The Good Samaritan

Hi folks: I've got some preaching engagements this summer. Here's the sermon I preached on Sunday on the story of the Good Samaritan. If you'd like to read the text, see Luke 10:25-37.

My partner’s parents are originally from the rural
Northwest corner of Pennsylvania, and while they don’t
have any kind of strong accent—just regular
Midwest—there are a few things they say that I’ve
never heard from anybody else. One of these is the
word ignorant. Okay, I’ve heard the word before, but
in Northwest Pennsylvania, it takes on a whole new
meaning—something like, big, over the top, ridiculous.
As in, that ice cream Sunday you’ve got there is
ignorant. Or, Bill Gates’ 40 building estate is
ignorant. Or, the rain on the afternoon of the 4th
last week was ignorant. Or at least it was in
Columbia, anyway.

And when we talk about the behavior of the Samaritan
in Jesus’ parable today, I think we could also
consider it ignorant. Not ONLY does the Samaritan
stop to help the guy, not ONLY does he nurse his
wounds, not ONLY does he put him on his own donkey,
and not ONLY does he leave an extravagant amount of
money with the innkeeper to care for the man, but he
does it for someone who normally wouldn’t give him the
time of day. Ignorant.

So what’s Jesus going for here? What’s this story
all about? The introduction we get from Luke tells us
that Jesus uses this story to teach an expert in the
law. He reminds me of a few of my fellow classmates
in graduate school. They wanted to be in on the
debate, and had a kind of glow of triumph whenever
they asked a question that could stump the teacher.
Or at least make her pause. In the mini-scene that
leads into the parable, the expert asks Jesus “What do
I have to do to get eternal life?” Jesus answers the
question with another question and the expert comes up
with his own answer. Love God with all your heart,
mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.
Then Jesus says, “that’s the right answer,” and so the
guy realizes that he missed the chance to ask the
smart question after all, and he’s not going to get a
good grade in participation. So he comes up with a
definition question: Who is my neighbor?

I actually feel kind of sorry for the guy at this
point, because what he’s hoping for, it seems to me,
is a good discussion: which people are neighbors?
Which ones can be excluded? He wants some parameters.
You can’t just love everybody, but then it probably
also means more than the people living right next
door. So what are the limits? What are the
parameters?

But Jesus takes things to a whole different level. He
won’t draw the lines. He tells a shocking story about
two people whose religious codes keep them from
showing mercy, and an outcast who goes beyond the
pale.

Indulge me for a minute. I’d like to retell this
story with some more modern characters to try and
communicate some of the feel of it for that first
audience.

A businessman was walking down the street when he was
mugged and beaten up by some thugs who left him on the
sidewalk, thinking he was dead. A minister drove
past, saw the man, and kept driving. In the same way
a church deacon drove up, saw the man, and kept
driving. But a drug dealer was passing by and saw the
man and felt terribly sorry for him. He tore up his
designer shirt to bind the man’s wounds. Then he put
the man in his own car and drove him to the hospital.
At the hospital he went to the front desk and said,
“This is my good friend. I want him to get the best
possible care. Please send all the hospital bills to
my address. I’ll pay whatever you spend.”

Crazy, huh? Doesn’t make the religious leaders look
good, that’s for sure. Now granted, in Jesus’ day the
religious laws for priests and Levites included
prohibitions on touching dead bodies, so if they
thought the man was dead, then it would make sense for
them to go around to the other side. And it’s true,
too, that a Samaritan wasn’t automatically a criminal,
like a drug dealer, but the Judeans did think of the
Samaritans with contempt and spite.

So given that the Samaritan in the parable is someone
that the man who was robbed would normally despise and
avoid, his actions are that much more surprising.
Especially compared to the religious officials, who
carefully follow the rules that have been laid down
for them. I mean, he LAVISHES his attention, time and
money on this man. It’s downright ignorant.

And then the clincher is: Jesus turns to the expert
in law and says, “go and do likewise.” What? I don’t
know about you, but this is hard stuff for me. Go out
there and find the really needy people, whether they
might normally be your enemies or your friends, and
spend ignorant amounts of time and money and heartache
on them. That kind of a commitment might mean
changing your whole life around.

My temptation here is to qualify this a little bit.
Maybe find some of my own parameters, right? Figure
out who is the most needy, or who will be most
grateful, or who I like best. Figure out a way to
screen some people out. But that’s just what the
legal expert wanted to do with his question: have a
set answer for who is included and who is excluded.

To be fair it’s hard to tell if Jesus is being
entirely serious in this story. I think there may be
a glint of humor in the whole confrontation. The
legal expert, seems a little uptight. And then Jesus
gives him this story, just piling it on—how great that
Samaritan is, what generous things the Samaritan does,
what a nice man the Samaritan is—and at the end, if
you’ll notice, the expert still can’t even say the
word “Samaritan” out loud. “The… the… the… one who
showed him mercy,” he stutters out. Talk about
rendering someone speechless!

So maybe Jesus is trying to get at a new kind of
attitude. An attitude that expects anything to
happen, and doesn’t try to hedge God in with rules.
An attitude of mercy toward even our enemies. And
maybe to loosen up a little and not worry some much
about whether we’re being graded, or if we’ve got the
answer right, or if our parameters are laid out
correctly.

That being said, however, there is a deeper call here.
A life-changing call, if we can figure out how to
answer it. To find a way to love unreasonably,
impractically, and to love people who might otherwise
be our enemies.

How on earth could this be possible? I’ll tell you.
It’s not something we can do alone. It’s not by our
own power, but by trusting in God’s love that we can
learn to give this ignorant love. I don’t know about
you, but I am most kind-hearted and ready to serve
when I myself feel loved. When I have felt that brush
of the holy, that unexpected abundance, that
surprising joy that is the reign of God in the world.

And if you’ll let me flip the parable over one more
time, I’ll say this: the Samaritan in the story may be
an example to us of how we should behave, but he is
also an example to us of how God does behave. God’s
love is downright ignorant. God’s love is LAVISHED on
us every day. The whole of creation is given to us to
care for and live from. The body of Christ is a gift
to us for fellowship, learning, care and love. God is
present with each of us, rejoices with us, challenges
us, suffers with us. God’s love is ignorant. What a
blessing.

May we be so blessed that we find a way to share that
blessing with all our neighbors. In Jesus’ name,
Amen.