Biography
Dr. Eugene Winkler, is Senior Pastor of the historic Chicago Temple, First United Methodist Church, the oldest congregation in Chicago and one of North America's great metropolitan churches. Dr. Winkler's congregation is one of the most diverse in the city of Chicago. He is deeply involved in the civic life of the city and a champion for the needy and the disenfranchised. He is the 1998 recipient of the Gutenberg Award, given annually by the Chicago Bible Society to outstanding church leaders. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"A Yellow Stripe and A Dead Armadillo" 
One of the most familiar stories in the Bible is the story of the Good Samaritan, or as it should more properly be called, the story of the Helpful Samaritan, because we don't really know whether he's a good person, do we? Even if you don't know the history of the enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans, you immediately understand that this man is doing something good when he's supposed to be bad and the supposedly good people are not bad, they just don't do good things.

You know the story. A man is on his way along the perilous road between Jerusalem and Jericho, a road that drops rapidly from 5000 feet above sea level to 1200 feet below sea level in the course of about 45 miles. The man is robbed, stripped, beaten and left for dead. Some good Jews pass by: a priest, then a Levite. Both are careful followers of the Jewish Law. They "pass by on the other side," that is, they move to the side of the road away from the man so as not to be contaminated.

The Samaritan, well, he's a different story. The Samaritans were descendants of a mixed population, occupying the land after the conquest by Assyria in 722 B.C. The enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans was real, long and deadly. So, for Jesus to tell a story that characterized the Samaritan rather than the priest or Levite as the one who proved to be a good neighbor must have been to its first audience a shocking turn in the story, shattering their categories of who are and who are not the people of God.

They are not bad people, the priest and the Levite. Let's emphasize that. They are not ethically dead and totally devoid of human caring. While their behavior was certainly not commendable, neither was it without reason. The body on the roadside could have been a plant by robbers to lure other travelers into stopping; they could have been robbed and killed themselves.

Certainly contact with a corpse would have defiled the priest and the Levite and disqualified them from performing their duties in the Temple. Their choice was between duty and duty. And that's why they are like us. We are not bad people, and we would never harm another person or neglect someone who was in genuine need. And yet, duty can restrict us from our higher duty. We are not people who like to be found on life's extremes. We are middle-class, middle-income, middle-brow people who follow the middle road.

So, I call to your attention the characterization of people who try to live in the middle of the road by Jim Hightower, a wise Texan who is now a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. Mr. Hightower is fond of satirizing those of us who try to stay in the middle of the road concerning matters of politics, religion and morality.

"The only thing you find in the middle of the road," says Jim Hightower, "is a yellow stripe and a dead armadillo."

That is precisely why it is important not to extricate the Parable of the Helpful Samaritan from the context in which Jesus tells the story. Luke puts it in the context of Jesus' conversation with a student of the Law who asks, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus uses an old rabbinical trick: he answers the question with a question, "What is written in the law? How do you understand it?" The lawyer answers his own question with the most basic understanding that one can have from reading and trying to live in God's way, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus responds, "You have answered right; do this, and you shall live." What's wrong here? We have two good questions, two good answers and two men who agree. On its surface, the encounter between Jesus and the lawyer doesn't mean much. But all kinds of things are wrong. If you ask a question simply for the purpose of gaining an advantage over another person, you are not really concerned about or involved in a religious discussion. Similarly, if you ask a question with no intention of implementing its answer, you are a hypocrite.

Fred Craddock put it succinctly, "Having right answers does not mean knowing God. Students can make a four-point in the Bible and still miss the point."

If you take the middle of the road when it comes to doing the right thing, when it's time to put your faith into action, then all you will find that is keeping you company are a dead armadillo and a yellow stripe. Jesus did not answer the lawyer, "Great! You are my best student!" Instead, our Lord told him, "Go and do."

