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Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. May God’s word of peace touch your hearts this morning.
Today’s gospel reading addresses a question that is asked both in society and in the church: Who is my neighbor? But actually there’s another question behind that question, and that is, how much must I really do for another person? Well, we know that Jesus tells us in His Word that we are to love our neighbor. But who is that neighbor we are to love?
The common view of neighbor is one who lives close to you in a spatial neighborhood. But for many of us in today’s world, that’s not the case. We don’t even know the name of the family living in an apartment down the hall or the name of the family that lives across the street from us. Yet using this definition of neighbor, the lawyer in today’s gospel reading was sure that he was exempt from the law of loving neighbor.
In the ensuing parable, Jesus gives us a new understanding of a neighbor. A neighbor is one who is in need of your assistance given in love. What does Jesus really expect of us regarding love to our neighbor? Well, Jesus responds to this by telling a story, quite a simple story that has fired our imaginations for centuries.
A man is beaten up and robbed on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Now, this was a notoriously dangerous road. Jerusalem is 2,300 feet above sea level. The Dead Sea, where Jericho stood, is 1,300 feet below sea level. So then in somewhat less than 20 miles, this road dropped some 3,600 feet. It was a narrow road filled with loose rock and winding turns, and it was the happy hunting ground of thieves, preying on unsuspecting travelers. It was a road that one seldom traveled alone and never traveled after sunset.
So when Jesus was telling us the story of the Good Samaritan, he was talking about a type of thing that was constantly happening on this Jerusalem to Jericho road. Many of those present listening to Jesus probably were nodding their heads in familiarity. Some of them too may have been mugged at one time along this road. Maybe a few of you have experienced being ripped off, and you too can nod and say, “Yeah, I know what that’s like. That’s not a good spot to be in.”
Our Lord’s story begins with an unnamed traveler. Now, he is obviously a reckless and foolhardy character. People who are carrying goods or valuables seldom travel the Jerusalem to Jericho road alone. Seeking safety in numbers, people traveled in convoys or caravans. So this man had no one to blame but himself for the plight in which he found himself.
And then two highly religious clergy types pass by. The first is a priest who hurries past the injured man, and there’s nothing particularly strange about that because, according to Jewish law, contact with a dead person would have rendered him spiritually unclean and therefore unfit to fulfill his duties in the temple. This priest, he had a schedule to keep. He had responsibilities to look after, so he passed by on the other side of the road in order to avoid this injured man and do not have any obligation to him.
Then a Levite, another temple worker, passed by. The Levite seemed to go near to the man before he passed. He knew that bandits were in the habit of using decoys, having one of their band play the part of a wounded man. And then when some unsuspecting traveler stopped over him, the others would rush out upon him and overpower him.
And so this Levite lived with a motto: safety first. He would not take a personal risk of helping someone else. And so far, nothing strange about the story. But then Jesus introduces a Samaritan, and the eyes of his audience would pop wide open. Samaritans were the outcasts of Jewish society. The history of animosity between Jew and Samaritan was long and deep, and neither race wanted much to do with the other.
In fact, their hatred was so entrenched that each kept to their own territory, trying never to even set foot on the other’s soil. It was said that the best thing a Jew could do was to consider a Samaritan dead. Actually, that’s not too far-fetched the way some people in the world think today about others. It’s a reality.
And so when Jesus introduced the Samaritan, his audience likely assumed that the villain of another story had now arrived. What do we know about this Samaritan? It seems that he was a commercial traveler who was a regular visitor to the inn. Two things we can note about the Samaritan. One, his credit was good. Clearly the innkeeper was prepared to trust him, and although he was a Samaritan and theologically unsound, he was an honest man.
And two, the Samaritan was prepared to help. The love of God was in his heart. Now, it is no new experience to find the Orthodox more interested in dogmas than in helping others. Then here is this man Jesus presents, a Samaritan yet, whom the Orthodox despised, to be the one who shows compassion to the injured man, someone he doesn’t even know. That’s where the story takes a turn.
