The Parable of the Good Samaritan
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· 5 viewsGod wants us to treat others with compassion, respect and concern.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Good Morning…Christ is Risen! (response) Yes! It is not just a proclamation for Resurrection Sunday but something that we as Christians should be celebrating everyday.
So the past three Sundays we went jumped out of order in our CHRISTOS series in order to walk up to and land on the Resurrection of Jesus last Sunday. So this morning we are going to fall back into our original schedule and look at one of Jesus’ most popular parables. In fact, this parable is so well know that every state in our country has a set of laws that is named after this parable. Which seems pretty fitting since the parable was told as a response from the questions of an expert in the law.
Tension
Well..they were a kind of question, anyway, but they weren’t the kind of questions that were asked in the hopes of learning something new. Many people were were amazed at Jesus’ answers to questions like that, but this was a different kind of question. He was asking the kind of question where he figured he already had the answer and he just wanted to see if Jesus would get it right.
We often ask questions like this in our relationships, questions that we already have the answer for, or at least we think we do. Whenever we ask someone a question that we already have an answer to then it isn’t really much of a question anymore. It’s a test. And Jesus was constantly being bombarded with these test disguised as “questions”.
Remember we have backed up the story to about 6 months before the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem for his suffering and crucifixion. At this point the mission of Jesus to love, sacrifice and forgive us all is running parallel to the mission of the religious leaders to oppose, discredit and eliminate Jesus. What is so fascinating is how God perfectly worked out His plan so that these two missions finally converge together and seem to find their resolution at the cross.
But that was still a little ways off, at this point Jesus’ popularity with the crowds made arresting him in public something of a political nightmare so they instead tried to discredit him in some public way. Hoping to catch him up in his words so the people would reject him on their own. Not completely unlike what is happening in much of our political world today.
This is what Jesus is encountering here with this lawyer. He is probably a Scribe or Pharisee or both and he is working with the agenda to publically humiliate this popular new rabbi named Jesus. This is how it went
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
What a great way to answer a “test” disguised as a question. Flip the question back on them…What do you think the answer is? And this was a common response of Rabbi’s in the day, to turn the question around on the one asking and then the Rabbi instead serves as judge to the answer the questioner.
27 And he answered, “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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
Wait a minute, what? The lawyer got it right? I thought Jesus answered these “tests” by showing how wrong the religious leaders always were. How can he say, Good job you got it right? Not to mention that there was nothing said about believing in Jesus for eternal life - only loving God and loving your neighbor. What is happening here? Is Jesus tricking this guy? Or Is He contradicting his own message.
Neither one.
To help us to understand why we can go to another time when Jesus was being tested by a “question” from a lawyer.
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Now Jesus (and everyone else) knew that this was a hotly debated subject among the religious leaders. In the days before the Messiah, the only way to be right with God was to keep the law, so the big question was - which ones are really the most important. And listen to Jesus’ answer:
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
This is the same answer that the lawyer in our passage for today gave, no wonder he got it right. But that still doesn’t answer our question on how these two things help someone “inherit eternal life”. I though we needed Jesus to do that. We do, and that what Jesus brings us to next:
40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
So this wasn’t Jesus saying, “Just obey these two commands and throw the rest out”. Quite the opposite. This was Jesus saying that the only way to truly “Love God and your neighbor” in a way to inherit eternal life was to perfectly obey everything the Old Testament. The Law and the Prophets. And this is true. Any person who perfectly obeys the entire law will be able to inherit eternal life...but what the Old Testament makes abundantly clear is that there is no one who is able to keep the law like that.
In fact, that was the very purpose of the law: to show us the holy nature of God and sinful nature of our hearts; and thus our need for a Savior. The Law points us to our need for Jesus.
Now if this lawyer was asking a genuine question, then his heartfelt response could have been something like “I have tried and tried and there is just no way that I will ever be able to perfectly keep the law. I just cannot earn my salvation, I don’t have what it takes, so is that it? Is there nothing else? Is there no other way for me to inherit eternal life? Because if that is it then I have no hope for it.”
And then Jesus could have told him of the “Kingdom of God” that He was here to usher in where eternal life is given to all who put their faith in Him…but that was not this man’s response. Instead, the lawyer did what everyone who has ever been misguided enough to think that they could earn their way to heaven tries to do.
He tried to change the terms by lowering the standard.
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
That is what this lawyer is really asking. “I want to know who qualifies as my neighbor because maybe if it is only a few choice people, maybe I can swing it. I might have to double down and really get serious about it, but if you could just be a little more specific because I need have my target narrowed down to exactly who my neighbor is so that I can get on with loving them and not waste my “loving” on people that wouldn’t count toward my total score in the end.”