Barbara Johnson wrote a little parable that is a perfect commentary on this issue of living out our faith in light of the Parable of the Helpful Samaritan:

               A man fell into a pit and couldn't get himself out. 
               A subjective person came along and said, "I feel for you down there."
               An objective person came along and said, "It's logical that someone would fall down there."
               A Pharisee said, "Only bad people fall into a pit."
               A mathematician calculated how he fell into the pit.
               A news reporter wanted an exclusive story on his pit.
               A fundamentalist said, "You deserve your pit."
               An IRS agent asked if he was paying taxes on the pit.
               A self-pitying person said, "You haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit."
               A charismatic said, "Just confess that you're not in a pit."
               An optimist said, "Things could be worse."
               A pessimist said, "Things will get worse."
               Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit!

A great rundown of stereotypical reactions. But notice, in the discussion in Luke, Jesus does not say to the man, "Don't worry. I will lift the man out of the pit." He says, "You go. You do it. You are called by God to live out your love by loving your neighbor as yourself."

Why do you go to church? Charles Allen has just published his 37th book, "God's Seven Wonders For You", and he writes about why people attend church. "No person will ever really find God until there is a felt need in life that only God can fill. Until you need God, you won't have God."

Dr. Allen says, "I would prefer that no one come to my church out of a sense of duty." Those who go to church out of a sense of need are the ones who gain something. Their minds are open to the truth of God, their hearts are open to the presence of God.

If one goes to church, on the other hand, without a sense of need, that person is likely to have a cynical spirit. That's the one who finds fault with the building, looks at other people and criticizes them, doubts the sincerity of the pastor, thinks the choir is trying to show off. "That person," says Dr. Allen, "came for nothing and receives nothing - it would be better to have stayed at home."

That's the secret of the Helpful Samaritan. He needs to do something good, regardless of the consequences or circumstances.

Carl Sandburg told of a lawyer who was having trouble getting an intelligent answer from a witness. Finally, in exasperation, he asked, "Can you read and write?"

"I can write some and read a little," the man replied.

"What do you mean, read a little?"

"You know those signs at the crossroads? Well, I can tell how fer, how fast - but not why or where."

To know what is good is not enough; we must do what we know.

The big push in recent years among management experts has been to move from the typical hierarchical system of management into teams that develop ideas and work together to formulate goals, implement them, measure their success. Now, the circle is moving around again and the effectiveness of such teams is being questioned. In a recent book the authors remind us of the difference between ignorance and stupidity.

Some stupid people inevitably rise to the top in any organization. There's nothing we can do about them except wait and hope and pray. A stupid leader is unable to change because the leader doesn't have the capacity to understand and grow. Ignorance is a different reality because all of us are ignorant in many ways. You may know a lot about, say, nuclear physics and a little about the philosophy of Nietzsche. Or you may understand the latest developments in the stock market or the bond market and be ignorant about the conflict between the Bosnians and the Serbs.

Ignorance can be cured. We can learn more and different realities, truths, insights. The trick is putting them into practice. That's what this very important dialogue between the lawyer and Jesus is about, and why Jesus concludes it with the admonition to go and do. We learn best by doing.

The writer Peter Hamill was recently asked what he regarded as the greatest danger our country faces. He replied: "This overwhelming nostalgia for something that never was."

Joe Garagiola, the former major league catcher who has made a lot more money and acquired much more fame as a TV personality, tells about a time when Stan Musial came to the plate in a critical game. As a super-hitter, Musial was at the peak of his career. The opposing pitcher in the game was young and nervous. Garagiola was catching, and he called for a fastball to be pitched to Musial. The pitcher shook his head. Joe signaled for a curve, and again the pitcher shook him off. Then he signalled for one of the pitcher's specialties - still the pitcher hesitated.

So Joe went out to the mound for a conference. He said, "I've called for every pitch in the book; what do you want to throw?"

"Nothing," was the pitcher's shaky reply. "I just want to hold on to the ball as long as I can."

