- Sermon - Mickey Anders

Text: Luke 10:25-37

A minister riding the subway noticed that an old woman shuffled into the subway wearing only ragged clothes to protect her from the bitter Chicago winter wind. Her white, cracked, bony hands clutched a worn shawl tightly around her. The minister watched with wonder and pity.

At the next stop, an energetic young man strode confidently onto the train. His warm, high-fashion clothes offered a stark contrast to the rider from the last stop. As he made his way to his seat, his eyes lingered just a moment on the old woman. Three stops later, as the train slowed, he glided by her to the other door and disappeared into the tunnel.

On the woman's lap lay his brown leather gloves.

The minister observed, "I don't know if he was a believer in Christ or not. But I do know this: He saw her need and responded with compassion - while I just sat there. It never occurred to me to give her my gloves. That young man showed compassion in a way I'll never forget" (from Our Daily Bread, February 6, 1997 quoted in The Abingdon Preaching Annual 2001, p. 263)

Most people today would call this young professional "a good Samaritan," a title that comes directly from the story in our text today. Next to the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm, this is probably the best known story in the Bible.

We all know the story, but most of us don't know the context. As so often happened, Jesus told this story in response to a question. A lawyer asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

What a great question! According to modern day evangelists, this is THE QUESTION. It's the opening question designed to lead to the "plan of salvation" and resulting in baptism. Many times the question goes like this, "If you were to die today, do you know where you would spend eternity?" Perhaps it's a bit simplistic, but it gets to the point quickly.

I always find myself disturbed with the answers Jesus gives to those kind of questions. According to the accounts given in Matthew and Luke, Jesus would have flunked the test for Evangelism Explosion. In these gospels he never gives what we would call "the right answers." (However, according to the account given in John's gospel, Jesus always gives the right answer. There he seems to always explaining the "way of salvation" in terms much like a modern evangelist.)

In Matthew 25, Jesus describes a scene about separating the sheep from the goats in the eternal kingdom. Any graduate of Evangelism 101 knows that they should be separated based on whether or not they have professed faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord, and followed him. But Jesus makes no reference to that requirement. Rather he says the goats will be sent to "eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" because they "did it not unto the least of these." There, "inheriting eternal life" is based on kind deeds done to the needy.

And again here in Luke, Jesus has a perfect opportunity to explain the gospel, but he passes on the opportunity. The man asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus lets the lawyer slip with a very Old Testament concept of vaguely loving God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus affirms the man's answer as quite enough.

The witnessing moment would be over except that the lawyer was having trouble with the "neighbor" part. The Scripture said the lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked "Who is my neighbor?"

Jesus then responds by describing the scene where a certain man, traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, is robbed, beaten and left for dead. Three people pass by - a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan. The first two for reasons of their own pass by on the other side. It is the unexpected one, the hated Samaritan, who responds with kindness and proves himself to be a neighbor.

It's such a simple little story, but it is one filled with meanings. I want to suggest five meanings for us today.

1) We are to love our neighbor even if it is their own fault that they are in bad straights.

The road between Jerusalem and Jericho was a notorious hiding place for bandits. The road ran through a lonely stretch of territory and offered many ravines and boulders which served as perfect hiding places from which robbers could quickly pounce on innocent travelers. It was common knowledge that this was not a road to be traveled alone or at night.

Anyone walking that road alone should have known that they were taking a chance. What was this "certain man" doing there? Didn't he know better?

Even today there are sections of almost any city about which everybody says, "Just don't go there." Upon hearing where this robbery occurred there must have been those in the crowd who said to themselves, "It's his own fault. Happens all the time."

We do the same thing today. We learn of someone on welfare, and we conclude, "It's her own fault." Another's funds are depleted because of an emergency situation, and we say, "They should have planned ahead." And then we excuse our meager response because "it's their own fault."

Jesus' hero in our story helped the man in need without any reference to the how's or the why's of the situation. A man was in need. The good Samaritan met the need.

2) We are to love our neighbor even if it means putting ourselves at personal risk.

