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Should You Stop and Help?

June 26, 2005                                                                                        Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

What do you say about a lawyer who is up to his neck in sand? There’s not enough sand.

Why don’t lawyers ever play hide and seek? Because no one would look for them.

I have to start this morning by being apologetic; I’m sorry to all the lawyers. But I do have a purpose. I’m telling stories about lawyers because our story has a lawyer in it. The last couple of weeks I’ve been preaching through the parables in Luke. Today’s starts with a lawyer; it is the parable of the Good Samaritan. And this is a great story and in fact, most everybody knows about the story even if they’ve never read the Bible. We always hear about the Good Samaritan. You know the story; a man is waylaid on a road, left dying and naked on the road and two members of the clergy pass by and they have nothing to do with the man. But a Samaritan comes and ministers to the man. How do we understand the story? It begins with a question from a lawyer. In Jesus’ day, lawyers were not secular lawyers; we didn’t have the separation of church and state as we do now. They were religious lawyers and answered religious questions and interpreted the law. For example, if there was a question about how one should keep the Sabbath – the commandments say “Do not desecrate the Sabbath.” But what does that mean? They would answer the question. Those are the kinds of questions they answered. In those days the law was very important in determining how righteous you are. If you took a blanket statement of the law, it was hard to figure out how to keep it sometimes. And the lawyers were there to help; they were there to fence in the law, to make it manageable. So this particular lawyer comes and asks Jesus a loaded question. It is one of the most important questions: How does one inherit eternal life? How does one get saved? How does one go to Heaven? His intent was maybe to trap Jesus in what he would say; they were worried about this new rabbi. Jesus, being undeterred, asks a question of his own. “What does the law say?” The lawyer thinks for a minute and gives a rote answer, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. Love your neighbor as thyself.” But then the lawyer realizes what he has just said. Any thinking person can see the logic already. What does it mean to love God and, by the way, who really does it? Who loves the Lord God with all their heart, mind, and soul? What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? In those days, the lawyers had defined neighbors as your immediate family, your neighborhood and fellow Israelites in that order, no one else. But Jesus doesn’t give those nuances that we like to hear today; to be sophisticated, to give all the details of things. He just says, “Go do it and you will live.” The lawyer is in trouble, so he asks another question. “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers by the parable that we hear today. Let us hear God’s word as it comes to us from Luke chapter 10, the story of the Good Samaritan. Listen to it with new ears.

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He 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.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In 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. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He 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. The 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.’ Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray.

You can still walk the old Roman road that goes from Jerusalem down to Jericho, it is still in good repair. It’s not very far since it is all downhill. About four thousand feet above sea level in Jerusalem down to one thousand feet below sea level in Jericho. On a sunny day, you can look from the Mount of Olives straight down and see the light shimmer off the Dead Sea. It’s a beautiful sight. Many people knew about this road. If you were hearing the story Jesus tells for the first time you would immediately know about this road. It’s kind of like if somebody mentions a certain part of Minneapolis or other city that is known for being a rough place, you would know about that place. This is the kind of road this was. In fact, a thousand years later the Crusaders built a little fort in the middle to protect travelers. It was still dangerous then. So everybody would know and understand this road and they would also know and understand the priest and the Levite. In Jesus’ day, priests and Levites were really the same thing, except the priest is part of the aristocracy and the Levite is kind of a lower-class priest. They ministered to the people but one of the greatest honors they had was to be chosen by lottery – not everyone got to do it – to go and serve in the temple for two weeks, doing all the sacrifices and the other religious stuff of Judaism. It was a great honor. The crowd would understand where these people had been. And they were coming home from this. They were doing all the religious stuff. A lot of people lived in Jericho; it was kind of a resort area and so they were going home. They had spent two weeks ‘high as a kite’ and they were going to go home and have a party with their friends to celebrate their ministry at the temple in Jerusalem. And the crowd would understand that. Now, the third character in the story is the person lying on the ground. It’s very important to understand that no one really knows who he is; he’s just a human being, a hurting human being. In those days, again, people knew where you were from and what you were by the clothes you wore and certainly by accent as well. In our days, everybody wears Levis and so we don’t know where people are from until we open our mouths. But this man is naked, he’s unconscious, no one knows who he is…that’s important. Now, this priest who was coming back from Jerusalem, he is riding along – the story doesn’t say it, but in the aristocracy he has a donkey and he’s riding – and he sees the man on the ground. He has a quandary. In that society, for a Jew to even touch a Gentile meant they would become ceremoniously or religiously unclean. If he touched that man and he was a Gentile, he would have had to turn around and go back to Jerusalem, spend several days there, and perform certain sacrifices to become clean again. It would have taken time and a lot of money. The second thing is, he may have been an Israelite. He may have been, but he may have been dead. The same rule applies; if he touched a dead person he would have to back to Jerusalem to become clean again. Another problem is that the man can’t talk to him, he may be a sinner. In that theology of that day, everyone knew that God hated sinners. If he helped him, he may be going against God’s will. And then of course, there was the practical aspect…the man is laying there having been beaten half to death by robbers, if he stops to help, the same thing may happen to him. Besides it will cost time and effort and his friends were waiting for him, so he makes a decision and he passes by. The Levite comes along, this is a lower class priest. He’s walking and on that road there are places you can see far ahead. He may very well have seen the priest stop and look at something on the side and he gets up to the place and sees the man. He has all the same issues; should he stop or should he go? The person who is kind of his boss, above him, has passed on. He too passes by.