He wasn’t looking for a savior. He wasn’t looking for Jesus. He figured he could do it on his own. He was trying to... justify himself.
And as much as we might want shake our finger at (“tsk, tsk, tsk”) such a response, I would venture to guess that most of us have at one time or another attempted the same thing. We might have used different words, but the attitude was the same. Ok, God I know your word says to “Love my neighbor” but how far do I have to go before it “counts”…especially with THAT neighbor. I mean isn’t there some sort of exclusion clause that I can use to keep them out of the circle of those I am required to love.
That is the attitude that Jesus wants to teach us about today, so if you haven’t already please open your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 10, p 869 in the Bibles in the chairs. I’ll pray and we will learn from this story together.
Truth
So in response to the lawyer’s question, and to us anytime we wonder how far we need to go to love our neighbor...
30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.
Jesus begins his story with a description that would have drawn in the audience in His day.
This road between these two historically significant cities was notorious for bandits and thieves. It was 17 miles of winding sandstone that offered a lot of hiding places. So much so that it was nicknamed “The Way of Blood”. So when Jesus’ audience heard “…A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…” it would be like you and I hearing “A man walked down a dark alley alone in the middle of the night…” We would all expect something bad to happen, and it did. So the man lay their half-dead, and the story continued...
31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
These two religious leaders “by chance” happened to be traveling down the same road in Jesus’ story, and they both just walked right on by. Of course the injustice in us wants to just lay into these two guys…but we should probably not be too quickly to judge. The truth is they had some pretty “good” excuses for not stopping to help. Excuses dare I say that we have probably used at some point in our lives as well.
Let’s take a look at some of these. For one thing...
1. It’s Unsafe – Safety is always a consideration and this area was known to be dangerous. Thieves, bandits and anyone looking to take advantage of a distracted traveler might be just around the corner. And who knows, maybe this man is in on it. Maybe he is just pretending to be hurt so that when I stopped the rest of his gang will come after me…no sir...I wasn’t born yesterday... better not take any chances…it’s too unsafe.
2. It’s Inconvenient – This man was “half-dead” it would take me a long time to nurse him back to health. These me were religious leaders who were either going to or returning from their important work in Jerusalem where many people were counting on them. Or worse yet, they might be on their way home from work and a stop like this would completely upset the family routine. It is hard enough to keep all our schedules straight, this is just not a good time for us.
3. It’s Expensive – This man is really banged up, he is going to need costly medical care and probably a hospital stay. Can he afford such care? If not then would I be responsible to pay for it. I can’t afford these things, it’s just not in the budget. I haven’t actually looked at my budget, because I don’t really even have one, but I know that we just can’t afford this right now.
4. It’s Messy – I don’t even know this guy and he is down there sweating and bleeding all over the place. Who knows what diseases I might catch, not to mention for someone in their position touching this man would make them “unclean” and unable to do their job until they went through a whole rigmarole to be clean again. That process is not exactly a career maker. It’s just too messy, I don’t want to get involved. There are others who are better suited to help him, I’ll just give something extra at the office.
Tell me those excuses don’t translate well into 2021? Helping hurting people always involved some if not all of these things.
But the crowd that day wasn’t fazed up to this point. The idea of religious leaders being hypocrites like this was no more uncommon then as it is now. They had their share of rumors of hypocrisy, indifference and unrighteousness among the religious elite. In fact, historical scholars tell us that the crowd that day probably expected that the next person to come down the path was some faithful no-named Jewish lay person. Someone who quietly honored God but wasn’t involved in all the “religious” and “politics” arguments.
But that is not where the story goes. Jesus unified every person in the crowd that day in utter disbelieve when he said:
33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.
A Samaritan, they would have taken anyone else but a Samaritan. A Corrupt Priest? sure. Jewish harlot? if you have to... But not a Samaritan.
Samaritans and Jews hated each other, and they were really good at it because they had been practicing it for more than 700 years. It all started when God judged Israel for their unfaithfulness and allowed foreign Empires to conquer them and then drive half of the out of the promised land and into other areas of their Empire, even as they moved people from other areas of their Empire into the promised land. It was a political move to diffuse any lingering sense of nationalism in these conquered kingdoms.
Well after 70 years, God brought the Israelites back to the promised land as He promised, and this was a bit of problem for the people who not lived there. Many of these resettled foreigners had intermarried with native Jewish families and now they didn’t really know who they were. On top of that, the Empire assigned them so-called Jewish priests but they didn’t hold to the law of the Israelites, but established a different Bible, built a new Temple, On a New Mountain, with a new priesthood and a sacrificial system.
