Touchy Compassion Eighth Sunday After Pentecost July 14, 2013 Luke 10.25-37

            You like stuff you touch. And once you touch stuff, it hurts to let it go.

            James R. Wolf of Ohio State University, along with some colleagues, allowed participants in their study to handle coffee mugs for varying lengths of time before bidding on them in an auction. In what they dubbed the "length-of-ownership effect," the researchers discovered that the simple act of touching an item created "pre-ownership attachment." In other words, folks shelled out sixty percent more money for a mug once they'd had their mitts on it.

            Not only that, but a study done at Yale revealed that letting go of a possession fires up the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, the same part of the brain that sparks with the pain of a paper cut or a slug of too-hot coffee. It literally, physically hurts to turn loose of our stuff.

            For both of these reasons, Apple sets up its stores in a way that invites you to paw over the merchandise. Prod and paw those screens and keyboards and you begin to feel a sense of possession, so that you'll pay more to keep the item and avoid the pang of walking away.

            In some ways, the parable of the Good Samaritan is about touching and not touching, about hanging on and letting go. The first two passersby famously stay out of reach of the victim. Their arm's-length avoidance bypasses the pain of giving up their ritual purity and short-circuits any sense of ownership in the wounded man's problem. The Samaritan, on the other hand, puts his fingerprints all over the mangled body of the traveller. Perhaps this explains how he finds the courage for a painful parting with precious objects: wine, oil, and gold. He has handled, not a mug but a mugging victim, and thus finds himself willing to up the bidding in order to remain in relationship.

            "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Mt 6.21) Our hearts track our treasure, and our treasure tracks our touch. Maybe the answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" begins as much with a handshake as a handout.

Ouch! That Hurts!

Doug