RSS

Tag Archives: The Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37

30 Oct

25 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”

27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”

29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.

31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.

33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’

36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.

37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

Luke 10:25-37

Dear God, I have the opportunity to speak to a private school chapel this morning. The students will be ages 5-18. That can be a tough crowd to reach with one message. And I am supposed to be talking to them about the nonprofit where I work. How do you make an 8-year-old child care about healthcare for low-income people who are uninsured? The answer, of course, is stories. That’s what Jesus did for his crowds.

I asked the woman who scheduled me for this if there was a special spiritual theme they would like me to hit while I’m talking. She said (Not judging any grammar because it was a text and I think texts should be an edit-free zone.), “[Our model] emphasizes personhood, in that all are created in the image of God. Secondly, learning is a “coming to know” the mind of the Creator, and this coming to know is a mind-to-mind meeting. In this way, learning is a communion with God. To unite these ideas within your work: If learning is a way to better know God, and all persons are created in God’s image–when we learn about people, when we relate to anyone, when we see all as image-bearers, we are given the opportunity to draw closer to the Lord.”

Honestly, I was intimidated when I read that. I’m not even sure I fully understand some of it. But as I thought about Jesus and his lessons to us, the parable of the Good Samaritan came to mind. So as I pray to you this morning, I would like for your to finalize my thoughts on how to present to these children. And I understand that this is one of 30+ chapel talks they will hear this year. And I understand that the odds are good that none of them will remember what I said by the end of the day. However, there might be a seed that finds some fertile soil in one heart in the room. Maybe more. And maybe that seed will grow into something beautiful. So I want to take this seriously, if not expecting something grandiose for them in their experience with me this morning.

  • I think I will start by simply reading the first part of the passage above. Up to where Jesus says, “Right!” and point out that this expert in the law is unique in that Jesus is impressed with how he sees his faith. Usually, Jesus is frustrated by people who consider themselves experts in the law, but he seems pleased with this one.
  • Those commands will answer a lot of other questions about what they should do in any given situation.
  • Why does God want us to love Him with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength.
  • Why does God want us to love others? To be curious and not judgmental?
  • I will let their parents, pastors, and teachers talk with them about what loving God with all their hearts looks like. The man in the story seemed to have that down. What he didn’t understand was how to follow the second commandment, so let’s see what Jesus said.
  • Then read the rest of the parable.
  • Here is an example of a woman who walked in the way of the Good Samaritan.
  • What kinds of people does God put in your path on a daily basis?
    • Parent
    • Sibling
    • Another student
    • A teammate on a team
    • Someone at church
  • When we find that person who annoys us, be curious, not judgmental. Sometimes, if something is making us annoyed or upset, it’s a sign that it is someone or something we need to pray for.

Father this feels a little disjointed right now. I’m not sure I will be able to hit every point. But I want these children to feel your love for them this morning. I want them to feel love for you and for everyone else, whether they consider them a friend, enemy, or are indifferent about them. I want the same thing for myself. I want to love you with all my soul, heart, mind, and strength. I want to love my neighbors generously. Help me to do that in your power and for your glory alone.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on October 30, 2024 in Luke

 

Tags: ,

Who is God’s Neighbor?

18 Nov

“A few days later the university team gathers for a prayer meeting, as we do every Wednesday. We follow a consistent pattern: Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, then all three pause politely, waiting for me. I never pray, and after a brief silence we open our eyes and return to our dorm rooms.

With the essay deadline looming, I join the team grudgingly for the requisite meeting. Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, and they wait the usual few seconds. To everyone’s surprise—most of all my own—I begin to pray aloud.

“God…” I say, and the room crackles with tension. A door slams down the hall, interrupting me. I start again.

“God, here we are, supposed to be concerned about those ten thousand students at the university who are going to Hell. Well, you know that I don’t care if they all go to Hell, if there is one. I don’t care if I go to Hell.”

I might as well be invoking witchcraft or offering child sacrifices. Even so, these are my friends, and no one moves. My mouth goes dry. I swallow hard and continue. For some reason I start talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan, which one of my classes has just been studying. “We’re supposed to feel the same concern for university students as the Samaritan felt for the bloodied Jew lying in the ditch,” I pray. “I feel no such concern. I feel nothing.”

And then it happens. In the middle of my prayer, as I am admitting my lack of care for our designated targets of compassion, the parable comes to me in a new light. I have been visualizing the scene as I speak: a swarthy Middle Eastern man, dressed in robes and a turban, bending over a dirty, blood-stained form in a ditch. Without warning, those two figures now morph on the internal screen of my mind. The Samaritan takes on the face of Jesus. The Jew, pitiable victim of a highway robbery, also takes on another face—one I recognize with a start as my own.

