Traveling Mercies

Textual introduction:  This is one of the most famous of Jesus’ stories, parables.  To really appreciate it, we need to understand the story behind the story.  That’s what I’ll try to open up this morning.

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Luke 10:25-37

Wow.  What a politician Jesus would have made.  He came from a humble background.  He was great with children.  He knew how to be a hit at really big picnics.  He didn’t mind being on the road for weeks at a time.  An opponent asked a tricky question and he replied with a story that people would eventually retell all over the world.  And no one seemed to notice he hadn’t answered the question!

Of course, the story Jesus told is known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Because we’re so familiar with the parable we can easily forget how surprising this story would have been to those who first heard it.

London’s west end is famous as the home of the theater district.  Some of the world’s best-known actors appear in the plays, musicals, and operas produced there.  We visited the area a few years ago.   As we were looking at those amazing theater marquis one of our party almost walked into a post.   Unfortunately, the district is also a place where street crime is a familiar occurrence.

One evening a man was walking to the underground when he was attacked by two muggers.  They took his wallet, watch, and anything of value he was carrying, and then they knocked him to the ground and began kicking him mercilessly.  They left him bleeding on the street. 

As he lay there two couples passed by.   They were dressed in formal wear and obviously were on their way to the theater.  The mugging victim called out for help.  The men and women briefly looked his way then hurried on.  This happened a couple times as he lay there in pain.  Everyone seemed more interested in making the first act than in helping him.

Then, the door of a nearby pub opened and three men stumbled out into the evening.  They had obviously been drinking, drinking a lot.  As they walked past him, the man again cried out for help.  The trio saw him and hurried over to his side.  While two of the men got the mugging victim onto his feet, the other hurried back to the pub to call 999 (that’s 911 in British). 

The man survived.  I like stories with unexpected heroes.  So did Jesus. 

Luke’s account begins with a question from a “lawyer.”  This was not a man you would have write a will or draw up a contract.  He was an expert in the Law of Moses, particularly those religious regulations ordering the day to day life of Jews.  They researched the Mosaic Law in depth and sought to apply it to every conceivable situation.  Often they would meet to debate issues in order to approach some consensus on a point of law.  They might wrestle with important questions like the distribution of an inheritance or a sadly trivial question such as the propriety of eating an egg laid on the Sabbath.

They also taught the youth of the community—the males, that is—so they would be better equipped to lead lives worthy of their Jewish heritage. Finally, they advised the religious courts and sometimes served as judges on those courts.  As a group, they were highly regarded by the community.

So, one such lawyer approached Jesus with a question:  "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  The lawyer would have known the answer to such a question.  No, he had an ulterior motive.  His question was designed to “test” Jesus, to see if he would say something that might be grounds for incriminating him, for denouncing him to the crowds who were attached to him.

As a question, it was uncomplicated.  What are the requirements to go to heaven?   Jesus had probably answered the question before but the man wanted to test Jesus’ orthodoxy.

Jesus answers the question with a question.  In essence, he says, “What does the Law say?  You’re the legal expert, you tell me.”  There’s a story that a young student at a synagogue asked his rabbi, “Why does a rabbi always answer a question with a question?”  The rabbi answered, “Why shouldn’t a rabbi answer a question with a question?”    It’s an old technique for teaching and Jesus was skilled at using it.

Well, the lawyer couldn’t resist that invitation so he pulls together a couple verses from Deuteronomy and Leviticus: 

"You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself."

To this Jesus says, “Cool.  You got it.”  Okay, not exactly, he said, “"You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live." 

Jesus would also use these verses to summarize the demands of the Law.  The statement deals with our responsibilities toward God and our responsibilities toward our fellow human beings. 

Those of us who are steeped in the tradition of salvation by grace, the idea that we are saved by God’s unmerited favor and not by any good works of our own, sometimes get a little disturbed when we read a statement like that.  We shouldn’t be.  The Bible has always taught that there are two ways of salvation.  We may be saved by grace.  Or, we may be saved by absolute, perfect, impeccable obedience to the divine law.  Occasionally, a student would ask W. T. Conner at Southwestern Seminary, “Dr. Conner, don’t you think if a man lives up to the light he has, he will be saved?”  Dr. Conner would reply, “Yes,” pause to let the shock sink in and then add, “Now, trot that man out.”  Dr. Conner knew, as we all know, that none of us can claim to have achieved the level of perfection the law requires.

