That's living into who we are,people who is moved by compassion,
and that's who we are at our best.
I mean, the county and city officialsdid a phenomenal work of restoring
our infrastructure and doing the longhaul work that that needed to happen.
(13:32):
But the difference between them andus was that they have procedures
they have to follow, and thoseprocedures can be a very good thing.
But while they were waiting forbeing declared a federal emergency.
Disaster area.
We were already on the ground becausethe only regulation that we had was
(13:54):
an imperative to love our neighbor.
It reminded me of this time when I wasworking for the conference offices.
I was hired to help build anonline learning system, and they
sent me to a conference about howto build online learning systems,
and I found myself the only.
Person representing a church agency atthat conference, and I went to a session
(14:21):
that specifically was dealing with howto build an online learning system that's
accessible to as many people as possible.
And as we went around introducingourselves and talking about why we
had chosen that particular session, Irealized that I'm in there with people
who are representing the military,who are representing education, who
(14:42):
are representing the government.
And everyone that was in there said, Iam in this session because I have to be.
If I do not build something that'saccessible, I'm gonna lose funding.
I'm gonna be brought up on charges.
There's laws that are breaking,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They get to me and I said,well, I'm here because.
It's the right thing.
(15:02):
Making education accessible topeople who have different styles
of learning or who are blind or whoare deaf, making that possibility
accessible to them is the right thing.
It's how we love our neighbor.
It's how we include all in God's family.
That's why I'm here.
(15:23):
'cause that's who we are now.
Let's be honest.
That's who we are at our best,but we can also be at our worst.
And at our worst, we do theexact opposite thing in the
parable that I just read for you.
It was a priest and a Levites, therepresentatives of the communities
(15:43):
of faith who crossed over and walkedby, and there's been all kinds of
conjecture as to why they did not help.
One that is frequently pointed out is thatto touch a man who would've had blood on
him or who might have been dead would'vemeant making yourself unclean, and if
(16:05):
they were on their way to temple service.
That would've disrupted their service.
They could not have served, theycouldn't have gone into the temple.
They would've had to do rights ofcleansing and perhaps even taken some
time, separated out for that cleansing.
And so they followed the rules.
(16:26):
And kept themselves clean and didn't help.
And let's be honest, rules andlaws do serve an important purpose.
A lot of times they keep us safe,they set up important boundaries, but
there are times when those rules andthose laws get in the way of loving
and saving our neighbor, of respondingto the most vulnerable among us,
(16:52):
of allowing love to be activated.
Tornadoes happen all the time to allkinds of people in all kinds of ways.
It's not just the actual reality ofa tornado, but people have tornadoes
in their lives and they need someoneto step out and respond in love, and
they need someone to do it right away.
(17:14):
And that's, that's who we are.
That right away peopleactually, that's who we are.
Note when I told those stories, I.About the Holy Spirit showing off.
Look, y'all we're Methodists.
We have methods, very nicelydefined methods, and no decision
(17:40):
gets made in this church without acommittee having a say on it, right?
But there's processes andprocedures of how we decide
to do things, accept, accept.
Note that in those moments right afterthe tornado, I did not get that a hundred
dollars and then say I need to call a fewpeople and ask them if it's okay if I use
(18:02):
this a hundred dollars to buy gas cards.
No, I took that a hundred dollars andwent and bought gas cards because somebody
was about to run out of oxygen if theydidn't have gas in that generator.
This is not a committee decision.
This is a love decision.
This is a decision we makebecause that's who we are.
Someone's in the ditch, we'regonna get 'em out of it, right?
(18:22):
So we have these hard and fast rules,except when the Holy Spirit sends
us in a new direction, when the HolySpirit shakes us and says, somebody's
hurting and you've got to respond.
When the Holy Spirit movesus to compassion, God is not
interested in keeping the rules.
God is interested in.
His people being saved.
(18:45):
So we have these hard and fastrules, except when the most
vulnerable among us need rescue.
When someone's in the ditch, whensomeone's hurting, when someone's scared,
when someone's lost, then we respond.
As the people of the Good Samaritanfaith, we have these hard and fast
rules, except when something is keepingus from loving our neighbor, because
(19:05):
that is also keeping us from loving God.
And I will tell you this, friends,that's all it's really about
loving God and loving our neighboris the heart of who we are.
That's the heart of our faith.
And so it's alwaysworth bending the rules.
It's always worth being accused of heresy.