Now, the crowd is expecting something. They are expecting a third person; they are not expecting a Samaritan. As I said to you before, even in those days, people regularly talked about and made fun of the failings of the clergy. There were lots of preacher jokes at that time too. And so the crowd is expecting a lay Jewish person to come and be the hero. It’s standard story telling stuff here. They are waiting for it. But Jesus doesn’t give them that. He gives them a Samaritan. There’s a bit of history you need to know here; a few hundred years before, the major power of the time, the Assyrians, located by where Iraq is, were conquering everyone. They came down and conquered the northern kingdom of Palestine and their practice was when they conquered a group of people, they would deport them so they wouldn’t hang around and create a revolution. They would take the best and brightest and send them somewhere else and would import some other people. They imported some people from who-knows-where and they settled in the area called Samaria and they became Samaritans. What these people did was they adopted part of the Jewish religion – the first five books of Moses – and they took some of their own religion and put the two together. The Jews of Jesus’ day hated them, not only racially but religiously. And the Samaritans returned the favor. They hated each other. If you could imagine a Palestinian story teller today telling a group of fellow Palestinians a story and the hero is an Israeli, think of the reaction there. This is exactly what Jesus is doing. He has told a story that would surprise, shock, and insult his audience to get their attention. The Samaritan is the hero; he sees the man and it says took pity on him – the word doesn’t do it justice. The word in Greek means to have a gut reaction of compassion. He picks him up and puts him on his donkey. He takes care of him and takes him to an inn where he pays good money. He doesn’t know the man from Adam…he’s just a hurting human being. He says, “I’ll take care of whatever the expenses are.”

