THREE APPROACHES TO LIFE
Luke 10:25-37
From the Book, “Parables Found Only in Luke” bmarcaurelle@charter.net
Last week we saw that the religion of the Scribes and Pharisees lacked love for people. They looked down on people socially, racially and religiously. This was strange because the Old Testament) they claimed to love and obey taught them, above all else, to love God (Deut. 6:5) and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves (Lev. 19:18). They tied these verses written-down in little leather pouches tied to their heads but the truth they contained were a million miles away from their practice of religion.
When this weird looking Bible scholar (Scribe) walked up with his leather boxes and asked Jesus the way to be right with God and have eternal life, Jesus said, “You tell me.” The guy knew the answer, love God and love your neighbor. So when Jesus said, “Do it!” he countered with “Who is my neighbor?” and Jesus’ reply was the parable of the Good Samaritan, second only in beauty and popularity to the Prodigal Son.
The Bible Teacher was gunning for Jesus. He hoped he would give the wrong answer to the eternal life question but he didn’t. Then with the second question, “Who is my neighbor?” he tried to make Him out as a Gentile lover, a Samaritan lover or a leper lover. He hoped Jesus would say, “Anybody in need is your neighbor - sinful Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans, lepers, etc.” That way prejudiced people, like prejudiced people today, would turn from him.
But Jesus turned the tables on him. He trapped the trapper. The Jews limited the word neighbor. It didn’t include Gentiles. They would not even stop and help a Gentile woman give birth. It didn’t include Samaritans, those half-breeds, part Jew and part Gentile, who lived between Judah and Israel. What Jesus does is sheer genius. He gives the truth, “Our neighbor is anyone in need!”, and demonstrates it by showing a Samaritan helping a Jew. (Implied) In the end the Scribe had to admit the Samaritan was the true neighbor.
Two great truths leap out of this parable. We are to reach out to help every person in need, which is the definition of the term “agape” (love). This parable shows us there are three ways to live, three approaches to life when it comes to others: (1) What’s Yours Is Mine And I’ll Take It - The Robbers, (2) What’s Mine Is Mine And I’ll Keep It - The Religious Pair that walked by, (3) What’s Mine Is Yours and You Can Have It - The Righteous Person’s response. Or more simply, there are…
1. Those who beat you up.
2. Those who pass you up.
3. Those who help you up.
THOSE WHO BEAT YOU UP
There are those who live by this philosophy, WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE AND I’LL TAKE IT. The world and the church are full of this. It is the mentality of the little punk with the big gun who takes what others have. We see Adolph Hitler as some kind of crazed philosopher, feeding on the teachings of Nietzsche about racial purity. But do you know he made elaborate plans to take Jewish art, diamonds, and gold, even the gold from their teeth? Maybe he was nothing but a punk, taking what wasn’t his.
You don’t have to be a Hitler or a street punk to steal. What about the American corporate business system that takes a man’s best years and then forces him into early retirement because it can hire somebody younger, cheaper.
WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE AND I’LL TAKE IT! What about the man or woman who leaves their husband or wife, after many years, with the lame lie, “I don’t love them anymore.”?
WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE AND I’LL TAKE IT. What about the person who listens to or helps spread gossip and takes the precious character and good name from someone
WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE AND I’LL TAKE IT. What about the able bodied person on welfare? What about the preacher who uses churches to further his career and steps on people to get to the top? What about the physician who charges way too much?
Illustration: A Sunday School Teacher read the parable of the Good Samaritan to her 8-year-old class and asked them what it meant. One little boy said, “It means that when I am in trouble somebody is supposed to help me.” He was right but he was also wrong. People are supposed to help us, but our main thought is how we ought to be helping others.
THOSE WHO PASS YOU UP
We see SELFISHNESS. The second approach to needy human beings is that of the Priest and Levite who passed by on the other side - WHAT’S MINE IS MINE AND I’LL KEEP IT. The priest, who in today’s vocabulary would be a preacher, and the levite who would be a worker in the church, saw the man and chose to keep going. They could have used any number of excuses. Perhaps they thought it might be a trap and were afraid. Perhaps they felt this man, being foolish enough to travel this dangerous road alone, carrying money, only got what he asked for. He made his bed - now he’s in it. Perhaps they were in a big hurry to get to the Jericho Baptist Church where the preacher had to preach a sermon on “Love in Action” and the levite had to teach a Sunday School lesson to youth on “Practical Christianity.”
For whatever reason, they didn’t stop and we see this every day. Our time is our own and don’t have enough for our family or our church. Our money is ours. We worked for it and we deserve it. A new Pastor was visiting his members about pledging to help build a new building and came to the home of a wealthy business man. He pledged a a very small amount and saw the look of surprise in the new Pastor’s eyes. He said, “Preacher, a man’s got live!” And the preacher said, “Why?”
