Untitled Sermon

INTODUCTION

TRUTH

SETTING THE SCENE

The first thing that we really need to understand is THE SCENE that Jesus is telling this familiar story in. This is not like when he was teaching on the mountainside and all the crowds were responding in awe as he taught with such authority and then backed it up with signs and wonders. We are a different season of ministry here. Remember we are in the last 6 months of Jesus’ ministry while one earth and he has set his face to go to Jerusalem where he will meet with the cross.

Running parallel to Jesus’ mission of love, sacrifice and forgiveness is the mission of the religious leaders to oppose, discredit and eliminate Jesus. Both these missions will find their end at the cross.

Jesus had become so popular with the crowds that to arrest him publically, would be a political nightmare so they were looking to discredit him in some way so the people would reject him on their own. This is what Jesus is encountering here with this lawyer. He is probably a Scribe or Pharisee or both and he is working in the agenda to shut down this new rabbi named Jesus.

With that introduction lets get into the text.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

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?” 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.”

Have you ever had anyone seem to be asking you a question, but then found out that they were really just looking for a fight? They appeared sincere in the beginning, but in the follow up discussion you realize they were not really looking for an answer, they were looking to test you on your answer.

When you ask a question you already know the answer to, then you are not asking a question, you are giving a test.

You ask your question only to take that person’s answer and square it up with the answer that you already know and then judge them accordingly. That may be something that we need to reflect on some in our friendships. Do we typically ask genuine questions to know their answer or are we administering tests, to judge them according to their answer?

Jesus knew that this lawyer was administering a test and so he turns the table on him, and asks him to answer his own question. Then Jesus grades him and gives him a A+

“You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

Now how can this be? How can Jesus allow this man to believe that he can inherit eternal life through any other way but himself. Didn’t Jesus say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6) Is Jesus tricking this guy? Or Is He contradicting himself?

Neither one.

The Gospel writer Matthew records another time when Jesus was tested by a lawyer. This lawyer tried to test Jesus with a different question. The only way that someone could be right with God in the Old Testament, before the Messiah came, was to keep the commandments or the Law. So this lawyer was asking Jesus something that was constantly being debated by religious people: “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” And you know what Jesus answered? The same thing that this lawyer answered in our text for today.

“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. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

Both the lawyer in our text today and Jesus himself summarized the entire law, everything that you would need to do to inherit eternal life was included in these two commandments. Any person who perfectly obeys these two commandments will inherit eternal life, but if there is anything that we can learn from the stories of the Old Testament it is that there is no one who is able to keep these two commandments. This is what the Law was all about, it shows us what it takes for a person to earn eternal life, and when we see it in black and white like this then we know we don’t have a chance to do it.

Now if this lawyer was really asking a question, instead of administering a test he should have then responded with 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 hope for me?” And in this fictitious scenario Jesus could have pointed to himself as the one person who can and did keep these two commandments. And because he did, he can give the gift of eternal life when we put our faith in Him.

Unfortunately, that is not where this man’s heart was. 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 lower the standard.

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Can you believe this guy?

“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.”

And you know what the really crazy thing is, his focus on the second commandment leaves us to believe that he figures he has the first one down. Like he could he come somehow be perfect in “Loving God with everything I have” category but just not sure if I got all my true “neighbors” loved.

Do you see how ridiculous it is to think that you can earn your way into heaven. Any kind of “heaven” that you or I could earn is not a place either of us wants to be.

But Jesus wants to help this man, so he shares the story of the Good Samaritan to help him see how desperately far he is from ever being able to obey the law good enough to inherit eternal life.

SHARING THE STORY

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.

During our Easter Series we talked about this very road when we shared the story of Blind Bartimaeus. (map) He was begging on this very road. The road between these two historically significant cities had many unique features. It was 17 miles of winding sandstone where you end up traveling almost 4000 ft. down or up depending on the direction you were going. This kind of terrain offered a lot of hiding places for thieves and outlaws and have even come to be nicknamed “The Way of Blood”. So when Jesus chose this road for the introduction to his story, the audience would have expected disaster to strike. When he said, “…A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…” It would be like you or me saying “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.

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 were two highly respected positions in the religious world, and the idea of religious leaders traveling this road was a familiar one. Many priests lived in Jericho and would travel to Jerusalem for their time of service and then return to their homes and families in Jericho. We might be quick to judge these men for their apparent indifference, but I think we should take a closer look. The truth is there were some pretty “good” excuses for not stopping that we might be more familiar with then we would like to admit.