So how are we to understand the story? As we look at these stories, you need to figure out who we are in the story. Traditionally, people say we ought to be like the Good Samaritan. And there’s nothing wrong with that. As individuals and as a church, we should be like the Good Samaritan. We really should. I’m here to tell you – but it is something you already know – that there is hurting people all around. It’s not necessarily that we are going down the road and pick up a hitchhiker. As you go in your work and your families, wherever you are, there are people who are broken and bleeding who need help. Now the problem with that is that whenever you start helping people it gets really messy. It’s difficult. And so we really should not look at that Levite and the priest and be judgmental of them because we wind up in our actions doing similar things. I remember hearing a story about a seminary professor who rigged something to catch his students. He had them meet at one classroom and said he wanted them to go across the campus to another room where they would be doing an activity. He said to be there in ten minutes and if they weren’t there they would lose a letter grade. But along the way, the path where he knew they would be, he staged an accident with an actor who had fallen off his bike and lying on the sidewalk hurting and bleeding. The pastor wanted to see who would stop. Of the twenty who went by, only two stopped. Why? Because they were in a hurry, because they were busy, it would cost them something if they stopped. They weren’t bad people, they were just busy. And so are we. It’s hard to help people. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s like the alcoholic who has to admit he’s an alcoholic before he can get help; there are so many people out there who are so ignorant of their own problems. They don’t see them until something happens to help them see them. Even if we help people who know they need help, it costs us time and effort. It costs us time and effort to help a young pregnant girl who got pregnant under devious circumstances or to adopt a child who has survived the ravages of abortion or the ravages of a foreign country or to help a co-worker who is about to lose their job and just can’t get it together or that family member who bugs us and who has mighty problems that we need to help. People are broken and bleeding everywhere. I know that as a pastor, I see that all the time. Maybe you don’t see it as much. I’m telling you though that all of us in this room have problems; everybody has problems. Sometimes they are worse than others. We all need to take the time and effort. We need to be good Samaritans.

And as a church as well – churches every Sunday we do the religious thing but so many are just about themselves. I heard another story about a splinter group who broke off from a church and formed their own church. They rented a place to meet and put a sign up that said “Jesus only.” A wind came along and blew off the first three letters and the sign suddenly read “us only.” It was very much who they were. It’s what a lot of churches are. What about Faith? A few months ago I did a survey and asked about thirty of you to fill out a survey card that judged how we were doing in several areas like worship. One of the categories was “loving relationships.” Of all the categories, you scored highest on that. People have a sense of loving relationships here. There’s a logical explanation for that – one is that you are all related to one another or have known each other for years. There’s something really good about that but there’s something not so good. When people come from the outside it’s different – it’s human, when you get into a group it’s hard to see the people on the outside. Sometimes people join our church and have a hard time breaking in. I say this to encourage you. All of us need to check ourselves. It’s unnatural to look out. But Jesus does not say, “Go therefore into the nation baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” for nothing. He says, “You the church are my mission arm into this world.” The church has its purpose – to look outward. We exist for other people. It’s appalling how many people are broken and hurting out there. People walk through our doors, they may look nice but they are broken and hurting. Not everyone but a lot are. They are looking for something, a place of healing, a group of people. I’m encouraging you to make the circle bigger in the loving relationships you have.

But what else can we say about this passage? We still haven’t gotten to the main question: How do we have eternal life? What is the meaning of the story in this? Well as I said to you before the lawyer realizes he’s in big trouble and any thinking person would realize the same thing. As we examine ourselves, how many of you out there love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul even for five minutes? I don’t. I wish I did but I don’t. How many of us love our neighbors as ourselves even for five minutes? I don’t but I wish I did. Jesus said those are the standards; if you want to go to heaven, do those, theoretically. But thank God He has provided another way. In this parable, Jesus is the Good Samaritan. Jesus is the Good Samaritan and we are this man, laying on the ground, able to do nothing for ourselves. It is Jesus who picks us up, broken and bleeding. We are broken and bleeding for two reasons. We are sinners. C. S. Lewis says quite rightly that we are spiritually and morally bankrupt. I know we don’t like to hear that. It sounds negative, until we get there and realize that we have nothing to offer. Part of the problem with keeping the law is that if we could boil it down to a manageable level we could say we’ve met the standard and become prideful. Jesus is the Good Samaritan and we are people who are sinners and have been sinned against. Some times in life are better than others but in God’s sight we are broken and bleeding and hurting. It is Jesus who picks us up and makes us well. He did that by dying on the cross for us. He does it now in our lives by binding our wounds and loving us and helping us to love God and others better. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. In closing, I would like to say to you, I’d like to pray. Some of you here are broken and bleeding, you come here with emotional scars. Maybe you need to pray and ask God to help you. Some of you may never have come to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, it’s a good time. I’d like to give you an opportunity to do both. If you are okay right now, pray for everybody else. Let us pray.