Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (August 29, 2021)

May the words of my mouth and the mediation of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From an early age, in many children’s Bible’s, we are taught through the story of the Good Samaritan, that Jesus wants us to take care of others and love our neighbors. The story is not not about that. After all, a man is beaten and a Samaritan takes care of him. In Jesus’ own day, many would have had trouble getting past this because Samaritans were not well liked by the Jews.

Samaritans were a people group looked down on and considered “half breeds” by the Jewish establishment because they most likely came from Jews who intermingled with other groups during the Babylonian captivity. Further, they didn’t worship at the Temple in Jerusalem but on Mount Gerizim. Because of this prejudice, the Samaritan makes for an unlikely hero.

The preceding context of the Good Samaritan parable is interesting. As we heard, a Pharisee asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life, to which Jesus provides the summary of the law, causing the Pharisee to follow up with the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers by telling a story. But the story is more nuanced than we might think when we first look at it because this isn’t just a moving story about one man loving another. It is that but it’s more than that. It’s a recapitulation of the Gospel itself and only when we read it that way can we fully understand what’s going on here. Because if we read the story as a command, we have to admit that Jesus says we get to heaven based on what we do. But I think we can all see the problem with that.

So how should we read the story?

The answer can be found in the way the Church Fathers did. Humanity is the man at the center of the story. He’s on his way from Jericho (which many of the Fathers thought symbolized the world) to Jerusalem (which took for heaven). He is mugged by robbers who are the hostile powers, Satan and sin, and is left with injuries (that is, original sin). The priest and Levite who walk by and ignore the man are the Law which, as we heard in Galatians 3, cannot give life, it can’t heal us. But in a eucatastrophic event, the man is saved by an unlikely hero, a Samaritan who stands for Christ. He binds up the man’s wounds (which stand in for sin) and puts the man on his donkey (which many Church Fathers read as the body of Christ) and takes him to the inn (the Church) where the manager (who stands for the priesthood of Christ) attends to the injuries with oil and wine (Sacraments) and promises to return (the 2nd coming). The Good Samaritan really points to what God, in Christ, does for us.

This concept of deliverance from sin and death as illustrated by the Good Samaritan is picked up by Paul in Galatians 3. A promise was given to Abraham in his seed Genesis, that through them blessing would be brought to the whole world. But the seed isn’t an ethnic group, it’s a person, according to Paul, its Christ. This would have raised questions to the Jews listening. Because to them, the Law was a blessing. The Law wasn’t the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham. Rather, it was added because of all us sin. This doesn’t mean the Law is in and of itself bad, it means that it can’t heal us. Just like the the priest in the Good Samaritan walks by the injured man, so the Law leaves us after we’ve been assaulted by sin. So the Law is there to show us that we haven’t lived up to God’s expectations, we haven’t attained his holiness. The Law condemns all of us. But in a sense, that’s good news because, as Paul ends, “Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

It is for these reasons that there is an ethical dimension to the Good Samaritan story. We don’t “go and do likewise” because we think that if we help x number of neighbors, we’ll somehow be deemed acceptable by God. The story works in reverse. It is precisely because we were once injured, on the brink of death, and because Christ as our Good Samaritan brought us deliverance and healing by incorporating us into HIs Body, the Church. So now, we have the task of becoming “little Christs.” There’s a dual-challenge here, then.

Maybe you came to church this morning being attacked by your own sin. Maybe you feel like the man in the parable lying half-dead in the middle of the road. If so, we at St. Paul’s are here to tell you that there is a Good Samaritan who will bind your wounds and bring yo unto safety in the Church and his name is Jesus Christ. If that’s you this morning, welcome, and let us, like the manager at the inn, take care of you on behalf of the Good Samaritan. But maybe that doesn’t describe you. Maybe you have, through the sacraments, experiences Christ’s work in your life, and have been brought into a peace which passeth understanding and aren’t grappling with existential angst. The story is still for you as an invitation. Anglican bishop and scholar NT Wright says, “No Church, no Christian, can remain content with easy definitions which allow us to watch most of the world lying half-dead in the road.”

The story challenges us to transcend differences that divide us with a radical love. They call us to care for Democrats or Republicans, for those who look different than we do, for those who make lifestyle choices we don’t endorse. The story asks us to see every person as someone for whom Christ died. So will we go out of our way to show those who we encounter a self-sacrificial love, the same kind that was showed to us who “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”?

“How kind the good Samaritan; To him who fell among the thieves! This Jesus pities fallen man, And heals the wounds the soul receives.”

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.