(19:30):
It's always worth getting into someholy trouble because at the heart of it.
Love is always worth it.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Matt Nelson (19:45):
Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United
Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.
If you would like to let us know you werehere, follow the link below to connect.
To participate in worshipthrough giving, you can give
online at FUMCbentonville.org,or on Venmo @FUMCBentonville.
FUMC bentonville welcomes all.
(20:06):
Because we believe the communiontable is God's table, we invite
everyone into our church family.
We welcome and celebrate every race,gender, gender identity, sexual
orientation, marital status, age, physicaland mental ability, national origin,
economic station, and political ideology.
We come together in action and outreach,aspiring to follow Jesus' example of
(20:29):
radical hospitality, love, and grace as atransformative movement in our community.
Please join us for worship on Sundaymornings at nine and 11:00 AM, both
in person and on Facebook Live.
All are welcome and we'dlove to have you with us.
Grace and peace.
Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist
Church in downtown Bentonville.
If you have questions related to whatyou hear today or just want to find
out more about the ministries at FirstUnited Methodist Church, please visit us
online at FUMCbentonville.org or checkus out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.
This week's podcast begins witha clip of a short video that
(00:27):
was aired during Sunday service.
Roy and Shelly Lee (00:30):
We
got in bed looking at, at the newsbefore we went to church that morning.
And as soon as we got out of church,we drove up here and we got a motel
and we visited the affected areas, uh,clicked in with the people who were
on the ground, checked in with ourconference and, um, started our process.
Big part of early response are calledMarx, the multi-agency Resource Centers.
(00:55):
Uh, those were held, I thinkthere were, or were there,
five of them were five of them.
Five.
Five of those across the area wheresurvivors could come and check in
with agencies to see what resourcesthey offered and to get what they
needed and to get on the list forthings that were important to them.
Adam and Rebecca Kingree: During our recovery, (01:10):
undefined
um, we had help from so many people,um, immediately the next day.
You know, I think, uh, what wesaw all over northwest Arkansas,
but here too was neighborshelping neighbors really quickly.
The church reached out to say,who's impacted, who needs help?
(01:31):
Um, and so the churchprovided help for us.
I had texted our parents in themiddle of the night and said, Hey, you
know, tornadoes are hitting Arkansas.
We're all okay.
Our house is damaged.
And Adam's dad drove through thenight and was here the next morning.
So immediately following thetornado, it was really that
sense of just your strongestcommunity being there to help you.
Rev. James Kjorlaug (01:55):
After everything had passed, it was a sea of making
sure that my family was comfortablein the room, but then going around my
neighborhood with a lantern to checkand see how my neighbors were doing.
The odd, surreal experience ofseeing kind of the varied degrees
of damage around the neighborhood.
Uh, everybody kinda standing outreally kinda in shock at at what
(02:15):
had HA unfolded and just checking inon everybody that you camp, right?
That, that process of, ofprocessing what you've just been
through, but also being aware of.
You know, Hey, what's, what'shappening with my neighbors?
Um, that sort of stuff.
In fact, actually a block and a halfaway, um, a couple doors down from some
church members actually got a lot ofchurch members that live in our, in our
vicinity, like a block and a half away wasa, a house where a significant gas main
(02:41):
ran through and it had been bust open.
So.
Walking around the neighborhoods, there'ssomebody standing out in their yard
warning people, don't use your cell phone.
Don't, don't do all this kind of stuff.
We're okay.
But if you hear that sound, that soundslike a water faucet running on high.
That's, you know, it's, it's a gas pipethat's broken and spraying everywhere.
Once the sun finally came up and Ihad kind of done the quick once over
(03:03):
of the damage at my house, uh, itwas a process of navigating my way
here to check on everything at thechurch in the immediacy of everything.
It was trying to navigate, uh, thepriority list of, of what, what can be
done right away, what needs to be doneas fast as possible in everything else.
(03:23):
In that regards, I was really.
Thankful for, uh, our board of trustees.
They did an absolute banger of a job.
It was fantastic.
And their priority list was beautiful.
I mean, we wanted to find some way tobe able to get back in worship with
each other as quickly as possible.
Uh, but beyond that, theprimary focus was less about
getting right back in this room.
We knew it was gonna take a while, thatthat was gonna be a long-term project.
(03:46):
So, so the focus was what,what can worship look like?
What will worship look like,um, as fast as possible.
And as safely as possible.
