Scripture Luke10: 25-37

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

    25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

    26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

    27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

    28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

    29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

    30In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

    36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

    37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

Taking care of the neighborhood (a return to kindness)

Author Kurt Vonnegut famous author once responded to a young man asking for assurance that everything was going to be OK responded in this way.  "Welcome to Earth young man, its hot in the summer, cold in the winter.  Its round and wet and crowded.  At the outside you've got about a hundred years here.  There's only one rule that I know of dog-gone-it (my edit), Joe, you've got to be kind."  The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most well known stories from the New Testament.  I think that at least once during every summer camp that I have been to this parable is chosen by one of the groups to be the evening devotion at the evening campfire service.  I have seen this acted out every way from kids getting carried away beating the man on the road and over acting the parts to a performance that brought tears to the eyes.   The story is so prevalent it has even made its way into our common language were any do-gooder helping someone in need is called a Good Samaritan.   This morning however let's look once more at this story and see it as a possible application to our own lives,  After all Jesus as an app for this.   Let us ask the Holy Spirit to guide us this morning as we open our J-pad and look for His leading as we study his word.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O lord our rock and our redeemer, amen.

  First of all in the mind of the lawyer or scribe that stood up to Jesus that day, the term good Samaritan would be an oxymoron, two words that appear to be diametrically opposed, or opposites like Civil War, ,Irregular Pattern,  Friendly Fire, Jumbo Shrimp, Peaceful War, Serious Joke, Silent Scream, Sweet sorrow.  A good Samarian is a term that just does not exist in the Jewish courtyard of that day.  Samaritans were half-breeds who worshiped in a different temple, had different traditions and practices even though they claimed to also worship Yahweh, the ancient term for God.   If a Jew saw a Samaritan walking down the road towards them they would certainly walk on the other side to avoid them, much less have eye contact with them.  The general thought of the day was that for the Samaritans the feeling was mutual.  Once when Jesus was crossing into Samaritan country the Bible says that he had his eyes fixed on Jerusalem which to the Samaritans represented a rival temple, and it says that the Samaritans made it known that he would not be welcome and to keep right on walking.   Ok, with this as a background let's go back to the beginning of the text today and look at it again without our 21st century mindset. 

It was very common for Jesus to be constantly grilled by the Jewish leaders of that day.  After all here was an itinerant Rabbi stirring the people up with all kinds of talk like love your neighbor, turn the other cheek and all kinds of radical preaching not to mention the acts of healing that he was reported in doing, even on the Sabbath.  He represented a threat to the position held by the Pharisees and their lawyers or scribes, that they were the guardian and keepers of the law and the only way to stay on the pathway to eternal life was in the keeping of the law.   So it is with come calculation and craftiness that this particular scribe poses the question to Jesus.   Jesus of course knew the law probably better than the scribe did and with equal skill in debate responds to the lawyer in the most perfect way possible, he says "what does the law say"   The quotations from the lawyer are of course the most well known verses to a Jew as they were a part of the Shama or a verse that one would repeat every day.  They are taken from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.  The debate is then back in the lawyers court and he fires another volley hoping to trip Jesus up and says, "Who is my neighbor" and Jesus responds with the famous parable before us today. 

At the end of the parable comes the final response to the Lawyers original question and of course Jesus turns it around and makes the lawyer answer his own question, but he can't.  He can't answer the question because he does not want to recognize that the Samaritans are capable of doing any good at all; much less even say the word Samaritan, so he says "the one who showed mercy". 

By the time we get all the way through the parable we have forgotten Jesus' original answer to the lawyers original question, how can I inherit eternal life.  I even missed the first time I read it.  Do you hear what the lawyer is saying? How can I inherit ...?   He is basically saying I really don't want to change anything, I just want you to confirm that I, who is trying to do everything right, am justified in what I am not doing.    Jesus on the other hand responds by telling him, "do this and you will live"   The lawyer starts out by simply asking questions and ends up being told that he has to do something.  He really didn't intend to do anything different in the first place much less be told a story where a Samaritan is the hero.   