Of course, the lawyer knew how demanding the Law could be.  He understood the appeal of refining those demands to make them more comfortable.  The Living Bible offer insight when it translates the verse, “The man wanted to justify (his lack of love for some kinds of people), so he asked, ‘Who is my neighbor?'”

The question “Who is my neighbor” was widely debated by the experts on the Law and the Pharisees.   Some Pharisees argued that the demand to love the neighbor extended only to other observant Jews.  Others offered a slightly more liberal interpretation.  No one thought of the “neighbor” as whoever you might encounter.  Perhaps the broadest interpretation of “neighbor” would have been “people like us.”[1]  Some argued that Samaritans could not be neighbors.

Be honest.  Haven’t you hoped there was some escape clause in that demand—“Love your neighbor?”  Haven’t you hoped some patient Greek scholar would discover the word “neighbor” in this command means “people like you” or “your kind of people?”  Don’t you wish a new manuscript would be found with a convincing new reading of this text, one that said, “Love your neighbor—unless your neighbor has hurt you, insulted you, or just failed to give you the respect you think you deserve?”

So, maybe this lawyer was hoping Jesus would give him an out so he wouldn’t have to take this verse so seriously.

Instead of diving into debate, Jesus told a story.  Remember, Jesus seemed to enjoy making the wrong people the heroes of his stories.  We see it in this story. 

The story began with a traveler on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho, about a fifteen mile trip.  It was a difficult trip in some ways; in those fifteen miles it went from Jerusalem at 2300 feet above sea-level to Jericho at 1300 feet below sea-level.  The road was rocky, steep, and isolated.  A desert.

We aren’t told much about the traveler.  Numbers of travelers took the trip.  Jericho was a popular destination.  Herod the Great, the king who ruled when Jesus was born, had beautified the city after it had been sacked by the Romans.  During Jesus’ day, it was an oasis with palms and fruit trees.   It was a good place to get away from the more crowded Jerusalem.  Consequently, people on their way there may have been carrying more than a little pocket change.

That the traveler became a victim of highwaymen would have surprised no one.  They knew the roads better than the casual traveler.  They used that knowledge to ambush the unwary, especially if they were traveling alone.

The thieves in Jesus’ story were thorough and violent.  They took everything the man had and beat him for good measure.  They were unconcerned as they left the traveler half dead beside the road.

Sometime after the thieves had gone, a priest happened by.  Historians tell us that many priests lived in Jericho when they were not serving in Jerusalem.  Jesus’ listeners knew this.

Anyway, the priest saw the beaten traveler.  Did he rush to his aid?  Did he give him a drink of cool water?  Did he try to get him to his feet and take him to shelter?  No, he passed by on the other side of the road.  No help came from him.

The priest had no way of knowing what kind of man this was.  He might not deserve his help.

Next, a Levite passed by.  Levites weren’t priests but they were professional religious helpers, assistants to the priests.  They provided a variety of services from keeping the temple tidy to singing in the choir.  Levites are mentioned only three times in the New Testament but were prominent in Israel’s history as a group dedicated to God and charged with the responsibility of modeling service to God. 

So, what did this Levite do when he saw the wounded traveler?  Nothing.  Just like the priest, he passed by on the other side of the road.

At this point, what was the lawyer thinking?  We don’t know but maybe he was thinking, “Okay, a lawyer is going to come down the road next and he will help that poor man.”

In any case, he was probably surprised by Jesus’ next words:  ^“But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled along, came down to where the wounded man was; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity and sympathy [for him].”

Jews had little regard for Samaritans.  This ill-will was born hundreds of years before. The Jewish people in Samaria had adopted some ideas and customs of the people who had moved in while the nation was under the heel of the Assyrians. 

Even though they eventually abandoned the pagan influences and returned to worshipping Yahweh, they were forever branded as traitors, as spiritual half-breeds by their neighbors to the south.  They weren’t even known as Jews anymore; they were now Samaritans.  Rejection begets rejection so the Samaritans rejected Orthodox Judaism in favor of their own version, a version that denied much of the Jewish scripture. 