And then the immediate conversationsafter that were, how can we get back
to feeding people in the community?
How can we get back to hosting Boy Scouts?
How can we get back to hosting, uh,our, the Narcotics Anonymous group that
(04:07):
meets here in our facility like it?
How can we get our childcareback up for people that need to
go to work and need to, need totake care of stuff on their own?
Like all those were the concerns, theconcerns blatantly turned to, to the
full community, uh, that is impactedby the life of the church, not just the
idea of being back in our sanctuary.
Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris (04:28):
We are in this series called Mitigated Disaster,
and we are looking at how we respondin disasters as people of faith.
And today we reach response andI can think of no better passage
to talk about how to respond.
Then this one from the Gospelof Luke, a legal expert stood
(04:49):
up to test Jesus teacher.
He said, what must I doto inherit eternal life?
Jesus replied, what is written in the law?
How do you interpret it?
He responded, you must love theLord your God, with all your heart,
with all your being, with all yourstrength, and with all your mind
and love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus said to him, youhave answered correctly.
(05:11):
Do this and you will live.
But the legal expert wantedto prove that he was right.
So he said to Jesus,and who is my neighbor?
Jesus replied, A man went downfrom Jerusalem to Jericho.
He encountered thieves whostripped him naked, beat him
up, and left him near death.
Now, it just so happened that apriest was also going down the same
(05:33):
road when he saw the injured man.
He crossed over to the other sideof the road and went on his way.
Likewise.
A Levite came by that spot, saw theinjured man, and crossed over to the other
side of the road and went on his way.
A Samaritan who was on a journey cameto where the man was, but when he saw
him, he was moved with compassion.
(05:55):
The Samaritan went to him and bandaged hiswounds, tending them with oil and wine.
Then he placed the wounded manon his own donkey, took him to
an end and took care of him.
The next day, he took two full days worthof wages and gave them to the innkeeper.
He said, take care of him, andwhen I return, I will pay you
back for any additional costs.
(06:19):
What do you think?
Which one of these three was a neighborto the man who encountered thieves?
Then the legal expert said the onewho demonstrated mercy toward him.
Jesus told him, go and do likewise.
This is the word of Godfor the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Lord, open our hearts, our minds, andour eyes that we might see and know
(06:43):
the word you have for us this day.
In your holy name we pray, amen.
So, I've mentioned this before, butI have a tendency to occasionally be
accused of being a heretic, and I justthink that that is proof that I'm a
very good Methodist because the realityis that, and I've shared this before
(07:06):
as well, I had a professor in seminarywho said, if you wanna understand how
Methodists understand church, it isthis Methodists understand church as
we have these hard and fast rules.
Except when we don't.
And the reality is, isthat we, we do have rules.
(07:26):
We have a method for doing everything,and we're very good at that.
But what we do is we throw thoserules out when it gets in the
way of truly loving our neighbor.
Or it gets in the way of loving God.
And most recently, I have beenaccused of being a heretic
in my relationship with God.
I relate to God most closelythrough the Holy Spirit.
(07:49):
That is how I've encountered God.
That's how God has moved me.
That's how God called me.
And so there's a piece ofthe Trinity that I lean on.
It's the Holy Spirit, and wehave a good relationship, me and
the Holy Spirit do, which meansthat, you know, I can be honest.
And so I was sharing in a blog one timethat I was really mad at the Holy Spirit
for calling me to do something, and Ithought the Holy Spirit was being a jerk,
(08:13):
and some well-meaning person wrote to meand said that I had blasphemed the Holy
Spirit, which I said, no, blasphemy iswhen you don't believe in the Holy Spirit.
Clearly, I believe in the Holy Spirit.
Otherwise, I wouldn't think theHoly Spirit was being a jerk.
Right.
And so it was during this time when in theimmediate days after the tornado that at
(08:37):
some point I turned to the Holy Spirit andI said, well, now, now you're just showing
off because I wanna share with you someof the things that happened in those days.
And I share these with permission fromthe people whose stories I lift up.
So in the middle of thetornado, regular life went on,
including premarital counseling.
(08:59):
So I was working with a couple, Ben andCarolyn Diggins, getting ready for their
wedding, and we were coming out of our.
Counseling session as Tony wascoming out of her office and
said, someone just called andthey're desperate for a generator.
They really need a generator.
And Ben and Carolyn said, oh, wejust got our electricity back.
We have a generator.