In slow motion, I watch Jesus reach down with a moistened rag to clean my wounds and stanch the flow of blood. As he bends toward me, I see myself, the wounded victim of a crime, open my eyes and spit on him, full in the face. Just that. The image unnerves me—the apostate who doesn’t believe in visions or in biblical parables. I am rendered speechless. Abruptly, I stop praying, rise, and leave the room.

All that evening I brood over what took place. It wasn’t exactly a vision—more like a vivid daydream or an epiphany. Regardless, I can’t put the scene out of mind. In a single stroke my cockiness has been shattered. I have always found security in my outsider status, which at a Bible college means an outsider to belief. Now I have caught a new and humbling glimpse of myself. In my arrogance and mocking condescension, maybe I’m the neediest one of all.

A feeling of shame overwhelms me. Shame that my façade of self-control has been unmasked. And also shame that I might end up as one more cookie-cutter Christian on this campus.”

Philip Yancey from Where the Light Fell

Dear God, I was praying this morning about what I will preach about tomorrow. Nothing was coming to me. My wife was surprised I didn’t have football on and I told her I didn’t want the distraction. I wanted my mind to still be seeking you. Finally, I decided to lie in bed and read the memoir I’ve been reading by Philip Yancey, Where the Light Fell. That’s when I came across this story, about 80% of the way into the book.

The set up is that Yancey lost his father to polio when he was one year old, and his mother raised him and his older brother in an ultra conservative version of being Baptist. Fringe enough that Southern Baptists in the 50s and 60s thought they were weird. His parents intended to be foreign missionaries, and his mother put enormous amounts of pressure on her two boys to fulfill their father’s ambition in life. It’s a long story that takes 240 pages to tell up to this point, but by the time we arrive at the scene above, Yancey is a sophomore at a Bible college he disdains, he is in a romantic relationship for the first time in his life, his older brother has left the college and experienced serious mental breakdowns, and he cynically realizes that he’s had enough of you, Bible college, and everything else. I don’t think he would put it this way, necessarily, but reading it makes me think he’s just completely burned out on structured religion and the games religious Christians play. Now he’s going to be smarter than everyone.

Then you show up. A professor he actually respects assigns his class to “write an essay about a time when God spoke to you through a passage of the Bible.” It’s the rolling around of this assignment in his mind that set the context for what I copied above. It’s almost like Job 38 when you’ve had enough of Job going on and on and you decide it’s time to set him straight. In fact, Yancey references Job in the report he gives to his class as a result of his experience: “In the words of Job, ‘I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear. But now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.‘”

So I think this will be the core of my sermon tomorrow. When Jesus is describing the Samaritan who shows boundless compassion in his story, he isn’t only asking us to rise up and be better people. He is challenging us to be more like you.

Like me, Yancey made professions of faith and accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior several times as a child, thinking maybe he hadn’t done it right. For Yancey, this experience above was new. He describes it as follows:

Part of me–a rather large part–expects this, too, to pass. How many times have I gone forward to accept Jesus into my heart, only later to find him missing? I feel a kind of sheepish horror at regaining faith. But I also feel obliged to admit what has taken me unawares, a gift of grace neither sought nor desired [emphasis mine].

I think one of the things that frustrates me so much about the current American Evangelical church is that it is selling the wrong thing. It is selling some sort of puritanical life that, if achieved, will enable you to claim victory and then stand in self-righteous judgment over those around you. But that’s not what Jesus told us. Yes, he was harsh when he described how there would be a sorting that comes at the end of the age. Yes, he was harsh when he talked about separating parents and children and all kinds of people over himself. But he never called us to be judgmental or mean. He never called us to be unloving. He called us to love you with everything we have and then love our neighbor as ourself? Who is our neighbor? Well, that’s when he gave us this story of a man of a certain nationality beaten. The nationality is only important to set up that this man would have natural alliances and enemies. Two people who should have helped him didn’t, but a natural enemy did. A natural enemy cared for him extravagantly. Are you my natural enemy? Yes, I suppose you are since I am so insufficient in my sin. But–and I can’t believe I’ve never seen this in this story before–you chose to be extravagant with me, your natural enemy.

One unique thing about Jesus is that he didn’t see enemies in the usual way. He didn’t see a Roman centurion as an enemy. He didn’t see Caesar as his enemy. He saw anyone who misrepresented you as the real problem. And the stories he told about you are amazing.

So I am going to try to put an outline for tomorrow morning here.

