The Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37 Sunday, July 14, 2013 The Rev. Sharon Snapp-Kolas, preaching Scripture. Prayer. Opening. Once upon a time 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 man 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! (Keith Wagner, quoting Barbara Johnson) Sounds like good Samaritan behavior. The Good Samaritan is a story that is a bit too familiar. One commentator has called it cliché, suggesting that it can be difficult for the story to function in the life of a church family. We know it too well. Even the secular society has appropriated the term good Samaritan. We have good Samaritan laws, and organizations named The Good Samaritan. In daily conversation, we often refer to good Samaritans as folks who do a good turn for a stranger. I. Jesus and the Lawyer. The familiar interpretation of the story is that we should help people in need. Is that what Jesus is getting at? Is he telling us we should feel guilty about not helping the homeless more, 1
not giving more to the poor, not helping our neighbor as we should. Being a good neighbor is not a bad thing. Helping the poor, the sick, the homeless and the hurting is not a bad thing. But Jesus story is about more than that. The setting for the story is Jesus on a journey, and his conversation with a lawyer. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and to his own death when he meets a lawyer (Lk. 9:51). The lawyer asks a question: What must I do to inherit eternal life? (v. 25): a good question, and a sincere one, possibly. It is a common practice to engage in dialogue with a rabbi, in order to learn. Perhaps the lawyer is not being arrogant, but truly wants to know Jesus thinking on this topic. Perhaps the lawyer speaks for all of us who want to know how to reserve a room in heaven. Certainly a pervasive human question is related to this one: What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is true and valuable and eternal? What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus responds with a question. What does the law say? (v. 26, paraphrased). The lawyer appropriately quotes the Torah: You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself (v. 27; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). Jesus nods encouragingly. Well done! You have given the right answer (v. 28). Now go and do it! Live according to the words you have just recited. Do this, and you will live. Apparently, inheriting eternal life has something to do with loving God and loving one s neighbor. The lawyer comes right back at Jesus, in good rabbinic dialogue form. He asks, And who is my neighbor? (v. 29). This sets the stage for Jesus story of the Good Samaritan. 2
Jesus, on a journey to Jerusalem, tells a story of another man on a journey. II. On a Journey. A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The context indicates that he is a Jew. He is heading away from the City of David -- the city of peace, set high on a hill. His destination is Jericho, which is on the edge of the Dead Sea. He is travelling twenty miles of treacherous, wilderness road. It is not a journey to be attempted alone. Robbers attack the man, beat him, strip him of all his possessions, and leave him for dead. First a priest and then a Levite pass by. Scholars disagree as to why. Some say the two religious leaders do not want to become ritually unclean by touching the injured man. Writes Matthew L. Skinner: Nothing indicates that they think the victim is dead or that they fear contracting contamination from a corpse; even if the man were dead, such purity concerns would be insignificant compared to the weightier need to arrange for the burial of an exposed body. Other scholars interpret the priest and the Levite as having a religious responsibility to maintain ritual purity in order to worship at the Temple. The injured Jew in the ditch threatens their ritual purity. Whichever interpretation you prefer, the upshot is that the priest and the Levite hurry along, avoiding the dead man by crossing to the other side of the road. Along comes the Samaritan. Samaritans are vilified by the Jews. There is a long history of deep enmity between Jews and Samaritans. The roots of the conflict are unclear, although 2 Kings 17 mentions a forced migration of foreigners into the northern kingdom of Israel after the Assyrian invasion in the 8 th century B. C. (2 Kings 17:24-41). 3
Since that time, the Samaritans have not worshipped in Jerusalem. They have different scriptures, a different Temple, and different religious practices. The Samaritans have intermarried with people of other races and religions. They claim to worship the Hebrew God but most Jews reject that claim. Jesus face is set towards Jerusalem. In the moment when he says, A Samaritan came near him, (v. 33), Jesus renders shock value to his story. Jesus listeners would be horrified at the thought. A priest and a Levite are shown in a negative light, and a Samaritan becomes the hero of the story!? Where are the stones? Time to kill this would-be rabbi, this Messiah wanna-be, this Jesus. Jews and Samaritans are members of a club of mutual dislike. They despise each other. Luke records an experience Jesus has in which he is the recipient of Samaritan hatred for the Jews. In chapter 9, a Samaritan town refuses hospitality to Jesus and his disciples on their way to Jerusalem. James and John, good Jews that they are, want Jesus to rain down fire from heaven; but he refuses (9:51-56). The parable of the Good Samaritan is a story about life-and-death enemies. It is a story of eternal hatred, introduced with a discussion of eternal life. The Samaritan does not pass by. Writes theologian Douglas John Hall, The unfortunate one in the ditch represents as much of a nuisance to the Samaritan as to the two religious. And yet the Samaritan is moved with pity (v. 33). The Samaritan is filled with God s Spirit of love and compassion. He goes to the severely injured man, pours wine and oil on his wounds, bandages him, and puts him up at an inn. There he promises the innkeeper that he will return and cover any additional costs of the man s stay at the inn. The story ends. 4
