Folded by Jesus
Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion.
So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’
So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Luke 10:30-37
[Title]
Some of you may be confused by the title of this message. What is “folded”? Is it referring to Jesus folding some clothes? I first heard the term “folded” from one of my sons, and when I asked him what it meant, I was confused as well. So, to help clear up your confusion, here is the Urban Dictionaries definition:
When you get hit so hard that your body folds over like, you’re Folding a t-shirt or a pair of pants.
Just so you can really understand it, here is a usage of it:
You better scramble like an egg before you get folded like an omelet.
Plainly said, it means to beat someone up, or the newer past tense version of that, to receive a beat-down.
Now outside of Jesus turning over the money changer tables and brandishing a whip, Jesus has never physically folded an individual. But throughout the Gospels He has verbally, mentally, and spiritually folded the religious leaders who tried to test Him.
Now this may raise another question…what does the simple parable of the Good Samaritan have to do with Jesus delivering a smackdown? Well, I will give a full answer to this question as the sermon progresses, and when I am done you will nod your head saying so there was a smackdown in there.
This parable is one of about forty that Jesus gave in His Gospels. On the surface it seems so simple and to the point, but I will say this, most of us missed the point of the parable…yes, the point you understood about helping one’s neighbor in their time of need is there right before our eyes, but there is more to the story that delivers a knockout blow. Let understand a few things about the parables Jesus spoke: first, all of them are meant to lead a person to salvation. Second, they are fully understood until we have accepted the gift of salvation.
But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable. And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables,
so that ‘Seeing they may see and not perceive, And hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, And their sins be forgiven them.’ ”
Mark 4:10-12
So, in this Jesus says that the parables are meant to befuddle those how are self-righteous, self-important, self-justified, entitled, those that think they have the absolute answer to what it takes to get into heaven, aside from believing in Jesus, and those who try to find loopholes in God’s laws. The parables only become apparent to those who humble themselves under the hand of Jesus. Now I know all of you are saying to yourself, all this stuff is good, but get to the smackdown, let’s see so heads roll. Be patient because I need to walk you through it so that it becomes apparent.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan there are four characters: a priest, a Levite, the Good Samaritan, and the man who was beaten. The priest and the Levite do all they can to avoid dealing with the man, while the Samaritan does all that he can to help the man. Now all that seems plain, but like Jesus said, we see and don’t perceive; we hear but don’t understand. True to Jesus’ word some have tried to use the parable to tell us that it is about socialism, how the apparently rich Samaritan tickles down his wealth to better society. But that is a stretch on the parable, as it has nothing to down with socialism, but all to do with compassion. This is a case of man using the words of Jesus incorrectly for the purpose of promoting the agendas of man, which has nothing to do with salvation in Christ Jesus.
Okay, we have looked at how others misunderstand the parables, and like I said this as with the other parables are about salvation, with that this is a scene of personal evangelism for Jesus. It is parallel to Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3. It is parallel to Jesus and the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, Jesus doing personal evangelism.
Okay, you’ve been patient waiting for the folding…so, let’s set the scene by going to verse 25 to see the person who will receive the folding, because in understanding any of the scriptures we first need to get the context, as this is what establishes the intent of the parable. Here is where we miss the meaning of the parable because we overlook the fact that there is another person in the scene.
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”
So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Luke 10:25-29
“A lawyer stood up.” Pulled out of the crowd, came before Jesus, took his position in front of Him for the purpose of putting Him to the test. This tells us his motive was not good. He wasn’t seeking truth. He wasn’t seeking information. He was doing what all these religious scribes and lawyers did. He was trying to trap Jesus so they could condemn Him and find reason to have Him executed. He was part of the religious establishment. He was a lawyer, not in a civil sense. He was a lawyer, not in a criminal sense. He was a lawyer in the sense of Scripture. He was an expert of the Old Testament law.
So, he stands up and like they always did - the Pharisees, the scribes, the priests - puts Jesus to a test hoping He will fail. And he asks Him the same question the rich young ruler asked Him. He asked Him the same question that Nicodemus had on his heart. “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? What shall I do to inherit eternal life? What is the path to heaven? What is the path to a right relationship to God that’s going to guarantee that I am going to live forever in the presence of God?” That is a very important question. That is the most important question that any person can ever ask. That is the right question. That is the right question to ask Jesus, who is Himself eternal life, the very life-giver.
But he didn’t ask it for any legitimate intention. He asked it to put Jesus in some kind of bad light and put Him on the horns of some dilemma that would allow Jesus to become embarrassed and, even more than that, to become ashamed and, therefore, to be guilty of some crime.
So, he says, “What do I do to inherit eternal life?” Now, notice the path that Jesus takes. “He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? How does it read to you?’” What does the law say? Let’s go back to the Word of God. You have the Old Testament. What does it say? Well, this is a sharp scholar. This is a scholar of Old Testament Scripture, and he gives exactly the right answer. In verse 27 about “What does the Law say? How does it read?” He combines two scriptures, Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18. Two familiar Scriptures. They are two Scriptures that sum up the entire law of God. In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus said, “These are the two things that sum up the Law of God.” All the law of God is summed up in these two things: “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says in Matthew 22, “In these is the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets.”
He said that’s the right answer. Verse 28, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” So go do it. If you want eternal life, fulfill the law. Do this and live. You say, “Whoa, whoa. Why is He telling him that? Where is the gospel here? Why doesn’t He just say, ‘Believe in Me, believe in Me’?” Because there’s another issue to be confronted here, and that is how the man views himself. There’s no good news unless the man accepts the bad news, right? Well, this man doesn’t have any interest in a true evaluation of his condition.
Okay, here is the folding. In the Jewish mind a Samaritan is considered worst of all peoples, in fact amongst the Jews the term Samaritan is used as a curse word. In John 8:48 they leveled these words against Jesus.
The Jews then answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
To the Jew, a Samaritan is a traitor to the Hebrew race because they inter-married with the people of Samaria. They were in the mind of the Jew as a running dog. Okay, so now we can see the picture Jesus is painting here: the priest did not love his neighbor when he walked on the other side. As a priest he should have helped those in need, but his view of who a neighbor was clouded by his pure bloodline. Here the priest is the embodiment of religious group that the lawyer belongs to. The Levite in the story represents the religious group as well because they were the helpers to the priests and guards of the temple. They too should have helped the man. This is where Jesus smacks the Lawyer in the face with the fact that the people, they thought were the worst of the worst was the ones who truly embodied God’s desire for us to love our neighbor. Jesus empties both barrows into the lawyer by saying through this parable that you believe you love God, but you don’t. The fact that you cannot love the stranger negates any idea that you love God and follow all His commands.
The lawyer is now forced to look into his self-righteous heart and see the beating he just received from Jesus; a beating that made him realize that he was lying to himself about his belief that he had a lock on eternal life. To make matters worse the lawyer has to see that the people he thought were the dogs of the earth were actually him and the group of religious leaders he loved to be around.
If you just read the parable by itself, you miss the drama that unfolds with the lawyer. Now we don’t know if this lawyer had a change of heart or not, but we do know that Jesus hurt him bad. Which may be the reason that the religious leaders wanted Jesus dead by their own hands.
