Luke 10:25-37 25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. Teacher, he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 26 He said to him, What is written in the law? What do you read there? 27 He answered, 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. 28 And he said to him, You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live. 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbor? 30 Jesus replied, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend. 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? 37 He said, The one who showed him mercy. Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise. 1
2016 07.10 Just Do It The stories in the Bible sometimes read as though they ve come straight from today s news headlines. Like this one, which happened just two months ago in the United States in the State of North Carolina. A woman driving on the highway got into a minor traffic accident with the vehicle in front of her. She pulled over to the side of the road and called for a tow truck to take her to the nearest repair shop. A short while later a tow truck arrived. Before hooking the woman s car to his truck, the driver of the tow truck first examined the car to assess the damage. As he examined it, he saw something that disturbed him. On the car s dashboard, between the driver and passenger seats [SLIDE], was a political campaign sign for Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders [SLIDE], in case you don t follow American politics, was running to be the nominee of the Democratic Party for president of the United States. On the back of the car the tow truck driver found something else that troubled him [SLIDE] a Sanders bumper sticker. When the tow truck driver noticed the sign and the bumper sticker, he immediately stopped his inspection. He told the woman that he would not be able to tow her car. Thinking that her car was more damaged than she thought, the woman asked him what the problem was. The problem, he told her, was that she supported Bernie Sanders. He said to her, I can t tow you; you re a Bernie supporter. He suggested that she call the government for a tow. The man, you see, supported a different candidate from a different political party. He felt that he could not in good conscience help the woman, who also happened to be disabled. To do so would have violated his Christian principles. Yes, the man was a Christian. He told reporters, Something came over me. I think the Lord came to me, and he just said get in the truck and leave. And when I got in my truck, you 2
know, I was so proud, because I felt like I finally drew a line in the sand and stood up for what I believe. I wish I were making this up. You can t help but laugh, but you laugh through your tears. As a society we are becoming more and more disconnected from each other. This is happening at the same time that technology has made it easier for us to connect. It s ironic that we can video chat with friends and family on the other side of the world using Skype or Kakao, but we don t want to help a person in need who is right next to us because they support the wrong political candidate. It s not just America. A few weeks ago the United Kingdom held a referendum over whether to leave the European Union [SLIDE]. The morning after the election the people of the UK woke up and realized just how starkly divided they are as a nation. Fifty-two percent voted to leave the EU, while forty-eight percent voted to remain. Digging a little deeper shows that the rift in UK society runs deep. Older voters wanted to leave, while younger voters wanted to remain. City voters wanted to remain, while voters in the countryside wanted to leave. Voters without a college degree wanted to leave, while voters with a college degree wanted to remain. It s as if they live in two different worlds that never meet and never interact with each other. And believe it or not, some people want to keep it that way. Software developers in the UK are working on a new smartphone app [SLIDE]. It s called Remainder. It s a dating app that for people who voted to remain in the EU. Users of the app won t have to worry about possibly dating someone who voted to leave. It s strictly for people willing to say I love EU. It s a sad truth to acknowledge, but we ve gotten to the point as a society where we don t want to interact with anyone who disagrees with us, unless it s to argue. It s true of the US, it s true of the UK, and I think it s also true of Korea [SLIDE]. It was just a few months ago in this very city that water cannons were fired on protestors as they gathered near City Hall. And the recent elections here reveal a generational 3