We cannot hold onto the past, we cannot go back to something that was - or never really was. God calls us to go and do, to put our faith into action.

That's what the story of the Helpful Samaritan is about, but more importantly, that's what the dialogue between Jesus and a good person is about. Here it is: Love draws no boundaries and love demands no repayment.

Interview with Eugene Winkler
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Gene, a compelling message. You quote Peter Hamill saying the greatest danger this nation faces is nostalgia for the past. And how does that inform us about the Christian community these days?

Eugene Winkler: This nostalgia for something that never really was, looking back at the past, and idealizing it instead of looking at the way things are and what we have to do now as people of faith, is what really bothers me, Lydia. John Kenneth Galbraith has recently talked about this in terms of what's going on in Congress.

There's this sense that a certain group of people have brought in Social Security and Medicare and welfare and all of these, but these were brought in in response to needs that history thrust upon us. And we can't go back and make things the way they never were. Welfare reform for example, education in the inner city...those are responses to one of the greatest migrations in the history of the world when millions of African-American people moved from the south to major northern cities, as well as major southern cities. They moved from the invisibility of southern poverty to the visibility of urban poverty. And we want to go back and get away from that if we possibly can.

Talbot:  Well, would you say that the emergence of politically conservative Christian groups on social issues you've just described for us is in part related to this "not wanting to let go" of perhaps what never existed?

Winkler: Exactly, exactly. We can't hold on to something that we think the world was resembling 20 years ago or 50 years ago. God is always a God who's out there ahead of us and saying, "Follow me! Move ahead! I've got something great in store for you in the future if you'll just have faith."

Talbot:  And so there is no prophetic "middle of the road" as you brought out in your message. Faith without action is no faith at all. And of course the two converge at the Chicago Temple First United Methodist Church in Chicago's loop. Walk us through a day in the life of the Chicago Temple.

Winkler: Oh my goodness! It's a very unusual place. On a typical day we will encounter several dozen, if not a hundred homeless people - mostly men - who live on the streets of Chicago. We serve them with clothing and counseling and all kinds of help. We don't give out money, but we give out everything else. And we have laypeople doing that, but the pastoral staff is involved in that constantly.

We'll have people coming in to pray and meditate. We have services for people who work in or near Chicago's loop. We will have major ecumenical gatherings, all kinds of people in and out of the building for commercial purposes. Just a wonderful, exciting place.

Talbot:  And what the public realizes in Chicago is vital programs that relate to human need are happening at the Chicago Temple. What about the Protestants for the Common Good, a group that you're very much involved with.

Winkler: We have put together recently an organization to try to give people in main-line Protestantism a voice, a way of acting out their faith in ways that will deal with these social issues, and make a difference on some of the great issues of our time.

Talbot: Now Gene, I know that you read widely, several books each week, and I asked you this before the program, but I'm going to ask you now: What are you reading now that informs you about the state of what it means to be faithful these days.

Winkler:  Well, I'm constantly reading novels as well as non-fiction, and I read a lot of poetry. One of my favorite poets right now - my wife Marilyn calls him my current favorite poet - is Jim Wright, a wonderful man who was married and buried out of Riverside Church in New York City, and grew up on the Ohio River.

I keep going back to Jim Wright's poetry about what it means to be an authentic, faithful human being. I've been reading a novel called A Very Long Engagement, by a French author, about the First World War, probably the most compelling novel about that since All Quiet On The Western Front. And then a book that I just finished called Emotional Intelligence by a psychologist named Daniel Goldman. But I'm always reading different books.

Talbot: In our final moment, is there anybody especially who inspired you to go into ministry?

Winkler: Well as always, I think, I was inspired by a great Christian, by Jim Lawson, who is now the pastor at Homan United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. Jim had a profound influence on me when I was in high school, as a man who stood for what he believed, and of course walked later with Dr. King.

Talbot: Thanks for sharing that model with us, as you are a role model for so many others.