Luke 10:25-37
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost - 10 July 2016
Rev. John Derme
You don't have to know the Bible very well to know what kind of a person a good Samaritan is. A good Samaritan is someone who helps other people, especially strangers, without any payment or expected reward. Even though most people in our society know what kind of a person a good Samaritan is, I wonder whether they know that the name "good Samaritan" comes from a parable of Jesus in the Bible. I wonder whether they know what the original good Samaritan in the parable did that was so helpful. I wonder whether they have any idea what the point of Jesus' parable is. Actually, I am sure that a lot of people, even Christians who think they understand it well, do not know why Jesus told this parable.
The parable of the good Samaritan is our Gospel of the Day. Today you and I are going to pay close attention to Jesus' words and make sure that we understand his point. To understand, we must answer this question: Who is the good Samaritan?
If we're going to understand Jesus' point, we need to know the reason that Jesus told the parable in the first place. He spoke it to a man who came and asked him a question. This man thought he was an expert in God's law, so he thought he already knew the answer to his question. He wanted to see whether Jesus could answer correctly. Perhaps he thought he could trick Jesus into saying something wrong. He asked, "What must I do to earn gain life?"
Jesus replied with a question: "What does the Old Testament law say?" The man answered with a summary of the Ten Commandments: "Love God completely and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus said, "That's right. If you do this you will have eternal life." But the man wasn't satisfied with that answer. What Jesus said was true. If he wanted to earn eternal life by what he did, he would have to love God and his neighbor perfectly. He probably thought that he had loved God and most other people well. But he hadn't loved everybody completely. He wanted to justify himself, to see himself as perfect. He wanted to make sure that he had loved everybody that he needed to love, so he asked, "And who is my neighbor?"
This is the question Jesus answered with the parable of the good Samaritan: A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was a notoriously dangerous road, so it is no surprise that the man was attacked, robbed of everything, beaten, and left for dead. It looked like help was coming soon, though. A priest, one of the spiritual leaders of Israel, was walking toward him. But the priest didn't want anything to do with him, so he pretended he didn't notice and passed by on the other side of the road. Next came a Levite, someone who worked in the temple. But he couldn't be bothered to help, either, and passed by on the other side.
Finally, a Samaritan came by. You may know that Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. If the priest and Levite didn’t help, this Samaritan foreigner wouldn't help the hurt Jewish man, would he? He did. He disinfected and bandaged his wounds. He put the man on his own donkey and walked him to an inn. There he watched over him. And when he had to leave he paid the innkeeper to watch him.
You and I are so familiar with this parable of Jesus that many of us knew how it was going to end before we began to read it. But this ending was totally unexpected to the Jewish expert in the law who was hearing Jesus speak it for the first time. When he'd asked his question, "Who is my neighbor?" he was probably hoping for a short list of a few select people that he was supposed to love. Then he could have felt like he had kept the Commandments and was earning eternal life by what he did. But Jesus told him the parable of the good Samaritan, who helped even his enemy and didn't want any reward for it. Then Jesus told the man, "You go and be a neighbor to anyone who needs your help." He had never loved his enemies like that, and he didn't even want to. Jesus was making it clear to him that he had not done everything that he needed to do if he wanted to earn eternal life. So far we've discovered that the expert in the law was not the good Samaritan.
Jesus wasn't just telling his parable to that man. He had the evangelist Luke record it for you and me to hear, too. But if we are going to understand Jesus' point, we need to know why he has now told it to us. Have you ever asked the question that the expert in the law asked: "What must I do to gain eternal life?" You may never have said that out loud, but every person thinks about eternal life as something that we have to earn. We've got to do the right thing. We've got to be good people. That is the natural human religion.
Jesus tells you the parable of the good Samaritan to teach you that you have not and you cannot earn eternal life. You would have to love God perfectly. You would have love your neighbor just as much as and in the same way that you love yourself. We'd probably be okay with that if, by our neighbors, God was telling us that we should love our friends. We like doing nice things for our friends and family – at least some of our family members. But the example of the neighbor that Jesus wants us to be is the good Samaritan, who shows love to everyone, even his enemy, who needs his help.
Can you honestly say that you have always helped everyone who needed your help? Sometimes we're like the priest and the Levite from Jesus' parable. We pretend we don't notice the people who need our help. We don't want to be bothered, or get our hands dirty, or we just don't have time. We want to justify ourselves, so we make excuses for why we can't help. But the fact remains that we haven't helped others like we should. The reality that we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves shows that we have not loved God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, either. We can't earn eternal life. We have earned eternal death. So we've discovered that we have not been the good Samaritan.
If we can't love God and our neighbor, who can? If we haven't earned eternal life, who has? Jesus can, and Jesus has. Jesus showed perfect love to all people who needed his help during his life on earth. By doing that, he was showing perfect love for God the Father by keeping all of his commandments. He loved the Lord our God and our neighbor in our place. Then he died on the cross to pay for our sins of not helping others and not obeying God. You and I are like the man who was left for dead on the side of the road, helpless to gain eternal life for ourselves. Jesus is like the good Samaritan, who found us and helped us and paid for eternal life and gave it to us. Jesus is our perfect neighbor, because he has loved us perfectly. If anybody can claim to be the good Samaritan, only Jesus can.
Yet when Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan, he didn't end by saying, "I have done" or "I will do likewise." He said, "You go and you do likewise." Though Jesus spoke them originally to the expert in the law, these words apply as well to us. Jesus wants us to be the good Samaritan! When we realize how he suffered and died to show his love and help and save us, we want to thank him by being good Samaritans to other people!
How can you and I be good Samaritans? The good Samaritan in the parable was just going about his business, not looking for action, when all of the sudden somebody who needed his help became a part of his life. You and I don't have to go searching for people to help, either. God places people into our lives who need us. As we live our daily vocations, we will see that friends, family members, people that we don't know, and people that we don't even like need our help. God brings the opportunities to us.
How can we help those people? That is more difficult. In the parable, it was obvious what kind of help the man who was almost dead needed. Sometimes you'll see exactly what another person needs, too. Yet other times a person will tell you that he or she needs a certain kind of help, and you can tell that it is not what is best for that person. You may have to determine what kind of help a person needs, before you can provide that help to him or her. Rather than crossing the street and pretending you don't notice the person in need, show love your neighbor as to yourself. Then give thanks to God for the opportunity to show him love and ask him to bless your efforts.
Have we answered the question: Who is the good Samaritan? We have paid close attention to Jesus' words and have seen that neither the expert in the law, nor you, nor I can claim that we have loved our neighbor like that. Jesus has loved us like that, though. Now, even though Jesus is the only one who can call himself the good Samaritan, he doesn't. He calls you and me to be good Samaritans.