  • I. I think I am going to read the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)
  • II. Set up Yancey biography and background
  • III. Read Yancey’s telling of his story
  • IV. Expound on this different way of looking at the Samaritan in the story as representing you and the beaten man representing me
  • V. So we have to ask ourselves: in coming to church, reading our Bible, being on committees, etc. why are we doing it?
  • VI. In honest self-reflection, how do we feel about envisioning ourselves as being the beaten man/woman and accepting God’s help
  • VII. Is there anyone in our lives who God wants to use us to reach on his behalf, not by accomplishing righteousness so we can use it as a weapon against the unrighteous, but so we can be the Samaritan in their life?
  • VIII. Read the CS Lewis quote by Yancey: “God sometimes show grace by drawing us to himself while we kick and scream and pummel him with our fists.” Is there anyone today who needs to stop resisting God, kicking and scream. Is there anyone here who would like to let go and accept the gift of Jesus?

Father, I consecrate this sermon to you. Holy Spirit, please use me. Love through me. Through my flawed delivery and possibly even flawed theology, reach those who need you and draw them to yourself. Oh, Lord, be merciful to us all.

I pray it in the name of Jesus, my Lord,

Amen

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 18, 2023 in Luke, Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories

 

Tags: , , ,

Luke 10:25-37 – The Good Samaritan’s Perspective

19 Jan

Luke 10:25-37
25 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[c]
28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant[d] walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins,[e] telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.
37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

Dear God, I’m not sure if many people have ever told this story from the Samaritan’s perspective.

—

Once upon a time a Samaritan was walking down a mountain road from Jericho to Jerusalem. He was traveling home to his family in Sychar. Since most of the people on this road were Jewish, if they knew he was a Samaritan they would instantly disdain him, perhaps even calling out insults to him. The best way to survive on this road was to walk with confidence, keep to himself, and even try to come across as a little angry or intimidating.

As he walked, he overheard two men talking. He couldn’t make it all out, but he heard something about a man up the road and they were saying there was nothing they could do. Intrigued, he continued his journey, kind of keeping an eye out for what the two men had seen.

Then he saw the victim. He assumed he was a victim of a crime because he was lying between two boulders with no clothes on. He was bloody and severely injured, but the Samaritan knew someone must have done this to him because of the missing clothes. Surely, no one would have stolen the clothes after this had happened because they would have been too bloody to be desirable.

The Samaritan looked to see if there was anyone else nearby who might help the man, or at least help him help the man. But no one was there. His first thought was to pray. “Father, I don’t know if this man even has a chance of living. Please help him and show me what to do.”

He approached the man and, though he was bloody and beaten, his breathing was strong. It looked like all of his injuries were on the outside. He tried to figure out a way to help the man without touching him because touching him would mean getting bloody and being unclean for days. That would impact how he celebrated the Sabbath. Maybe he could just give the man some clothes and water and let him get himself to Jerusalem. No, the man to too beaten for that. The Sun was too hot and he wouldn’t be able to recover enough on his own. He needed help.

It was only then, as he started to bandage and clothe the man in clothes from the Samaritan’s pack and prepare him to be put up on his donkey that it occurred to him that this man was Jewish. Would he be angry that a Samaritan Was helping him? Would he come to and be angry? Maybe he should clothe him, make him easier for someone else to stop and help, and then move on.

No, this man needed help. The Samaritan put the man on his donkey just as two other travelers walked by. He shook his head as the travelers never made eye contact and obviously went out of their way to ignore him. Then they started to Jerusalem. Luckily for the Samaritan, that was his destination, and, at this point, it was closer than Jericho.

When he got to Jerusalem, he went to three inns before he finally found someone who was willing to deal with both a Samaritan and a man who was nearly dead. They checked into the room and the Samaritan placed the injured man in the bed. He took off the bandages he had placed on the victim out on the road and redressed his wounds. By now, the man was coming around and talking a little, though he was very confused. The Samaritan told him to just rest. Don’t try to talk. Just rest.

They spent the night together, with the Samaritan making a makeshift mattress on the floor while the victim was in the bed. The next morning, the Samaritan had to strike a deal with the innkeeper, who himself seemed to be a good man. “Please care for this man until he is well enough to go out on his own,” he pleaded with the innkeeper. “Here is enough money to cover what it should cost, but I come through Jerusalem often so if it ends up being more, I’ll come back by and settle up with you then.”

The innkeeper agreed and took charge of the victim. With that, the Samaritan packed his things and continued his journey back home to Sychar. As he made his way through the city, he prayed, “Father, please take care of that man. Thank you for keeping him alive and for the provision of an innkeeper who would continue his care. I’m sorry for judging him and so many others like him. I’m sorry for being afraid of him and of you. Thank you for changing my heart through this experience. May my life be a prayer to you. Amen.”

—

In Jesus name I pray,

Amen

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on January 19, 2019 in Luke

 

Tags: ,