1. It’s Unsafe – This area is known to be dangerous, thieves, bandits and anyone looking to take advantage of me might be just around the corner. Or maybe the man was one of them, just laying there on the ground pretending to be hurt so that they would stop and he could rob them. Things may not be as they seem so it is probably best to keep going.

2. It’s Inconvenient – If this man was “half-dead” it would take me a long time to nurse him back to health. As a religious leader I have important work that I am already committed to. I can’t just stop what I am doing to help this man, I might be late for work. Or worse yet, I might be late getting home from work. I cannot interrupt the family routine. It is hard enough to get everyone where they need to go when they need to get there, this interruption is just too inconvenient.

3. It’s Not in the Budget – This man is really banged up, he is going to need costly medical care and probably a hospital stay. I can’t afford these things, it’s just not in the budget. I haven’t actually looked at my budget, and 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, but I am sure that helping him will be messy. He might already be dead, and then what will I do. That would be a whole thing where I have to do all these things and file all this paperwork according to the Law. What are people going to think when I am spending all this time trying to get things squared away with the law on this. It’s just too messy, I don’t want to get involved.

These would all have been real excuses for these men in their day, and if you are like me I have used most of them myself. Sometimes we forget that religious leaders really are not any different than anyone else, but somehow it is easier to condemn them when they don’t meet our expectations then it is to look at where we are falling short of what is expected of us. It was no different for the crowd listening that day. They had heard their share of the rumors of hypocrisy, indifference and unrighteousness among religious leaders. 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 honored God but didn’t get all caught up in the “religious debates”.

But that is not what happened. Jesus wasn’t going to leave any room for them to judge one another. He completely unified the crowd that day when he announced the hero of his story. He unified them in utter disbelief 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 believed anyone else but a Samaritan.

We have encountered this before but in short 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 began in about 722 BC when the Assyrian empire conquered the Northern Tribes of Israel. In order to maintain the control and loyalties of the many nations that the Assyrians kept adding to their empire, they would relocate all the people from the nation they just conquered into another part of their empire, and them move in a mixed group of people from former conquered nations to inhabit the land they just acquired. So in 722 BC they moved out most all the Israelites, and moved in a bunch of foreigners. These foreigners were first settled in the city of Samaria, so they called them Samaritans.

An interesting side note is that in 2 Kings 17, it says that God allowed the fall of the Northern Tribes because of their idolatry. Then when these new foreigners came in, they brought with them all their idols. God wasn’t having it so He sent in Lions to attach and destroy these people… Not making this up, 2 Kings 17…so the people complained to the King of Assyria that he sent them to this place with no way to know how to please the God of this land. So the King of Assyria allowed one priest to go back in order to teach them the ways of the “god of the land”. So the priest went and taught them how to fear the Lord, but they just added this to all the other idols that they worshiped. Still, God did pull back on the Lions.

Over many years these Samaritans struggled to establish an identity where they were only a small part Isrealites and they occasionally worshiped the true God. They wrote a new Bible, built a new Temple, On a New Mountain, and established a new priesthood and a new sacrificial system.

Well eventually the Jews of southern tribe of Judah also were conquered by the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians but when the Persian Empire was finally established they were allowed to go back home as God had promised them. But when they got there the Samaritans didn’t take too kindly to their wanting to bring back all the old ways. The 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 grows hatred. So since the returning Jews felt that the Samaritans had corrupted the ways of God with their new Bible, Temple and Priests they later on invaded Samaria and destroyed the city and the the Temple.

So this is why the Samaritan Woman at the well was so surprised that Jesus, a Jew, would even talk with her. It also why she asked about where one should worship God, in Jerusalem or in Samaria. Jesus points her away from the significance of where and to the how. We are now to worship in Spirit and in Truth.

This is also why last week, and just earlier in this Chapter, the disciples James and John were more than happy to suggest that Jesus allow them to call fire down from heaven to destroy the Samaritan town that wouldn’t welcome Jesus. But Jesus rebuked them as well.

And this is why all the Jews were caught in utter disbelief when Jesus unfolds his story with a Samaritan as a 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.

(repeating) 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 people into action. The Greek Word here for Compassion is “splonk-nee-zomay”, it doesn’t sound nearly as tender as our word compassion. This word is actually built around the word for our inside organs. It is used in the Bible to describe the heart, liver or intestines. The basic idea is that you feel something deep inside.