divide that is similar to the ones found in the US and the UK. Voters over 60 and under 30 have different worldviews, support different candidates, and seem to live in two entirely different worlds. The inability to empathize with someone whose culture or politics differs from ours is profoundly disturbing and depressing. We ve lost our sense of community, of neighborhood. We don t have neighbors anymore, only allies and enemies. We divide our world into friends and foes, those who are with us or against us. This may be the twenty-first century, but we ve regressed back to tribalism. We re like the lawyer in today s passage who has to ask Jesus, Who is my neighbor? We have to ask the question because we no longer know the answer. Today s passage begins with the words [SLIDE]: Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. When we see a transitional phrase like just then, it s always a good idea to see what came before. It helps us understand what follows. We ve been working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Last week we read 10:1-20, in which Jesus sends seventy disciples to go on ahead of him. Today s passage begins at verse 25. Between these two passages, in verses 21 to 24, Jesus does something that seems shocking to us. He praises God for keeping the truth from the wise but revealing it to infants: [SLIDE] I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants (Lk. 10:21). Why, that hardly seems fair, Jesus! Why are infants privileged above the wise? Shouldn t the truth be open to everyone? It s not fair to privilege some! Well, first of all, the kingdom of God is not about fairness. And we re fortunate that it s not. The kingdom of God is not about fairness it s about grace. The disciples are among those who have received grace. Jesus tells them that they are blessed for having seen the things that they have [SLIDE]. 4
23 Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. In other words, the disciples are like infants. Jesus has revealed to them the truth. If the disciples are infants, then the lawyer is among the wise and intelligent. The word lawyer here means a scribe, a religious authority. He is an educated man, an expert in the scriptures. He considers himself wise enough to test Jesus [SLIDE]. Teacher, he says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? (Lk. 10:25). I don t think it would ve been much fun to challenge Jesus. Not only is he filled with wisdom, but he never gives a straight answer. One of his most common tactics is to answer a question with a question. Don t you hate when someone does that to you? What time is it? What time do you think it is? That s essentially what Jesus does. The lawyer asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus answers by asking, What is written in the law? What do you read there? (Lk. 10:26). The man s a lawyer. He s no dummy. Scripture is his area of expertise. It s what he knows. I imagine that he s probably quick to answer, wanting to show Jesus his knowledge. So, he answers, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and your neighbor as yourself. Good answer, Jesus tells him. Now do it. You know what to do, now just do it. Like a good psychologist or poker player, Jesus is able to read people. I think that he is instantly able to read this man, who is wise in his knowledge of the scriptures, but who doesn t live what he knows. There s a disconnect between what he knows and what he does. He doesn t do the things that he knows to be true. The lawyer s conversation with Jesus is like a verbal chess match. He thinks he s playing a game, and he wants to win. He had asked Jesus a question. Jesus answered 5
that question with a question of his own. When the lawyer quoted Scripture, Jesus told him to also obey it. Move and counter move. Back and forth. But the lawyer is not finished. He doesn t want Jesus to have the last word. So, with his next move he asks yet another question: Who is my neighbor? (Lk. 10:29). Now, chances are that you ve likely heard the parable that Jesus tells next, which in English is known as the parable of the Good Samaritan [SLIDE]. It s one of the most well known stories in the Bible. The phrase Good Samaritan has even entered the English language as a way of describing anyone who helps a stranger in need. There s a well known Christian charity called Samaritan s Purse that takes its name from the generosity of the Samaritan. Because the story is so well known, it s power to shock us has been lost. But make no mistake, Jesus would have shocked and offended many people by telling this story. Two weeks ago we read about the Samaritan village that did not welcome Jesus. James and John were so upset by this that they asked Jesus if they could command fire to come down from heaven and burn the village to ashes. This is the kind of unfavorable image that many Jews would ve had of Samaritans. A thousand years earlier the ancestors of the Samaritans were a part of the united kingdom of Israel. After the kingdom split in two, they were identified with the Northern Kingdom. But over the centuries, through conquest and assimilation, the Samaritans had lost their connection to the Southern Kingdom. They were not Jews, but nor were they Gentiles. They shared a common ancestry with Jews, but their religion had taken a far different path. In this respect, Samaritans are like Muslims in relation to Christians. Muslims and Christians share a common ancestor in Abraham, but Islam has taken a far different path than Christianity. If we want to understand how shocking and offensive this parable would have sounded to a first century Jewish audience, we could change the title of the parable from The Good Samaritan to The Good Muslim. For full effect, we could also change priest to pastor and Levite to church elder. 6
