11-07-04 SMM
Luke 10: 25-37 – The Story of the Good Samaritan
Story: In the 60’s Simon and Garfunkel wrote this
I am a rock,
I am an island.
I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
But that is not how God wants us to be – God has built us for relationships!
And relationships are the subject of this morning’s Gospel reading – The Parable of the Good Samaritan
When we look at Scripture, it is important to look at the context. And the context this morning for the telling of the story of the Good Samaritan is a question that a religious leader put to Jesus:
“What must I do to inherit eternal life”
Jesus turned the question back on him and said:
“What is written in the Law. How do you read it?”
And the answer that the religious leader gave Jesus mirrored Jesus’ own teaching in Mt 22:37-40.
The lawyer cited the two Greatest Commandments – to love God and to love one’s neighbour.
But Jesus didn’t invent these two commandments. You will find them in the Old Testament
The first is in Dt 6:5 which says:
5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
And the second can be found in Lev 19:18 which says:
18 " ’Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD .
Jesus’ genius was to combine the two laws together to sum up the law and the prophets.
Interestingly these two laws God relate to relationships – not to “doing things for God”. I don’t want to decry “doing things for God but I do want to stress that our relationships are more important
Christianity is not what I can do for Jesus but in how I relate to Him and to my neighbour.
The first commandment tells us how to get on with God and the other shows us how to get on with your neighbour.
And the whole story of the Good Samaritan is about defining who your neighbour is.
The term “Samaritan” has lost its original import. Today it simply means someone who helps his neighbour. Indeed it is from Jesus’ stiry that “The Samaritans” take their name.
Due to the distance of time, we miss just how shocking this story would have been to Jesus’ original audience.
Samaritans were considered by the Jews to be traitors and half breeds. (The NIV Application Commentary The Jews certainly did not consider Samaritans neighbours. They looked down on them – perhaps much like we would a mass murderer like Ian Brady or Myra Hindley today
The story would have been very shocking to Jesus’ hearers because the hero of the story was a Samaritan not an Orthodox Jew.
Story: Maddy and I were in Israel in January 2000 and have walked a bit on the steep 17 mile road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It runs down a mountain side and is narrow. Just the sort of place just set up for a mugging. Robbers would hide in the caves found along the way.
Now the story doesn’t actually say that the man who was mugged was a Jew, but clearly the implication is there.
Jesus’ audience would have expected the Priest to stop and help – but he didn’t.
Why you might ask. One reason might have been that the man looked dead. According to Jewish custom, if the Priest had touched a dead body, he be ritually defiled and this would have stopped him going into the Temple.
Jesus is challenging us. Does our duty to church override our duty to help another in his need?
Well if the Priest wouldn’t stop, then the Levite would have been expected to. Again, the meaning of the Levite is lost in the passage of time.
The Levites were the people who were in charge of the day to day running of the Temple in Jerusalem. You might say they were our churchwardens of today.
The Levite had important things to do – perhaps he had to open up the Temple.
Perhaps the Levite didn’t stop because he was scared that the same thieves would come back and beat him up too.
We don’t know the reason why the Priest and Levite didn’t stop – and perhaps it is not important.
But Jesus’ challenge to us today is that Church is not just about our church buildings and quotas – both of which are important - but rather its is all about relationships – with God and those around us.
The Church was only given one commandment and that was:
Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Mt 28:19)
CS Lewis had this to say about Christianity:
I have an elderly acquaintance of about eighty, who has lived a life of unbroken selfishness and self-admiration from the earliest years, and is, more or less, I regret to say, one of the happiest men I know.
From the moral point of view it is very difficult! As you perhaps know, I haven’t
always been a Christian.
I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that.
If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.
(C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock, Essays on Theology and Ethics," Grand Rapids, Eerdmans 1970, pp.58-59.)
You see the Gospel challenges us. Not to be comfortable but to be more Christlike.
What does it mean - to be more Christlike and that means having a servant heart.
Jesus mingled with the outcasts of his society – the tax gathers (like the apostle Matthew) and the sinners (like Mary Magdalene – a prostitute) – and called them his friends.
Why was the Samaritan commended. I would like to suggest to you that it was for two things:
1. For his compassionate heart
2. For his servant heart.
The lawyer basically asked Jesus the question: “Who is my neighbour under the law of God”
The Samaritan didn’t worry about the legal niceties.
He felt for the injured man AND helped him
I would like to conclude by reading to you some verses of St James, from the second Chapter of his letter
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that–and shudder.
You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. (Jas 2:14-24)
We know the story of the Good Samaritan so well, that there is a real danger that it will lose its poignancy.
Let us resolve - this morning - to allow Jesus to show us who is that neighbour is that is in need.
And it doesn’t just have to be financial – it could be someone who is hurting. For by being a caring neighbour, we can show Christ to them– in what we both say and do for them. Amen