When the Samaritan saw this man, he wasn’t wondering if helping him was required, he was ready to do what ever was needed. We could probably think of even more excuses as to why a Samaritan should not have helped this man, but Jesus only gives us the one great reason. When the Samaritan saw the man, he felt compassion for him.

This is what true compassion does for us. It re-evaluates the weight of our excuses and adds merit to the other side. So that all of a sudden we somehow 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.

We are going to switch gears here for a few minutes as I am going to invite Melinda Gardner from APPLE pregnancy care center up. As you might know we have trying something new over the past several months when it comes to how we support local ministry partners. A team of our people got together and we identified an seeming disconnect between the local ministries that we financially support and Friendship family. So we are working to connect better with these partners. Brian Jahn from Good News Jail Ministry shared a couple months ago, Craig Peterson from Hope Gospel was here a couple of weeks ago and this morning we are glad to welcome Melinda to come and tell us what God is up to at APPLE pregnancy Care center. So with that I will pass things on to you Melinda…

APPLE PRESENTATION

Did you feel any “splonk-nee-zomay”?

Thank You Melinda for sharing and I am certain that many of us grown in our awareness of, and compassion for mothers and fathers who need help navigating through the birth and early years season of parenting.

GOSPEL APPLICATION

So Jesus tells this story to the lawyer and all who were listening that day to help them see what compassion looks like, but even more he tells the story to help them see how far away they are from being able to earn eternal life by following the law. We will close our teaching with how Jesus closes his discussion that day.

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.”

Jesus very clearly identified the man as being a Samaritan. The shock on faces of the audience would have told us that the man was a Samaritan. But when Jesus asks the Lawyer who had loved their neighbor, he could not even say it, he couldn’t find it in himself to say that a “Samaritan” was the one who proved to be following the law. He could only say that it was the one who showed mercy. And Jesus said, “You go, and do likewise”

If you want to earn eternal life you have to follow the commandments.

If you want to follow the commandments, then you have to love your neighbor.

If you want to love your neignbor you have to be like this Samaritan.

And the fact that you can’t even go there, you can’t even acknowledge the good deed of a Samaritan in this story says more about you than any of your skills as an expert in the law.

You go and be like the Samaritan, someone who is less concerned with status, schedules and the excuses that goes with power and prestige and become someone who is internally moved with compassion when you see someone in a hurting and helpless situation. You do whatever you can, wherever you can for as long as you can for whoever you can.

But was that the point? To just encourage good deeds and compassion? It was part of it, but it was more of a helpful side teaching, then it was the main point.

I mentioned in the beginning that there is no mention of this being a parable anywhere in the text. For many other parables it says things like, “And Jesus told them this parable…” but that isn’t here. There are a few other places though where it is clearly a parable but it is not labeled as one. One of the things that makes us wonder if it is really a parable is the response of the crowd.

It seems likely that since this was a test, not a real question, the crowd would have instantly responded that a Samaritan would never have done something like this. In fact, the hatred between Samaritans and Jews was so strong that this would have been a great way to discredit Jesus in front of the crowd…unless this was not a parable but a recent head line. An actual story that had happened and had made it’s way through the information channels of their day.

Whether it is a true story or a parable that the people just accepted makes little difference, because Jesus’ point in it remains the same. You think that you are able to earn your eternal life, and yet you know that even the “best” among, the religious elite, don’t even always obey it.

Jesus didn’t come down to earth to tell us one more time that we need to stop sinning and obey God or we will never make it to heaven. He came down to earth because he knew that we would never be able to earn our way to heaven. We just don’t have what it takes, but thank God that Jesus does.

LANDING

Just as well known as the story of the Good Samaritan is the Bible Verse John 3:16

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

While it is true that if you obey everything in the law then you can be saved, we all know that no one but Jesus has ever or will ever do this. But this didn’t stop God’s love for us, so he sent Jesus. The very next verse says

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

There would be no point to send Jesus just to tell us something that we already know, we can’t be perfect enough to be with God. So Jesus came not to condemn us, but to rescue us. He saved us by being the perfection we can never be, and then giving us his perfection, covering us with his perfection so that we can be with God again.

Jesus paid a debt he didn’t owe, because we owed a debt that we could never pay.

While we do need to search our heart for the compassion of the Samaritan in Jesus’ story, we should probably start with the lawyers first question. what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And the answer is that there is truly nothing that we can do, but there is something that Jesus did. Do you believe in him? Because that is our only hope of eternal life.

Lets pray

Communion