A pastor and his two boys went into a candy store. As they made their purchase he noticed a little boy out on the sidewalk, dressed poorly and looking hungry for some candy. He invited him in and bought him a sack full. The little boy put five pieces in his mouth. The pastor said, “Is it good?” The little boy smiled and nodded, yes. The pastor smiled back and said, “Can I have one?” With that, the lad clutched the sack, ran out the door and said, “Mine! Mine!” God gives you and me a lot of time, a lot of energy and more than enough money to meet our needs. But we don’t give back to Him and to our fellow man, we are like the little boy yelling, “Mine! Mine!”
We see BUSY people who just don’t have time to stop and help. Some are in business for the Lord. Rev. Stuart Briscoe and his wife, Jill, are very popular Christian speakers and writers. Stuart told this story. A few years ago their son injured his ankle in a basketball game. The doctor who examined him started talking about possible surgery. Stuart and Jill, pressed to the limit for speaking engagements and manuscript deadlines, began discussing their schedules and when surgery could be done.
The doctor abruptly butted in and said - STOP THIS! PETE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO DO TOMORROW! Folks, if a Christian pastor and his wife have to be reminded that their own son is more important than their schedules, how much more do you and I need to be reminded that people we meet in life are more important than our schedules?
Illustration: One of the dearest and finest Pastors I know went into clinical depression close to retirement. What caused it was all the things he HAD NOT DONE with and for his children. He said, “Bob! All I remember are the ball games, the recitals and the nights together at home I failed to be at.” Like the Priest and the Levite, busy in the Lord’s work, he walked right past his own family.
THOSE WHO HELP YOU UP
The Samaritan gave time, effort and money to help a Jew, beaten and left for dead by robbers. He saw the need and paid the price. What he did is WHAT JESUS HAS DONE FOR US. The road, from Jerusalem to Jericho, twisting and turning down the mountain like a snake, was dangerous beyond words. Robbers, ready to kill, lurked at every turn. Life is like that and Jesus, seeing us bruised and bloodied by sin, did not pass by on the other side. He paid the price of His precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19), not to take us to an inn, but to the Father’s house above (John 14:1-4).
The WAY of salvation? To see loving others and helping others as the WAY to salvation is to miss the whole point of the parable and of Bible salvation. Paul says, “…if righteousness could be gained through the law (doing what’s right), Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21).
This parable, like the Old Testament Law at the Sermon On The Mount, is designed to show us our NEED of salvation and drive us to Jesus pleading for mercy. I don’t know about you, but I identify with those who passed by. I look back at my life, filled with many acts of service and think of all the people in my family, in my church, in my circle of friends and in my world THAT I DIDN’T TAKE TIME FOR. I didn’t beat them up, but I sure passed them up. My confession is:
My neighbor’s throat I never cut
His purse I never stole
But for all the things I have not done
God have mercy on my soul
The WHY of salvation (Eph 4:32-5:2)
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God…and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us…as a sacrifice” (Eph 4:32-5:2).
Saved by Jesus, we are to reach out to help those who have fallen on the bloody highway of life. Why are we to love and help people? Because Jesus loved and helped us when we needed it the most and deserved it the least.
A hidden point in this parable is that a SAMARITAN helped a JEW. Jesus, by this, tells us that many times the people of the world, the people we in the church tend to look down on, show more love and compassion than we in the church do.
Let us in gratitude to Christ, live selflessly by the motto: WHAT’S MINE IS YOURS AND YOU CAN HAVE IT! Time? Yes! Energy? Yes! Money? Yes! Love? Yes! People are hungry - they need food. People are lonely - they need friends. People can’t read - they need teachers. The hurting person is anyone with a need. The hurting person is you and me - to whom Christ came with salvation through His cross. And the hurting person IS CHRIST, for in Matt. 25 He tells us when we feed and clothe and visit those who are sick and those who are in prison we do it for Him. But the opposite is true – failing to help others is failing to help Him.
The best help we can give anyone is to share Christ with them. I grew up in a mill village in Gadsden, Alabama, where the houses were about 10 feet apart. When I graduated from college in Forestry, I went to work in Piedmont, Alabama, which was 30 miles away. One day I learned that Clara Bell Doss, who had been my next door neighbor in Gadsden, was in the hospital, dying with cancer.
I had never seen a cancer patient before, but it was terrible. Her head looked about as big as my double fist. I looked into her hollow, sad eyes and told her who I was. She couldn’t speak above a whisper, but she said, “Hello, Bobby!” and smiled and went back to sleep. I leaned over, with tears in my eyes, kissed her on the forehead and said, “I’ll see you in heaven, Clara Bell!”
Why? When I was little, I didn’t go to church, but Clara Bell and her daughter did. One day she asked my mother if they could carry me to Sunday School and church with them. They did it for years, and the rest is history. I am a Christian today, I am your pastor today, because a little four foot ten inch lady named Clara Bell Doss saw a little boy who needed to be in church and didn’t pass by on the other side.