Maybe the Samaritan wasn't very smart. He should have stopped to think a moment about the robbers. Were they still in the area? Where they using the wounded man as bait to lure their next victim? If one man was robbed and beaten, why not one more? The Samaritan took a personal risk when he stopped to give aid.

How many times have we failed to offer help because we were afraid for our own safety? In a famous incident several years ago, thirty-five neighbors heard the screams of a woman being attacked on the streets of New York. Because the neighbors refused to take a risk, she was killed by her attacker. Thirty-five people, and not one of them was a neighbor because they refused to take a risk.

3) We are to love our neighbor even if it means abandoning our personal plans.

The priest and the Levite had responsibilities at the Temple. They were in a hurry. They were constrained by their plans. It would be irresponsible to be late. People were expecting them. And because of their plans, they passed on by.

I sometimes think this is the most common excuse we have for not helping. We've got plans. We've got a schedule. We've got an agenda. Thoughts of the needy have no place in our day planner. Jesus makes clear that loving our neighbor may mean interrupting our precious plans.

4) Loving our neighbor means that we don't exclude anyone.

The lawyer revealed his real motives in his question. The only person who would ask the question, "Who is my neighbor?" is someone who wants to have as few neighbors as possible. The lawyer is only interested in whom he can exclude.

Sometimes I think that the desire to exclude must be the original sin because it is so common. Almost every kind of social gathering is based on counting someone out. Children form cliques, college students blackball one another, adults are drawn to anything that boasts the adjective "exclusive."

But God wants as many neighbors as possible. The Bible says, "Whosoever will…" "Go into the highways and byways and bring them in." We are told everywhere to go to the least, the last and the lost.

Someone said, "He drew a circle that kept me out. But I drew a larger circle that included him." We constantly seek to make our neighborhoods smaller by excluding all kinds of people. But not Jesus!

5) Love means being willing to accept help from OUR Samaritan.

The point of Jesus story may not be "Who is my neighbor?" but "Who is my Samaritan?" After all, the only surprising thing about the story was the character of the hero. Everyone expected Jesus to say that the person following the priest and the Levite was a common Israelite. But Jesus surprised and shocked them all by giving the staring role to a representative of a group of people that every good Jew in the crowd hated. It was not possible for any of them to say the word "Samaritan" without forming their lips into a sneer. "Samaritan."

Whose name can you not say today without forming your lips into a sneer? Who is it that, if you were dying on the side of the road, would most upset you if you opened your eyes to see? Who is your unexpected neighbor?

Everyone has one. For a Democrat, could it be George W. Bush.? For a Republican, could it be Bill Clinton? For the Bosnian, a Serb? For the Klansman, could it be an African-American? For the skinhead, could it be a Jew?

Judith Brain of Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Lexington, Massachusetts tells the following story about her surprising neighbor. She says:

My son is a jazz musician. My husband and I went to hear his band one night, at a club in Roxbury. It was a warm, inter-racial, friendly spot.

At the table next to ours a big friendly African-American man attended to a tiny, twisted, human being on a wheeled cart. A paralyzed man with a puppet's body and large misshapen head lay on the cart sipping his beer through a straw and watching the musicians attentively. He seemed alert but only his eyes moved so it was hard to tell how much he really took in. His friend captured our attention. He seemed alive to every nuance of this poor, deformed man. He leaned close to hear him speak in that noisy club and his manner proclaimed love. I thought about how wonderful this scene was. The club had embraced this broken person. I felt part of that embrace. I too was reaching out in some way with a friendly smile. "I accept you," I was saying.

The room was smoky and my contact lenses gave me trouble. I popped them out, sloshed them in my water glass, and put them back. In a few minutes, the tall man came over to our table and gave me a bottle of eye drops. "Here, you need this."

"Oh, thanks," I gushed. "You noticed."

"No, my friend did," he said, pointing to the man on the cart. On that crooked face was big grin.

He took pity on me. I came out of my arrogant Pharisaical fog. "I accept you." What presumption! I thought I was whole and he was not. I thought I was the giver and he was alien, the last person in the world who could help me. But the tables were turned. That twisted man in the jazz club became an unexpected source of kindness. (PRCL, July 9, 2001)

Jesus' lawyer friend asked the question, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus asks us the question, "Who is my Samaritan?"