So we just handed them themessage and said, go take.
(09:24):
There was one day I turned to the staffand I said, look, I'm gonna go grab lunch.
Who wants it?
I took down orders, and as I wasgetting ready to head out the door,
I got a text from someone who said.
My neighbor is in desperate situation.
He has a generator, but he is runningout of gasoline and he has to have the
generator in order to power his oxygen.
(09:44):
If he doesn't get help soon, it'sgoing to be a serious situation.
And I was like, okay.
And as I was standing there tryingto figure out how am I gonna get gas
for this man, someone walked in thedoor and handed me a hundred dollars
and said, I just was nudged by Godto bring you this a hundred dollars.
I don't know what it's supposed to be for,but use it for whatever you need it for.
(10:07):
And I'm like, I know whatI'm gonna use it for.
So I went and got gas cards and thendiscovered that the neighbor that
I was taking gas cards to was realclose to where I was picking up lunch.
I mean, holy Spirit makes it that easy.
There was one day I left the madnessof the church, went down the street
to Table Mesa, pulled up a chair atthe bar just to have lunch and there
(10:31):
was another man there and we were bothjust frantically in our phone answering
text after text after text, and Ifinally looked up and said, boy, this
is crazy Isn't Then he goes, oh yeah.
He said, I'm right now tryingto figure out how to get.
Housing for the women at Haven Wood.
They don't have any electricity andthey're staying in a hotel right now,
but they're running outta money inorder to be able to keep at that hotel.
And we neither need to find placesfor them to live or I need to
(10:52):
find some more money for them.
And I was like, I thinkI know some people.
And I introduced myself to thatman and said, I'm the pastor at
First United Methodist Church.
I bet you we can help.
And you may remember those ofyou that were around during that
time, the text that went outand said, Haven Wood needs help.
Within about two hours,we had it figured out.
And then all over town people losttheir food because electricity was out.
(11:18):
People who could not afford tolose their food, lost their food,
but we didn't lose power here.
And we have freezers full of food thatwe give out to anyone who needs it,
and that's why I turned the Holy Spiritand said, now you're just showing off.
(11:39):
Because the Holy Spirit was doingwhat the Holy Spirit does, which was
removing obstacles so that we hadthe opportunity to truly show love
to each other, and that's who we are.
We're the people of agood Samaritan faith.
And we saw that not just from ourchurch, but all over the city.
(12:00):
So many of you all talked about, theMormon church showed up and helped us.
The Baptist Churchshowed up and helped us.
This non-denominational churchshowed up and helped us.
The Muslims showed up and helped us.
It didn't matter.
Those divisions that we put betweeneach other, those Samaritan or Jew
realities that we tend to put on eachother, those didn't matter anymore.
What mattered was, you're my neighbor andyou're in trouble and I'm gonna help you.
(12:24):
And that's what we did.
We responded as that people.
The Good Samaritan people,and it was so striking.
It was so striking that Barry Moring,you'll see him sometimes in the video,
he's the county judge and he was helpingcoordinate all the response of the city.
And he was so taken aback by the faithcommunities of this town and how fast
(12:46):
they moved that he called me at onepoint and he said, look, we have people
showing up who want to volunteer andwe don't know how to coordinate them,
and we've noticed that the faithcommunities are really good at that.
So can you just take thatover and start coordinating?
And I said.
I mean, I can try, but uh, honestly,I'm making this up as I go along.
There's no real organization here.
(13:07):
I mean, I'm just hearing about aneed and sending people to that need.
That's all I'm doing.
That's living into who we are,people who is moved by compassion,
and that's who we are at our best.
I mean, the county and city officialsdid a phenomenal work of restoring
our infrastructure and doing the longhaul work that that needed to happen.
(13:32):
But the difference between them andus was that they have procedures
they have to follow, and thoseprocedures can be a very good thing.
But while they were waiting forbeing declared a federal emergency.
Disaster area.
We were already on the ground becausethe only regulation that we had was
(13:54):
an imperative to love our neighbor.
It reminded me of this time when I wasworking for the conference offices.
I was hired to help build anonline learning system, and they
sent me to a conference about howto build online learning systems,
and I found myself the only.
Person representing a church agency atthat conference, and I went to a session
(14:21):
that specifically was dealing with howto build an online learning system that's
accessible to as many people as possible.
And as we went around introducingourselves and talking about why we
had chosen that particular session, Irealized that I'm in there with people
who are representing the military,who are representing education, who
(14:42):
are representing the government.
