The Good Samaritan And Mr. Rogers

OUTLINE

OPENING ILLUSTRATION – MR. ROGERS

THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN (LUKE 10:25-37)

IMPLICATIONS FOR US:

Being a good Samaritan in contemporary times means:

Be willing to be inconvenienced

Be willing to take a risk

Be willing to bear some cost

Don’t ask “Who is my neighbor,” rather am ask: "I being neighborly to the person who God has placed in my path?"

Good morning neighbors. I wanted to wear a cardigan sweater, but I couldn’t locate one. Glad to have you all here. If you have your Bibles, you will want to open up to Luke 10:25. How many of you know Mister Rogers or have heard of Mister Rogers? Well, you should because Mister Rogers is kind of a cultural icon here in Pittsburgh. In fact, there is a huge statue of Mister Rogers down there at the waterfront. What you may or may not know is that Mister Rogers is a native of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Latrobe High School. Also, I learned recently that Fred Rogers was actually a war hero. He was involved in some sort of a rescue in the war. You may or may not know that Mister Rogers also was an ordained minister with the Presbyterian Church. He attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, so he was a minister. But I think what Mister Rogers is most known for is his television show “Mister Rogers Neighborhood”. I guess that show lasted over 30 years from 1968-2001 and over 800 episodes. The thing about Mister Rogers neighborhood, as you know by the song, is that it was always a beautiful day in the neighborhood. No matter how your day was going, Mister Rogers would come in with that big smile, and he would request that you would be his neighbor. The thing that Mister Rogers was trying to teach children in the 20th century was the exact same thing that Jesus Christ was trying to teach his disciples in the very 1st century; it was how to be a good neighbor. So we are going to read through this Good Samaritan passage starting with Luke 10:25 and reading all the way down through verse 37. (Scripture read here.)

The story of the Good Samaritan is actually a parable. It is considered a kingdom parable. The parable is something we know as simply an earthly story with some sort of a heavenly meaning, heavenly implications. This story is considered a kingdom parable because really it speaks of life in the kingdom. When Jesus came, he came to inaugurate the coming Kingdom of God. I don’t have time to get into the background of what it means to be living in the kingdom of God, but one thing we do know is that when Jesus spoke of the kingdom, he was introducing a radical message to the people. He was introducing a radical way of thinking, a radical way of behaving, and a radical way of acting, and a radical way of doing religion, of doing spirituality. That is the situation that we have here today in this particular passage. What we have is we have Jesus sitting around doing what he does best, sitting around teaching people. What happened and what so often happened was that somebody would come up and try to challenge the words that Jesus was saying. In this case, it was an expert of the law. When we are talking about the law, we are talking about what we would know as the first five books of the Bible. An expert being someone that knows that portion inside and out, every single verse, and can also interpret, translate, and can apply that particular law to the various cases that would happen around the Jewish community. In this situation, he comes up to him and asks Jesus just a simple question what must I do to inherit eternal life? He simply replies what is written in the law? How do you read it? In other words, you are the expert in law. Don’t ask me. Why don’t you tell me how you see it? Then he goes on and the expert in the law starts by quoting a section from the Old Testament, the Book of Deuteronomy, and he says what you need to do is love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. Just to show that he knows what he is talking about, he then adds another tag on to it. A verse in Leviticus, another book of the Old Testament, and he says and you need to love your neighbor as yourself. At that point, Jesus is saying you did a very good job and go and do likewise. Go and practice this. But the man didn’t leave well enough alone. When Jesus gives you his time and he responds to a question, oftentimes what he wants to do is when he is feeling like he is being tested or he is being set up, he wants to go back and kind of give it to the guy. The guy didn’t leave well enough alone, and he basically said to Jesus, he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus who is my neighbor. Who is my neighbor? This is where it is subject to our interpretation. What is believed is happening here is that the teacher of the law was feeling pretty good about his knowledge, feeling pretty good about the fact that he was being an expert, and also probably feeling like he really knew how to apply the law to his life. When he says who is my neighbor, what he is hoping he is going to get from Jesus is maybe a short laundry list of the things that he should be doing. Taking care of the poor, taking care of the widows, taking care of the orphans, taking care of the people in the Jewish community.