Choices
Luke 10:25-37
In the weeks since Easter we have been looking at Bible passages that dealt with God’s vision and expectations.
I applied the over all view to being a church that lives and ministers beyond the walls of this building as being an absolute necessity if we were to be living as a church and as Christians in our world…our community today.
Last Sunday was Pentecost which was an example of the fire of God…the Holy Spirit sent the 120 disciples out of the upper room where they were waiting…praying and into the Jerusalem community and the Church grew by 5000 people that day.
If they had owned a building they would have out grown it in one day…..but they did not own a building….the church that grew was a group of people that became believers in Jesus Christ. And most of them went home to places all around the known world. They did not stay to build anything….however they did go and build the church.
Today we are going to add on to the idea that there are people and missions outside of the walls of this church. Ever since I was appointed here, almost two years ago, we have I have had a fascination with the church providing a park for the use of the community. I think it is one of the coolest things I have ever considered. The acceptance of this property years ago was actually a visionary thing to do.
It is obvious that there was a lot of work needed over the years to keep this resource available. Most of the physical efforts were accomplished by only a few of the people connected to this church…..however, we all have the opportunity to enjoy the resource and the gift.
Personally I believe that the Willard Nixon Park is an amazing tool to glorify God while being a wonderful example of good stewardship.
Can you sense it…do you know what is coming next?
I imagine some of you do….you can almost here the words “ however or a but” on the way.
So here it is….however, I wonder why, with this God given resource that consistently draws people to the living waters of Silver Creek for refreshment and joy has the church done so little to offer those same people living waters of Jesus Christ.
Here is my point that I want to focus on this morning….owning, providing, and maintaining is simply work. There is some tiny hint toward glorifying God because of the WORK.
But . it is a lot like the existence of air…everyone takes it for granted. Most people, including Christians fail to be grateful for the things that are just always there.
Let’s pause to read our scripture this morning: Luke 10:25-37
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."
What a cool story. Jesus is in a teaching situation and an expert in the law, a Levite, a Torah scholar, asks Jesus a soft ball question.
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Considering the source, it seems like a trick question. As Jesus does on several occasions he answers with his own question. What does the law say, how do you interpret it.
This man did not need Jesus to explain the law. This man, this expert, he knows the answer. This is simply a public debate to see if Jesus would reveal some heretical view. I would guess that he intended to publically embarrass the Galilean teacher by revealing that His teaching was wrong in some way.
Jesus affirms the mans reply, "Love God with all of who you are and love your neighbor as you love yourself."
Then Jesus steps it up a notch…not that he changes the law or interpretation…what he does is to remind the man and all his hearers…."This is correct, now go and do it."
Go and do it…..Go and love God with everything I have and everything I do…..That is big….and Love my neighbor as my self…..
-- Have you met my neighbor? He is an ambulance chasseing attorney. He is one of the few people that is cashing in because of the number of bankruptes filed because he is paid by the court to dissolve peoples lives, their possession, their companies when things go badly.
I am supposed to love him as myself….?
--- Go and Do IT!
It is understandable that the Levite has a follow up question. Just a small point of clarification….We can’t do much with the living God part…but….
"Okay, then, but who is my neighbor?"
Maybe that will help him and us narrow down the impossible scope of this problem. Let’s see of there is a limit of who we HAVE TO LOVE!!!
For many of the Jewish people in this time the idea of neighbor only extended to other Jewish people. They felt absolutely no obligation to extend any courtesy or help to a gentile.
And Jesus tells them the story.
Now Jesus when he has this interaction it’s in a part of the gospel of Luke that talks about his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem.
So, there is a chance that Jesus is somewhere along the road on the way to Jerusalem. And if so, he might have been on the road that he uses in this parable; maybe not in the same part of the road.
There were two major ways of getting down from Galilee to Jerusalem; one way went through Samaria and the other way went down the Jordan River until you came to Jericho and then at Jericho you went up towards Jerusalem.
That was a longer path, but it was a more popular path, because it avoided going through Samaria and the Jewish people at that time did not want to deal with Samaritans. There was enormous prejudice. There were hundreds of years of animosity. There was even some physical danger about going through Samaria.
The problem was this road wasn’t that safe either; the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is about 2300 feet above sea level. Jericho is about 1300 feet below.
In the course of about 20 miles there is a 3600-foot change in altitude.
And so it means that that road has a lot of rocky paths, a lot of tight places that twist and turn among the rocks and it was a popular place for bandits to attack people.
In the 5th century this road was called The Bloody Way.
In the 19th Century if you wanted to travel on this road between Jericho and Jerusalem it was best to pay local sheiks so that you would be protected.