What is Jesus telling us today in this app?  If you go home today with the idea that this is just about going out and doing good deeds I will not have done my job because this story goes much deeper than that.   Just look at the way the Samaritan treats the beaten man, most likely a Jew in the story.  He not simply being a Boy Scout helping a physically challenged person cross the street, he goes way beyond that; He came near, He was moved with compassion, He went to him, He bandaged the wounds, He poured oil (a soothing agent) and wine (antiseptic) on them, He put him on his animal, He brought him to an inn, He took care of him at the inn. When he had to leave, he gave the innkeeper money to keep caring for him, promising to pay more if needed when he returned.  This is not just a good deed; this is an example of loving your neighbor as yourself. 

There are some in the church today that say, we are saved by grace and not by works, that somehow it is ok to be nasty to our neighbors, after all they are a lost cause.  We will be nice to them once they join the Church.  After all we don't have to earn our Salvation so really there is nothing we have to do.  If you believe that I suggest you open the Bible again. 

Let us be clear about what is going on here in this text.  This is not an example of works.  Jesus does not tell this parable in answer to the question what must I do to inherit eternal life.   That question is already been answered by the lawyer himself when he says, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength", and with it," Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.   As Christians we are joint heirs with Christ in the new covenant that God has made with his people.  This parable is not the answer that Jesus gives to the question of justification or salvation; this is a parable of how we take care of the neighborhood.  For too long the church has preached that it is not about what you do, but when you read the scriptures time and time again you will find examples of doing as being a part of the Kingdom of God.  Look at the life of Christ, he did not just go around preaching and teaching, he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the lame to walk, he spent time with the outcasts, he was taking care of the neighborhood.  As Christians he is asking us to do the same.   John Wesley believed that it was a balance, a balance between a life of piety (taking care of your faith) and a life of mercy (taking care of the neighborhood).  For Jesus the issue of responding in love, as in the case of the Samaritan, comes out of what God provides when people turn to him in love.  Doing, then is not just a nice deed, doing becomes an expression of God's love.  The Samaritan doesn't just patch the guy up and head out on the road again; he becomes a part of the process to bring the man back to wholeness again.   Jesus did not heal the blind just so that they could see again, he healed them because being blind made them unclean in the eyes of the community, Jesus did not heal the lame because he just wanted them to be able to jump and run again, he healed them because being lame meant that they were considered lost and not worthy of loving and He wanted them to be loved. 
Who is our neighbor, where is our neighborhood?  Who is out there lying in a spiritual gutter beaten down by circumstances that are being passed by?   What if they are Muslim, Buddhist, or Sikh?  Do we still show mercy or do we pass by on the other side?  What would happen if we truly began to show kindness? 
I think that sometimes we get hung up with this parable because we truly do not understand what is was to be Jewish and how they felt about the Samaritans.  So here is a version of the story told again out of the Cotton Patch Stories.

  "One day a teacher of an adult Bible class got up and tested him with this question: "Doctor, what does one do to be saved?"
              Jesus replied, "What does the Bible say? How do you interpret it?"
              The teacher answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your physical strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself."
              "That is correct," answered Jesus. "Make a habit of this and you'll be saved."
              But the Sunday school teacher, trying to save face, asked, "But ... er ... but ... just who is my neighbor?"
              Then Jesus laid into him and said, "A man was going from Atlanta to Albany and some gangsters held him up. When they had robbed him of his wallet and brand-new suit, they beat him up and drove off in his car, leaving him unconscious on the shoulder of the highway.
              "Now it just so happened that a white preacher was going down that same highway. 'When he saw the fellow, he stepped on the gas and went scooting by.
              "Shortly afterwards a white Gospel song leader came down the road, and when he saw what had happened, he too stepped on the gas.8
              "Then a black man traveling that way came upon the fellow, and what he saw moved him to tears. He stopped and bound up his wounds as best he could, drew some water from his water-jug to wipe away the blood and then laid him on the back seat.   He drove on into Albany and took him to the hospital and said to the nurse, 'You all take good care of this white man I found on the highway. Here's the only two dollars I got, but you all keep account of what he owes, and if he can't pay it, I'll settle up with you when I make a pay-day.'
              "Now if you had been the man held up by the gangsters, which of these three-the white preacher, the white song leader, or the black man - would you consider to have been your neighbor?"
              The teacher of the adult Bible class said, "Why, of course, the nig - I mean, er ... well, er ... the one who treated me kindly."
              Jesus said, "Well, then, you get going and start living like that!"
How do we take care of the neighborhood, Jesus has an app for that.