If you have attended church for any amount of time you have heard a few sermons on the Good Samaritan. In my eleven years here at Hebron I have preached on this text multiple times. And I have preached on it even more in my 25 years of ordained ministry. And many, many other preachers have preached on it many, many times. After all of these sermons have been preached by all these people in all these churches over all these years you might think there cannot be anything new to say.
A secret. I think you are right. There may be nothing new to say.
And yet, here we are. You. Me. Jesus. The Legal Expert. A traveler who has seen better days. Some thieves who were our traveler’s problem. A priest. A Levite. And…a Samaritan.
Sometimes it is not saying something new.
Sometimes it is saying something timely.
Sometimes it is the breathtaking reminder that the text we approach is unique and that while it spoke to specific communities at specific moments in time in its original presentation, somehow it speaks centuries and millennia later as though it is saying, “This. This is the moment for which I was intended.”
The lectionary is a three year cycle of suggested texts for preachers. Not a mandatory thing, but a good idea for preachers to consult for suggestions of possible texts for Sunday. When I saw that the Good Samaritan was among this weeks texts I thought here is another example of what the Holy Spirit looks like. This familiar text is roaring to come and speak to the events of the past week.
Anybody watch the news this week?
To be truthful, I was to the point of being afraid to turn on the television to see what would come next. The shooting in Louisiana and it’s aftermath. Which was interrupted by the shooting in Minneapolis and its aftermath. Which was interrupted by the shooting in Dallas and here we are in the aftermath of all of that.
Here is a thing I believe. In a week like this with all that has happened, with not one, but two more shootings of black men by police officers captured on phone video, and culminates with a gunman in a major American city shooting a minimum of 12 police officers, five fatally - if you have a week like that and the preacher does not mention it - it is possible there are other things that absolutely need to be addressed, but it is also true that you potentially have a strong case for pastoral malpractice. This is why we are here. Not to pass the time thinking about interesting concepts from two thousand years ago, but to hear this stunning book - this Word of God - speak to us about our lives and our world now. And it does.
I want to focus on a bit on the front and back of this story from Luke’s gospel. The framework. A legal expert asks Jesus a question. “What must I do to gain eternal life?’ After some back and forth in which the answer to the question is love God and neighbor, the legal expert asks, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus tells the story. But let’s not lose sight of how it begins. “What must I do to gain eternal life?”
Jesus does not tell the legal expert that he would need to pass a test about what he thinks about Jesus. He says love God and neighbor. Then he tells a story where he suggests that when he says neighbor he means everyone.
When he finishes his story, Jesus asks, “Which one of these three was a neighbor?”
And the legal expert, who has nowhere else to go with his answer, says, “The one who demonstrated mercy.”
And Jesus says this awesome thing. “Go and do likewise.”
My wife hates ferris wheels. We had been, I believe on one date before we went together with a group from the place we were working that summer in college, on a trip to Kings Island amusement park in Cincinnati. She told me she did not like ferris wheels and so I insisted we ride a ferris wheel. Friends, when someone tells you they do not like ferris wheels, listen to them. I thought there were many rides one might not want to go on - a roller coaster, one of those spinning rides or sudden drop rides - but surely the ferris wheel was benign. So we went. Then she told me not to rock the cart. Friends, if someone tells you not to rock the cart in the ferris wheel you are riding, do not rock the cart. I rocked the cart. And I learned she was serious.
You see the problem with the ferris wheel is not that it goes really fast, or that it spins like crazy or anything along those lines. The problem with the ferris wheel is that you are not in control of when you get off. And it takes a long time to work through getting folks on and off. And there is a lot of time when you might be simply sitting there at the top, the ride not moving, and in a bad circumstance you’ve got a would be boyfriend the cart rocking the thing. Somehow, the story ended well from my perspective. I held her hand for the first time that day. But I did not help myself with the ferris wheel thing. I promise you this story has a point beyond confession.
I saw several articles this week posing the question, has the world gone crazy? I talked with several friends who found their way to the question, is the world out of control? It seems to be an open question. So much pain. So much anger. So much hurt. And along with that question I have heard a second thing. There is nothing that can be done about it. It’s too big. It has too many moving parts. It is too entrenched. The world is too broken. It’s out of control and there is nothing any one of us can do.
It’s like we are stuck on the ferris wheel and all we can do is ride.
Jesus say something else. When we feel like there is nothing we can do. When we feel like the best strategy is to move quietly to the other side of the road and keep on walking, try not to get engaged, see if we can’t ride this one out….
Jesus tells a story about a Samaritan who didn’t do that.
You are not a passenger in life. Things do happen around us and to us. But we are not scenery. We are participants. If we feel like the world’s problems are glaciers - with the part we see and the much more massive part we know is under the water - dwarfing us and our ability to do anything to change the course…
Jesus has a story for us.
“A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death. Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ (Luke 10:30-35, CEB)
Then Jesus has a question for us. “Which one of these is a neighbor.”
We know the answer. We speak, “The one who demonstrated mercy to him.”
And Jesus, our Savior and teacher says, “Go and do likewise.”
Amen.
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