Centuries later, few, if any, Jews had anything good to say about Samaritans and most Samaritans returned the compliment. 

Now, Jesus was talking about a Samaritan who had compassion on the poor victim of a mugging. 

If Jesus were telling this story down on the Worthington green this morning, he might have told about a poor family trying to find shelter for the night.   Jesus might have told of the megachurch pastor who hurried by the family to go an important meeting with the mayor.  He might have mentioned the leader of a charity on her way to receive an award who rushed past the family.

Then he might have told us how the family was finally helped to shelter and a good meal by the owner of the local strip club.

If you find that scenario a little disturbing, that’s just how the lawyer would have felt.

Before Jesus finished his story, he underscored the way the Samaritan help the wounded traveler.

34. He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. He then lifted him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him.

35. Next day, he took out two denarii and handed them to the innkeeper and said, `Look after him, and on my way back I will make good any extra expense you have.'

Just listen to the detail Jesus adds:

·         Instead of staying as far away as he could, the Samaritan got close to the wounded man.   He even touched those awful, bleeding wounds.

·         He used his expensive oil and wine to treat the wounds, knowing he would almost certainly not be repaid.

·         He sacrificed his comfort for the man’s sake, letting the man ride his horse or donkey.

·         He took the man to an inn and stayed with him until he felt it was safe to leave.

·         He left two days wages with the innkeeper to make sure the man would be taken care of while he was gone.

·         He didn’t plan to abandon the man;   he was going to check on him when he returned through the area. 

·         He committed himself to cover unforeseen expenses.

What a guy.  But remember this; although the Samaritans rejected most of the Jewish scripture, they accepted that portion including the words recited by the lawyer.  They knew the command “love your neighbor.”

Perhaps Jesus paused a moment to let the story sink in, then he asked the lawyer a final question.  It was a throwaway question.  Of the man who was used to weighing in on obscure points of the Law, Jesus asked, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers' victim?" 

There’s not a lot of wiggle room when you face a question like that in circumstances like that.  So, the lawyer replied, "The one who showed pity towards him."

And, Jesus said, “You think!”  Okay, actually, he said, "Go and do what he did."

We don’t know what happened to that lawyer.  I hope he left a changed man.  Maybe he woke up in the middle of the night and said to himself, “Wait a minute, Jesus never answered my question.”

And, that was true.  Jesus had played a sanctified game of bait and switch.  Jesus had shifted the emphasis.  The real question was not, “Who is my neighbor?” but “Am I neighborly?”  I think we can look at the entirety of Scripture and say that being neighborly is to be thoughtfully loving.

Start asking that first question and you begin searching for opportunities to limit your pity and compassion.  Keep the second question in mind and you’ll measure each situation, not by the worthiness of the one in need, but by the call that God’s love has placed on you.

That challenges our tendency to selfishness and complacency. 

We come to see the problems in limiting the definition of neighbor. 

·         As we limit those to whom we will be neighborly we shrink the sphere of our influence.

·         As we limit those to whom we will be neighborly we suppress the evidence of God’s transforming work in our lives.

·         As we limit those to whom we will be neighborly we bequeath to our children prejudice, division, and hatred.

·         As we limit those to whom we will be neighborly we betray ignorance of the breadth of God’s love.

With that last in mind, there’s a final lesson here we can’t forget.  For centuries this story has been called “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”   That’s a good title and I don’t intend to change it.  If I did, I might call it “The Parable of the Samaritan Who Didn’t Quibble.”  And I’d add a subtitle:  “Jesus’ Word to an Inquisitive Lawyer.”  Like that lawyer, we know the demands of the law.  Like that lawyer, in our hearts we know we don’t meet those demands.  Like that lawyer, we are looking for a loophole.  Jesus wants us to know there aren’t any.

I find a commentary on this parable in the Sermon on the Mount.  There, too, Jesus is speaking of loving one’s neighbors.  Listen:

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.
But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
              In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
             If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.
             If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.
            But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Perfect—that’s a scary word.  Not only are there no loopholes, we are to love like God loves.  Who among us does that?  Our only hope is grace and forgiveness. 

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[1]  David Garland quotes a rabbi who puts these words into God’s mouth:  “If he acts as thy people do, thou shalt love him; but if not, thou shalt not love him.” (440)