Jesus asks the lawyer yet another question. He reframes the lawyer s question. The lawyer asks, And who is my neighbor? wanting to limit his own obligation. The fewer neighbors he has, the fewer folks he will have to be bothered with. If his neighbors are good, upstanding Jews, properly worshipping God at the Temple in Jerusalem, then he can ignore foreigners and poor people and anyone who doesn t meet the cleanliness criteria. Jesus flips the lawyer s question on its head. He does not ask whether or not the injured man is a neighbor who should be helped. That s a given in Jesus story. He shocks the listeners by redefining who is following God s law of love and compassion. He asks the lawyer, Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? Can a Samaritan fulfill the spirit of the Law? Can a Samaritan love God and neighbor? Can a Samaritan show God s love, mercy and compassion? Can a Samaritan live by God s ways better than a priest or a Levite the most upstanding citizens of Jewish society? The Samaritan has already inherited eternal life. He is living it. He has crossed over to God s side of the road, where love, mercy and compassion reign. The lawyer, however, is unable to speak the words. He cannot bring himself to say, The Samaritan is the neighbor. Instead, he replies to Jesus question: The one who showed him mercy [was a neighbor to the man]. And Jesus says, Go and do likewise (v. 37). Jesus radical concept is hard to grasp. We are so used to the Good Samaritan being about helping a stranded motorist or assisting an elderly person across the street or giving a sandwich to a homeless person. None of these behaviors is bad in and of themselves. But this is not the point of the story. III. Please Don t Help Me; I d Rather Die. Biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine offers a suggestion for getting our minds around the 5
scandal of the story: To hear this parable in contemporary terms, we should think of ourselves as the person in the ditch, and then ask, Is there anyone, from any group, about whom we d rather die than acknowledge, She offered help or He showed compassion? More, is there any group whose members might rather die than help us? If so, then we know how to find the modern equivalent for the Samaritan. So let s imagine ourselves, for a moment, injured and bleeding in a ditch. A stranger comes along. Who might come along who would make us cry out, Please don t help me; I d rather die? On a personal level, I can instantly think of a number of people I have known. People who would be the last ones I would call if I needed help. People who have been mean to me in the past, or ugly or hurtful. Or just plain rude and annoying. I think of a man who shall remain nameless, who treated Roy and I in the most horrible of ways when we worked together for the Salvation Army. To be honest, he tried to run us out of the organization. He may have seen us as a threat to his position. I m not sure. What I do know is that he undermined our work at every turn. He spoke lies and halftruths to our superiors and made life miserable for over a year. The story has a happy ending, sort of: he was eventually fired for unethical behavior towards employees at another location. When I try to imagine this man leaning over me as I lie injured and bleeding in a ditch maybe in a bad neighborhood in San Bernardino, or even in one of the dicey-er sections of Yucaipa and if I imagine him rubbing medicine into my wounds Stop touching me! and if I imagine him wrapping my wounds with bandages and picking me up and carrying me to his car Put me down! I don t want to be anywhere near you or your car! and if I picture him driving 6
me to a hospital and paying the medical bill and coming by to visit until I m well enough to go home I m telling you, it makes my skin crawl. I can t stand the thought. Maybe you have a few personal enemies like that in your mental list. So then if we imagine on a bigger scale, beyond our personal enemies; if we think about people of certain colors, or people with certain tattoos, or people of certain economic levels, or people of other religions, or people of other I donno make your own list... Jesus offends his listeners beyond belief. Beyond the point of tolerance. And it s not about helping others. It s about who we can t imagine as being kind, compassionate and helpful. In California there are some who would find it hard to imagine a Mexican person as someone they would accept help from. We might think of gay people as beyond the pale of who could be helpful to us in a time of need. Maybe it s a drug addict or a gang member or a Muslim or a lady who lives with 40 cats as her best friends. Maybe we d be reluctant to receive help from a Mormon or a Catholic or someone from YCC (Yucaipa Christian Church) or someone from Wildwood Calvary Chapel. Or one of those Baptists! They don t worship in our beloved church. Our Jerusalem. They have different churches; different traditions; different ways of interpreting scripture. It s shocking what Jesus says in this parable. Closing Ultimately, God is the one who shows love, mercy and compassion to the world. God is the Greatest Good Samaritan. The lawyer asks Jesus, Who is my neighbor? 7
Who is rejected and hated by the world, but always ready to help those in need? Are you feeling wounded today? Do you sometimes feel like you re lying near death on the side of the road, beaten up and bleeding? God gave everything he had including his only Son to save you. No matter how hard life is for you right now, hold on to this truth: God has made arrangements for you, as the Samaritan made arrangements for the man who fell into the hands of robbers. Jesus has paid the price: that you might have life eternal. You are well cared for. In the bleakest moments, you are not alone. The Greatest Good Samaritan is travelling the road with you. James A. Wallace writes, To love God is to love neighbor is to love God. This ongoing flow of love allows eternal life to begin even now, as the parable [of the Good Samaritan] confirms. Go and do likewise. Amen. 8