So when the Israelites returned and said “We want all our stuff back” they were not met with open arms. The people who lived there, eventually called Samaritans thought they had a good thing going and they didn’t want the returning Jews to mess it up. So the whole time the Jews were trying to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple the Samaritans kept threatening them and attacking them.
This was not a good way of making friends with your neighbors. And as we know, hatred always breeds hatred. So since the returning Jews felt that the Samaritans had corrupted the ways of God with their new Bible, Temple and Priests they eventually invaded Samaria and destroyed their city and Temple.
So yeah, it is safe to say that there was some seriously unresolved issues between these people groups, and Jesus did find this acceptable.
So when James and John suggested Jesus call down fire to burn up a Samaritan villiage who rejected him, Jesus rebuked them.
When heading to Jerusalem, despite his disciples objections, he went right through Samaria instead of taking the traditional route around.
On this trip through Samaria he announces himself as the Messiah to…a Samaritan Woman at the Well…then he spends time ministering in the woman’s city.
And in His story, Jesus marches a Samaritan in as the hero.
Jesus did not come to deepen the wounds caused by the past sins of God’s people, he had come to bring healing, life and love. And as he describes the compassion of the hero in his story, it is likely that the Jewish audience had never imagined that a Samaritan could be capable of such an act.
33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’
Notice the stark contrast between the action of the Samaritan and the two Jewish men previously mentioned. Where indifference makes up excuses, compassion moves us into action.
The Greek Word here for Compassion is σπλαγχνίζομαι “splonk-nee-zomay”. I know, it just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it. This word is actually built around the word for our inside organs. “Compassion” is not something that can be imposed by an outside force, it is something that moves us from the inside. It is when you feel something deep inside.
That is the difference in the two responses.
When the Samaritan saw this man, he wasn’t wondering if helping him was somehow required, he was deeply moved by the man’s need and stepped in to do what he needed.
Being a Samaritan, he probably had many more good excuses for why he should not stop to help the man, but he is an example for us because of the reason that he did.
When the Samaritan saw the man, he felt compassion for him.
The civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. famously said:
“On the parable of the Good Samaritan: “I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
This is what true compassion does for us. It re-evaluates our excuses under the more pressing question of what will happen to them if I don’t help. And when we allow ourselves to feel “compassion” like this then we know that It’s Worth It
It’s worth the risk.
It’s worth the time.
It’s worth the Investment
It’s worth the messy.
That is what a heart of compassion says.
Gospel Application
And after Jesus tells this story he asks the lawyer standing before him:
36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
The Samaritan in the story was to be the example, but the “Good Samaritan” wasn’t Good because he was a Samaritan. If Jesus was telling this story to a room full of Samaritans He probably would have used a Jewish man as the example. Jesus does not divide people up into groups like we do.
And today in 2021 we might be better at dividing people up into groups than ever before. We are being baited into deeper and deeper division, and most of the time I don’t even think we realize how much this grieves the heart of God. Jesus teaching here about how one showed mercy across dividing lines should make us stop and think. More than that is should bring us to our knees in prayer that God would give us hearts of compassion. Hearts that move us to ask, “If I do not act on this person’s behalf, what will happen to him?” Hearts that are more like Jesus.
Throughout the Gospel record we see Jesus responding with compassion. At times he spoke of it when looking over entire crowds or as He entered Jerusalem. Other times with individuals the text says that Jesus “had compassion” for someone and then acted in healing them.
This past week I came across this devotional from pastor and author J.D. Grear where he says this:
What if the person we—and the lawyer asking the question—are most supposed to identify with in the story is not the priest or Levite or the Good Samaritan? What if, instead, we were primarily like the guy bleeding on the side of the road?
And what if the Good Samaritan is Jesus, who put himself into the path of danger and took upon himself the suffering we had caused ourselves and poured out his own resources to save us?
Jesus is asking the man, “What if you were bleeding to death on the side of the road, and your only hope was an act of free grace from an enemy who did not owe you anything?”
After you had been rescued like that, what would your life look like?
I think your life would be different. Fundamentally and eternally different. You see, Jesus is not giving the lawyer a new rule as much as he’s making him aware of a new reality.
Of course Jesus did say that we are to “Go and do likewise” but it was not just another command to be “nice” to people. It was pointing to the way that we who have been shown the greatest kindness should always live. We who have been shown the greatest mercy. In that while we were yet sinners, while we were enemies of God, he sent his Son Jesus to save us from eternal death. This should make our lives PROFOUNDLY different.
Do you know the love of Jesus like this? He invites you to - but beware, it will not allow you to see your “enemies” in the same light again.
Landing
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. 1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
