The Sunday Sermon: July 25, 2021 – 9th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture: Luke 10:25-37
The Essence of Christianity
Read Luke 10:25-37. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
How often have you heard this story? Read, taught, preached on, referred to? A lot, I bet. Too much, perhaps. It’s one of the two parables that almost everyone who has ever stepped foot in a church community anywhere can name when asked. And when a parable becomes so well known, can it still function in the life of a community or the individuals who make that community up?
When you hear the phrase “he or she is a Good Samaritan,” we most often first, and just as likely only, think of someone – anyone – who comes to the aid of another. A Good Samaritan is someone who helps someone else in need – financially, emotionally, physically. In that sense, we all try to be “Good Samaritans” ourselves. But is this really what Jesus was trying to tell us with this, one of his two longest parables? Did his parable, this teaching, offer only a variation on something like “be helpful when you come across people in trouble?” A set up really for all those times when we ignore a homeless person on the highway off ramp, or decline a request for money to buy some food, or walk past someone we know is in need, but who frightens us?
I certainly don’t want to suggest we don’t offer help to those who, for whatever reason, depend on the kindness of strangers, but this parable shares far more than that. It did when Jesus shared it and it should still. In fact, Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall says that “anyone asked to state the essence of Christianity would not err too greatly by pointing to this parable of Jesus.”
Pray with me …
The essence of Christianity in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Mercy and compassion … for all, toward all.
The familiarity of this parable tends to make us reduce the story to “simplistic terms that appeal to only shallow minds,” so continues Hall. But this story, this lesson, actually lays down one of the biggest challenges to us as Christians. This is a story for people, like us, who recognize that we, like the man “going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,” are on a journey – a dangerous, and at the risk of overstating it, a perilous journey. Not just a journey from “womb to tomb,” birth to death, but a journey within the Life we live, a journey we share with all others in the world in the brief time we have together, a journey from birth to rebirth, from partial life to abundant life here and now. A journey that absolutely requires us to change and be changed, to transform and be transformed by the renewal of our minds – by the opening of our hearts. And on this journey, we’re not only, not simply, going to be the helpers – the “Good Samaritans” of popular parlance. We are also, and perhaps more often than not, going to be the ones that need help. The hurt, the vulnerable, the ones in-need-of assistance. In other words we’re not just the Good Samaritans in this world. We’re the man half dead on the side of the road, at times, too.
The challenge of this story-lesson is not simply about what we should do when we come across other people in trouble. It’s a story, a lesson, about how we must be open to receiving help, receiving guidance, receiving life from others. This is what we must do to inherit the life that God has given us: Move from our condition of self-preoccupation and self-preservation to one of profound concern for and openness to others. And, if we’re to be truly to open to others, we must be vulnerable, we must allow them to care for us. Mercy and compassion is a two way street. This parable is about opening ourselves to others, all others, even those (and in this lesson, especially those) we may disagree with and be suspicious of.
We are not only the Good Samaritan in this parable. We are the one in the ditch.
That is hard, if not impossible, for us to accept given how much we have, how powerful we are, how influential and respected and “together” we all are. Our whole world tells us that it is wrong to be in need, to be vulnerable, to be anything but in control. But our faith … our Lord in his teaching … tells us that it is essential to recognize our dependence on others. We must help and allow ourselves to be helped by others on our journey through life. Those others are not just the ones we are comfortable with, our neighbors as we identify them, those we think are our kind and are “on the right side.” Our concern for others and our openness to others extends to the most unlikely candidates for “neighbors.” Those we know and are quite comfortable with and those who are quite different from us, our Samaritans. Who are they?
The man in our parable was left “half dead.” Which means he was half alive, right? Conscious, I think, aware that two men he was familiar with, two men he was comfortable with, two men who should have stopped, a priest and a Levite, passed him by. He was also aware, I believe, of this third person approaching him, this “Samaritan.” He was afraid, I’m certain. He is afraid of this man he not only disagreed with religiously, but almost certainly despised personally. His fear may lead him to wonder what this third man approaching really wants, maybe he’s coming over to see if there’s anything left to pillage. But as the Samaritan gets close, he shows mercy and compassion. He washes and dresses his wounds and puts him on his “own animal.” And, the injured man allows it. That’s our focus this morning. The injured man’s response to the fearful stranger.