The main point is that this story was set in a dangerous place.
Jesus tells the parable that is really about some choices that people make.
Now the first choice is that this traveler is going alone. That was probably a foolish choice, but Jesus doesn’t focus on that choice.
Instead, he focuses on some other choices made by three other people. The first is made by a Priest as he passes by the scene. He happened to be going down the same road when he sees the man, he chooses. He chooses to pass on the other side and leave him there.
Now it’s unclear what his motives might be. Jesus doesn’t deal with the motives. He deals with the choice.
Maybe the motive was because he was a priest and this guy looked dead; what if he was dead? As a priest if he touched this man he would become ritually unclean and that would keep him from doing his priestly duties for a period of time. Maybe he was thinking that my responsibilities are too important. I can’t take this chance. I don’t want to get involved.
The next a Levite comes by. A Levite is of the same tribe as the priest, but just wasn’t a priest himself. The Levite comes by. He sees the man and he makes a choice.
He passes by on the other side. Why did he do it? Again, we don’t know. Jesus doesn’t deal with the motives. Maybe it’s because sometimes the robbers would leave a person out as sort of a trap and the person might not have really been hurt, but if you stopped and tried to help them then you would be attacked yourself.
Maybe he was afraid. I can’t get involved because this might put me in danger myself.
Then Jesus adds a radical twist, a Samaritan comes. Now one of the things that we teach when we talked about parables is that in almost all of Jesus parables there is a surprise.
Well here is the surprise of this parable. When Jesus said, "But a Samaritan came" everybody who was listening is ready. Okay this is the bad guy. This is where the really wrong thing is going to happen. What is he going to do to this guy?
But instead, in Jesus story this man becomes the hero; totally unexpected and very difficult for his listeners to hear and accept.
And why does he become the hero? It’s because he makes some choices.
I think he makes two fundamental choices here. He makes the choice to care and he makes the choice to get involved. It says in the passage that he had pity on him. Maybe the other guys might have felt sorry for the person as well, but whatever they were feeling didn’t move them to the point that they changed their actions.
In this case, he cares. And then he makes the choice to get involved.
Choosing to get involved often leads to complications. For the Samaritan in the story his choice to help the man hinted at helping an enemy…Jesus is speaking to Jews, it can easily be assumed that the victim in the story is a Jew. However that does not seem to interfere with the Samaritan’s choice.
He still gets involved…..It does not seem to matter that his unmanned victim chooses to take the risk on himself. There is not hint that he thinks he is doing something foolish.. he is not worried about a trap…There is not mention of a problem with his schedule or the cost.
There is no mention of motives the Samaritan makes a choice. He chooses to deal with the complications. He treats and bandages wounds. He puts the man on his donkey and he walks. He cares for him for the night and arranges for on going care.
He even took on the obligation of extra expenses….This guy is just too good to be true, all that for a stranger.
-- The Expert in the law identifies the person that chooses to act as a neighbor. It did not make the command to love God or neighbor any easier.
Folks, right now in our lives we are making choices. Choices to be a neighbor or to be something less.
We can be busy Christians that are way too busy and don’t have time and energy to get involved.
I know what the problem is for some of us, we think about our own lifestyles and we get uncomfortable.
We don’t feel like we can be proper messengers for God to any one. We fear that we might look like hypocrites and we fear rejection.
Maybe we don’t want to be a Bible salesman. We have a fear that we will we will look foolish and worse alienate people.
We worry about being preachey….I worry about being preachey.
And we worry about communicating somehow in a relationship that we think we are better than someone else and those are good fears.
But I don’t think our fears are our main barrier to living out the kind of vision that we are called to as a church or living out what Jesus is calling us to be…
I think that the real problem is choosing to hold on to all the choices we have already made. We choose the family things, activities, cars, houses, and relationships. We have our hobbies and TV and maybe the internet.
We have long ago made choice about what we will do and what we won’t do and we don’t even consider any other choices. Because we are busy people!!!
We choose to be so busy that we hardly notice the needs of the people right along our path. People with complicated problems that will mess-up our schedules and cost us something, money, time….something.
For most of us being the church is simply maintence, we put in the minimum work to keep our spiritual connection to God in shape. We really think we are working at it when all we are really doing is choosing to do the minimum we can get by with. We ignore the choices we have to be active Christians and actually be willing and prepared to demonstrate our faith.
Folks the purpose of our discussion for the next two weeks to remind us to be a neighbor and to worry less about motives, another person’s or ours and to allow your self to be ready to make choices. Choices about relationships and caring. Choices about being a good neighbor.
All glory be to God!