And everyone that was in there said, Iam in this session because I have to be.
If I do not build something that'saccessible, I'm gonna lose funding.
I'm gonna be brought up on charges.
There's laws that are breaking,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They get to me and I said,well, I'm here because.
It's the right thing.
(15:02):
Making education accessible topeople who have different styles
of learning or who are blind or whoare deaf, making that possibility
accessible to them is the right thing.
It's how we love our neighbor.
It's how we include all in God's family.
That's why I'm here.
(15:23):
'cause that's who we are now.
Let's be honest.
That's who we are at our best,but we can also be at our worst.
And at our worst, we do theexact opposite thing in the
parable that I just read for you.
It was a priest and a Levites, therepresentatives of the communities
(15:43):
of faith who crossed over and walkedby, and there's been all kinds of
conjecture as to why they did not help.
One that is frequently pointed out is thatto touch a man who would've had blood on
him or who might have been dead would'vemeant making yourself unclean, and if
(16:05):
they were on their way to temple service.
That would've disrupted their service.
They could not have served, theycouldn't have gone into the temple.
They would've had to do rights ofcleansing and perhaps even taken some
time, separated out for that cleansing.
And so they followed the rules.
(16:26):
And kept themselves clean and didn't help.
And let's be honest, rules andlaws do serve an important purpose.
A lot of times they keep us safe,they set up important boundaries, but
there are times when those rules andthose laws get in the way of loving
and saving our neighbor, of respondingto the most vulnerable among us,
(16:52):
of allowing love to be activated.
Tornadoes happen all the time to allkinds of people in all kinds of ways.
It's not just the actual reality ofa tornado, but people have tornadoes
in their lives and they need someoneto step out and respond in love, and
they need someone to do it right away.
(17:14):
And that's, that's who we are.
That right away peopleactually, that's who we are.
Note when I told those stories, I.About the Holy Spirit showing off.
Look, y'all we're Methodists.
We have methods, very nicelydefined methods, and no decision
(17:40):
gets made in this church without acommittee having a say on it, right?
But there's processes andprocedures of how we decide
to do things, accept, accept.
Note that in those moments right afterthe tornado, I did not get that a hundred
dollars and then say I need to call a fewpeople and ask them if it's okay if I use
(18:02):
this a hundred dollars to buy gas cards.
No, I took that a hundred dollars andwent and bought gas cards because somebody
was about to run out of oxygen if theydidn't have gas in that generator.
This is not a committee decision.
This is a love decision.
This is a decision we makebecause that's who we are.
Someone's in the ditch, we'regonna get 'em out of it, right?
(18:22):
So we have these hard and fast rules,except when the Holy Spirit sends
us in a new direction, when the HolySpirit shakes us and says, somebody's
hurting and you've got to respond.
When the Holy Spirit movesus to compassion, God is not
interested in keeping the rules.
God is interested in.
His people being saved.
(18:45):
So we have these hard and fastrules, except when the most
vulnerable among us need rescue.
When someone's in the ditch, whensomeone's hurting, when someone's scared,
when someone's lost, then we respond.
As the people of the Good Samaritanfaith, we have these hard and fast
rules, except when something is keepingus from loving our neighbor, because
(19:05):
that is also keeping us from loving God.
And I will tell you this, friends,that's all it's really about
loving God and loving our neighboris the heart of who we are.
That's the heart of our faith.
And so it's alwaysworth bending the rules.
It's always worth being accused of heresy.
(19:30):
It's always worth getting into someholy trouble because at the heart of it.
Love is always worth it.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Matt Nelson (19:45):
Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United
Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.
If you would like to let us know you werehere, follow the link below to connect.
To participate in worshipthrough giving, you can give
online at FUMCbentonville.org,or on Venmo @FUMCBentonville.
FUMC bentonville welcomes all.
(20:06):
Because we believe the communiontable is God's table, we invite
everyone into our church family.
We welcome and celebrate every race,gender, gender identity, sexual
orientation, marital status, age, physicaland mental ability, national origin,
economic station, and political ideology.
We come together in action and outreach,aspiring to follow Jesus' example of
(20:29):
radical hospitality, love, and grace as atransformative movement in our community.
Please join us for worship on Sundaymornings at nine and 11:00 AM, both
in person and on Facebook Live.
All are welcome and we'dlove to have you with us.
Grace and peace.
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