But let’s back up a second. Let’s remember the question that the lawyer asked that began this whole episode. Asked by the scribe concerning what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus asked the scribe, “Well, what is written in the law? How do you read it?” The Orthodox Jews wore around their wrist little leather boxes called phylacteries, which contained certain passages of Scripture. One of those passages that would have been in that phylactery would have been Deuteronomy 6:4, which states, “You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and being.”
So Jesus said to the scribe, “Take a look at your phylactery on your own wrist because there will be the answer to the question you ask.” And to that, the scribe added in Leviticus 19:18, which bids a man to love his neighbor as himself. However, with their passion for definition, the rabbis sought to define just who was one’s neighbor. And in the narrowest sense, they confined the word neighbor to refer to their fellow Jews.
For example, some Jews said that it was illegal to help a Gentile woman during the time of childbirth, for that would only be helping to bring another Gentile into the world. So the scribe’s question was a genuine question. And now we can see what Jesus is driving at. Jesus is inviting his hearers to see themselves as the man beaten up and left for dead. Which one of us has not at some time or another felt abused, ripped off, lonely, or forgotten?
We too cry for help from someone who might understand. Lying there in our own blood and tears, perhaps only then do we understand that it is Jesus who is the Samaritan in our story. Jesus, who suffered at the hands of humanity, Jesus, who was rejected and beaten and left for dead, Jesus, who would cry from the cross, “My God, why have you forgotten me?” Sounds very similar to some of our own cries.
It is God in the flesh of Jesus that crosses the boundaries of heaven. It is Jesus who acts as our merciful neighbor because he has been there. He knows what it is like. And so our story draws to a close. We see the outcast tenderly caring for the injured man, and then we grasp the fact that God spares no expense in order to bring us to heaven safely.
Christ does not stand apart from our pain. His cross was the price of our salvation so that we might know what it means to show compassion, because it is then that we find strength for ourselves to be a good Samaritan, to be a good neighbor, to show mercy, to care for another.
You see, to properly understand this parable and to get the right answers, we have to ask the right questions. See, in the parable, the lawyer did not ask the right questions. The questions we ask reveal our faith and character. The first question we ought to be asking concerns our eternal life. Eternal life is the result of obedience to God’s laws, right? Jesus said, “Do this and you will live,” but who is able to do all the commands that would require a perfect person?
The question that should have been asked is this: How can I, a sinner, inherit eternal life? This would give the answer, for this is eternal life, to know God, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom God sent. The second question we ought to be asking is the question of neighbor. The lawyer should have asked, not who is my neighbor, but rather, who is my God? If God were truly God, then you would love all people. And that question of neighbor would not even need to be raised. Because to love God is to love others, and to love others is to assist others in their time of need.
Jesus, who portrays Himself as the compassionate Good Samaritan, also calls us to be good Samaritans to others. So in summary, I want to share with you three quick takeaway points of what this text is saying to us.
The first is, God calls us and expects of us, as His children, to help another person when they’re in a time of trouble. Even if they bring that trouble on themselves, even if it’s all their own fault, as it was with the traveler in the parable, there’s no condition for us not to reach out and to help others.
Second, we are to help any person, anyone who is in need, because anyone who is in need is our neighbor. And our love needs to be as wide for others as God’s love is wide for us.
And third, as we show compassion, as we reach out and we help others in need, that must be done in action and not consist of merely feeling sorry for another. You know, there’s no doubt that the priest and the Levite felt some pity for this injured man as they passed him by. But the point is they did nothing. Compassion, to be genuine, must be made evident in our deeds, in our actions.
And so what Jesus says to the scribe, he says to each of us today: Go, you, and do the same.
In our Lord’s precious name, Amen.
I invite you now to please stand for a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for coming to us no matter who we are or where we may be and bringing your love and care to us. May we always hold your love precious and follow in Christ’s example to love others, to love all your creation in the same way, thus bringing joy to you and peace and healing to the lives of others.
It’s in our Lord Jesus’ name we pray, amen.