SAVED BY THE OUTSIDER by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

My husband makes fun of me because I like to watch deep, intense movies. You know, like Hotel Rawanda and Schindler’s List. He has, for the most part, broken me of the habit of watching them on our date night. We stick to romantic comedies (my choice) and Sci Fi (his choice) on date night. But when the Academy Award list comes out and there are those epic gut wrenching films that show you the depth of human despair and hope, I am all over those movies.

I don’t like war movies. Kurt is the history buff so he is the war movie guy. But this week, I stumbled across a movie about WWII that makes me even want to read the book. Seriously!

The film is the story of Ernest Gordon, a Captain in the The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, an Infantry regiment of the British Army. During WW II, after the fall of Singapore, when the Japanese were the occupying Army in Singapore, Gordon was among many soldiers, both American and British, who were taken prisoner.

Japanese POW camps were awful. They really did not follow the rules of the Geneva Convention about how prisoners were to be treated. The film “To End All Wars” tells the story of life in one prisoner of war camp where the prisoners worked as forced labor on the Siam–Burma Death Railway, a 415 kilometers railway built between Bangkok, Thailand, and Burma.  

The whole film is worth watching because it is filled with stories of men learning about betrayal and forgiveness, despair and hope, sacrifice and redemption. You really see how the human spirit will prevail.

But the scene I want to show you comes near the end of the film. The end of the War is near. The British and American Allies are just about to free the camp, but somehow, by mistake, they bomb the camp, thinking it is an enemy target. The commander of the camp flees. The Sergeant is left with a few of the guards and the prisoners. They have no provisions and they are wandering around not sure what to do. Then a truck rolls into the camp.

Outsiders. They are soldiers from a nearby enemy location that had also been bombed. The Japanese Sergeant calls them dogs because they have abandoned their posts. This is shameful in their Bushido system.  But they are wounded and are coming for help. Captain Ernest Gordon is the one who steps forward.

Let’s watch the clip.

*** Show video clip.

 “Those are wounded, dying human beings. They’re no harm to us.”  

You see, Gordon, even though he’s a soldier, sees all people as human beings. He is a prisoner. His captors could kill him for crossing a line. Trust me, it has happened several times already in the camp.

But the walls suddenly collapse here as the war is ending. They have been doing something else in the camp. They have been reading scripture. They have been having a school of their own, in order to hold onto their humanity. There was another soldier, who I learned in my research was a Methodist, and he modeled for young Ernest Gordon what it means to be Jesus.  Ernest wasn’t a believer before the war.

Ernest Gordon’s story is the story of the Samaritan – outsiders saving outsiders. In that war zone, the Japanese were the enemy of the British. The layers of outsiders just went on and on. But Gordon said, “No. Enough. We are human beings.” He stepped across the line as others followed him.

Did you see that first young Japanese man that went to help? He was the translator in the camp. He was trained at Cambridge. Throughout the film you can see that he does not hate the British and the Americans who are the prisoners of war. Because he has spent time in Britain, he can no longer see these outsiders as strangers. In this moment, he also crosses the line and joins them.

Jesus said: Love your neighbor.

“And who is my neighbor?” someone asked him.

And he told a story.

A man was beaten by thieves and left for dead.

A priest walked by.

A Levite religious man walked by.

And then a Samaritan, an outsider, an enemy to the man who was beaten, walked up, and helped him.  He took him to an inn, paid for a room and food for him and said he would come back and check on him.

And Jesus said: “Which one was the neighbor?”

“The one who treated him with care.”

But, you see, we have watered down this story. We say “Oh, she was a Good Samaritan” when she helped out a friend. We forget that in this story, the Samaritan was the outsider.

It’s as if you are stranded in an unfamiliar neighborhood (one where you don’t feel comfortable), and the person you are most afraid of pulls up and offers to help. Oh yes, and your cell phone has died. Will you accept their help?

Or, how about this? You are driving in your neighborhood and you see someone that you fear, and you are running late, but the person is in danger. Would you stop your car and let them jump in, in order to protect them from harm?

Because here is the thing: Jesus says, “If you follow me then everyone is your neighbor. EVERY. ONE.”

One last example. Perhaps a bit more realistic.

You are at work, and there is this person who, time and time again, puts you down. This person will lie to get ahead. They cheat. They manipulate. They are lazy. And now you find out that person’s child is really sick. It’s not a lie. You know it’s true. And now he has to miss lots of work and the boss asks if you can take on extra work to help out so he can take his child for treatments.

Will you do it?

Darn it.

Jesus says the preacher and the religious teacher would find a way to wiggle out of it, but a neighbor – a Jesus follower – someone who takes this stuff seriously - would say “Yes! Of course! I will help out! What can I do to help?”

So, who is your neighbor this week? Who is the person God is showing you? Who is that outsider to you? The person you really don’t want to help.

Imagine what it would feel like to be in a position to need that person’s help – and to have them help you!

Now imagine that Jesus is asking you to be generous and gracious enough to help that person. Imagine what it meant for a prisoner of war to give aid to the enemy who was injured.

Before the war, Ernest Gordon was not a believer. He became a follower of Jesus in that camp. After the war, Ernest Gordon moved to the United States, got his education, and was for years the Dean of the Chapel of Princeton seminary, until he retired. He just died a few years ago. You see, that kind of horrific experience can prepare you to be someone who can impact many more people for the rest of your life. He was the outsider, but he found his humanity.

He and that young Japanese translator reunited years later at the site of the prison camp. They became friends. He was a neighbor to the enemy. And the enemy became his friend.

After Jesus tells the story of the Samaritan who cared for his neighbor, he asks the person he was talking to, “Who in the story was a neighbor to the man attacked” and the person answered, “the one who showed kindness.”

Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

That is our mission, my friends. Go and show kindness to the outsider. Go, and do likewise. Be a neighbor. Amen.