Imagine the story told in this manner. A man was going down from Seoul to Suwon, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. Now by chance a Christian pastor was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise an elder of the church, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Muslim while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. That gives us a sense of the power of the parable. To most Jewish minds, the Samaritans were the bad guys. They were worse than Gentiles because they had once been Jews. When we hear the words Good Samaritan we probably focus more on the word good than on Samaritan. Samaritan is not a negative word for us. In fact, it s a good word because we associate it with the kindness and compassion of the Samaritan in the parable. But Jesus audience would have heard the words very differently. Their focus would have been on the man s ethnicity. A good Samaritan? How preposterous! We looked at some of the history of Jews and Samarians, now let s look at some geography [SLIDE]. The parable takes place on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This is the very heart of Judea, and a significant distance from Samaria. Samaritans don t worship in the Temple, and Jerusalem is not their holy city. This raises the question of what the Samaritan is doing so far from home. Maybe he s an immigrant who s come to the city to make a new life for himself. Maybe he wants to experience greater opportunity than he has back home. Whatever it is that brings him to Jerusalem, he comes as an outsider. The priest and the Levite, however, are the consummate insiders. As they are on the road from Jerusalem, they may have even just left the Temple, where they both served. As they 7
walk along the road, they each notice the wounded man. Jesus is clear that each of them sees the man. It s not a passing glance that they give him. They take note of him. They see his wounds, yet they make a conscious decision to walk to the other side of the road. They go out of their way to avoid him. How callous! How cruel, right? How could they see a person in need and turn the other way? This is how. They had good reason to. No, I m not joking. They easily could have rationalized and made an excuse to avoid the wounded man. Jesus says that the man was half dead. By his appearance, the man may even have looked dead, in which case the priest and the Levite would have had good reason to avoid him. According to the law, contact with a dead body made a person unclean. In avoiding the possibly dead man, they were simply trying to avoid becoming defiled. It s a fine excuse, but it s just that an excuse. The priest and the Levite know what they should do, but they don t do it. They each use their religion to justify not helping the man. Having finished the story, Jesus asks the lawyer which of the three men was a neighbor to the wounded man. Even the lawyer, who has been keen to argue with Jesus, acknowledges the obvious: The one who showed him mercy. The Samaritan. The foreigner. The outsider. The enemy. Go and do likewise, Jesus tells him. Go and do likewise. In asking the question, Who is my neighbor? the lawyer was dividing the world into neighbors and strangers, insiders and outsiders, those to whom kindness and compassion were due and those to whom it was not. He knew his responsibility, but he didn t want to do it [SLIDE]. This is why Jesus begins and ends their conversation by telling him to do something. Do this, and you will live, he said at the beginning. Go and do likewise, he said after telling the parable. No excuses. Just do it. 8
In the 1980s the sportswear company Nike unveiled what has since become one of the most famous advertising slogans of all time [SLIDE]: Just Do It. The slogan was a call to action to sneaker wearers of all ages, from weekend athletes to professionals. Whatever their sport was basketball, tennis, soccer, long-distance running get out there and do it. Don t make excuses I m too tired. I don t have enough time. It s too hot. It s too cold. It s too early. It s too late. No excuses! Just Do It! Just Do It. It s a brilliant tagline, but it s more than that. It s also Christ s command to us when we try to justify our indifference toward a neighbor because they are in someway different from us politically, culturally, racially, religiously. The lawyer asked Jesus, Who is my neighbor? Who is our neighbor? Is a person who votes for the 새누리당 (conservative party) our neighbor? Or the person who votes for the 민주당 (liberal party)? (You would be surprised at how much I know about Korean politics.) Is the migrant worker who works on a farm or in a factory for less than minimum wage our neighbor? Is the Muslim or the atheist our neighbor? In neighborhoods all throughout America right now people are asking themselves similar questions. In black neighborhoods they re asking, Is the white police officer my neighbor? In the white neighborhoods they re asking, Is the Black Lives Matter protestor my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? That s the question that led to Jesus telling the parable. Did you notice how he ended it [SLIDE]? He asked the lawyer, Who do you think was a neighbor to the man? He turned the question around. Instead of the neighbor being the object, Jesus made the neighbor the subject. In other words, the responsibility begins with us. If we have to ask who our neighbor is, then we re not being the neighbor that Jesus wants us to be. Jesus didn t divide the world into neighbors and strangers. He told us to be good neighbors to show kindness, compassion, and mercy regardless. He told us what to do, so let s not make excuses. Let s just do it! 9