We’d like to think he had no choice, but of course he did. He could have spit and screamed and cursed and rejected the Samaritan, scared as he was. But he didn’t. He allowed that which he despised and feared most to care for him. He opened himself to the mercy and compassion of the strangest of strangers. What about us? Who are our Samaritans?
Again, our familiarity with the parable and our distance from the first century cultural understanding of is a problem. When we do re-imagine it for our time we most often substitute words like “Buddhist,” “Jew,” “Sikh,” or perhaps most provocatively, “Muslim” for the word Samaritan. But to really get to the “scandal” of what Jesus was suggesting in the first century today, we need to go beyond the religious divides of our time and into our deeper fears. Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine insists that if we think of ourselves as the person in the ditch, we should …
… then ask, “Is there anyone, from any group, about whom we’d rather die than acknowledge, ‘She offered me help’ or ‘He showed me compassion’?” … If so, then we know how to find the modern equivalent for the Samaritan. To recognize the shock and possibility of the parable in practical, social, political, and pastoral terms, we (must) translate its first-century … concerns into our modern (language).
So, who are they in our “modern language?” The Samaritans in our lives? Those about whom we’d rather die than acknowledge and accept their help?
Are they a Catholic? A Jew? A Muslim?
Perhaps a black man? Or an Asian woman?
Someone who is homosexual? Transgendered? Someone with tattoos or body piercings? Someone who has been in prison?
How about Republican Senator? Or a Democratic congresswoman?
Anyone in your own family who has hurt you in any way? Emotionally, spiritually, or physically.
Who are the modern day Samaritans in our lives. Those about whom we’d rather die than acknowledge how they cared for us, or how they care about us?
Imagine yourself, now, lying hurt on the ground, too hurt to stand, let alone walk away. As you lie there wondering how you will get up, how you will get help, how you will survive, you hear footsteps approaching. As you lift your eyes you see … that which you fear most in another person – that which you disagree with most vehemently; that which you would spend your healthier moments railing against; that which you would avoid at all costs; staring down at you and extending help, comfort, relief. All you have to do is accept it. You need to accept it or you will die on the side of the road. But by accepting it, you know you will have to accept the humanity of the one who offers it. And you would rather … what?
We’re beginning to understand the great lesson, and the greater challenge, of this parable for Christians today. It is not found in simply being nice to someone in trouble or in merely doing a good deed for someone in need. Both critical and proper understandings, but not enough. Our help just may come through the most unexpected people. And when it does, we, you and I, must be open to it – to reconciliation and transformation. We’re caught up short because of our own certainty about who our neighbor is, or who our neighbor should be. That’s why this story and our faith is so scandalous.
Mercy and compassion are the true marks of “the neighbor.” Not familiarity, a shared fence, or common beliefs. Our neighbors are not only the ones we get along with and love. They are the ones who show us mercy and compassion. That realization puts the matter in terms powerfully appropriate for us today, because it is precisely “compassion” that is so conspicuously absent from the life of our world and from our own lives, driven as it is, driven as we are, by competition, greed, individualism, certainty, and fear.
I know how easily this “lesson” breaks down. Does one caring gesture outweigh a lifetime spent not caring at all? Does one act of mercy outweigh a career spent limiting full access to life’s basic needs. Does one act of compassion negate decades of family turmoil and strife? As you start to ask questions like those of others, shift your focus back to yourself. The Samaritan remains a Samaritan, surely. The man left to heal will still disagree with him on matters of import. But something has changed in his life. It does in your life, too. Our openness to mercy and compassion when it comes, from whomever it comes, is the essence of our faith, just as much as our willingness to offer mercy and compassion. Our openness to mercy and compassion when it comes, from whomever it comes, can transform the world, just as much as our willingness to offer the same.
I look forward to asking some of you what you remember about this morning’s sermon and what you think about this parable in few months or in ten years. Will you say “the preacher talked about being a helpful stranger,” again. “That’s what this story is all about, after all.” Or might you remember that this is a story about the transforming power of God at work in each of our lives as we travel the dangerous roads in our world, helping and being helped by others as we move into community and the fullness of life, from birth to re-birth.
“Your neighbor is the one … anyone … who shows you compassion and mercy.” Your job is not only to offer the same to others, but to open your mind, your heart, your life to accept it from others. So go, and do likewise.
Amen.
Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor
Pewee Valley Presbyterian / July 25, 2021