The One Who Showed Mercy

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Pentecost 7C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Luke 10:25-37

²⁵Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷He 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.” ²⁸And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” ²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ³⁰Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ ³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

There are people in the world that we each admire.  Some of us admire athletes, for their skill, their discipline and their strength.  Others of us admire world leaders – for THEIR particular skill, for their dignity, their intelligence and their leadership.  Still others admire celebrities – for their talent and their charisma. 

It’s not too different for pastors.  We, too, have folks that we admire for the way they craft a message, or their energy, their delivery, their cadence, intonation or the creativity with which they communicate the central idea in a sermon while making it at the same time challenging and accessible.  It can sometimes get to the point of attempting to emulate that particular preacher that you admire so much.  We freely quote from them, or borrow their words.  I confess that I have done that on more than one occasion. What’s the saying?  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

As a norm, we have come to expect what is called ‘expository preaching’ – that is to say, a sermon that takes a passage and “exposes” the details in it – we get a background in language, or what the original wording meant; we get a background in history, or the what was happening either in Jesus’ time when he was literally speaking the parable or some approximation of what was going on at the time of the writing of the gospel passage within the community to which it was written in the latter half of the first century. 

We may also have been exposed to ‘storytelling preaching’ which takes you into the story – invites you to close your eyes and put yourself into the scene that is described – or not – in the passage; to see the lawyer approach Jesus, his robe and coat of noticeably better quality than most of the folks that are probably surrounding you – either in the temple or in a synagogue, and we get to listen in on their conversation, we get to watch Jesus’ facial expressions, his steady gaze, as he watches the man present his questions.  We feel the heat of the sun on our shoulders, we hear the bleating of sheep on the hillside on the other side of the wall of the town, we hear the braying of a donkey as it passes by, loaded with goods for market, and we smell the dust mixed in with the smell of the smoke from the fires that are cooking food in the different houses that line the streets around us. 

With the passage this morning – I should say the parable – I’d like to try something different.  I think for the most part, looking around the room, most of us have heard at least a few messages preached about the Good Samaritan.  We are already familiar with the context into which Jesus is telling the story, namely, that the ‘Faithful Hebrews’ of Judea did not consider those God fearers of Samaria – a region to the immediate north of them – between them and Galilee – to be part of Israel.  They were considered unclean for having mingled with the local population, though originally a part of the twelve tribes, they parted company a long time ago, and their parting was not an amicable event.  They didn’t speak to each other, look at each other, or fraternize with each other.  In fact, Judeans, if they needed to travel to Galilee, went dozens of miles out of their way, adding days to their journey, just to avoid traveling through Samaria.  There was no love lost between them.

In the parable, Jesus, in answering the question put to him by the lawyer, asking who he should consider his neighbor to BE, has a member of each of the most highly regarded – the most widely admired, if you will – tribes walk right past a man who has been assaulted, robbed, and left for dead.  They had other, more important things to do than to help a man that they weren’t sure was even alive, much less worth spending time on.  And the one person who DOES stop and help – in an extraordinarily generous manner – is a Samaritan.  To the lawyer, this would have been an affront to his accepted perception of the world.  His worldview would have been challenged to the point of being turned on its head.  A Samaritan would have done no such thing. 

And yet, at the end of the parable, Jesus asks the man, “Who was a neighbor to the man who had been attacked and left for dead?”  And the lawyer, with all his knowledge of proper Hebrew practice, and his awareness of the law and all it’s implications, with all his prepackaged assumptions, came to the correct conclusion:  “the one who showed mercy.” 

Parables have a purpose in Jesus’ ministry.  They were designed to elicit a response from the people who heard them – but not just any response.  They were first crafted to highlight a particular point that has to do with what the Kingdom of God looks like, but they were also told in such a way as to get most of the people who heard them to sit up and take notice – to begin to question some assumptions they had that were not – for whatever reason – in keeping with the Spirit of God or the vision of the Kingdom of God. 

The fact that the person who showed mercy in the parable – the one the lawyer HAD to acknowledge as being the ‘true neighbor’ – was the person he would have been the LEAST inclined to give the time of day to in his everyday life hopefully shifted his thinking pattern just enough to be able to question what other assumptions he had that might be keeping him from seeing – and participating in – the Kingdom of God breaking in and out all around him – most particularly right in front of him in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus told the story, and the man walked away, and the people around them who had heard the parable probably thought to themselves or turned to each other and started to talk … “what did he mean by that?” 

So that is our question this morning:  What did he mean by that?  By turning the assumption that “no good could come from Samaria” on it’s head for the law-abiding lawyer and the people within hearing distance. 

For us, the question is, is there someone I should show mercy TO, or is there someone from whom I’ve been denying mercy to be shown to ME? 

You see, with the parables, at first glance we can assume that we are one character, when in reality on deeper reflection we realize we are someone else in the story.   While we would LIKE to think of ourselves as the Samaritan, many times we end up being the Priest or the Levite without even realizing it, because it comes so naturally to us.

We can even miss the point that we sometimes are the man who was robbed – the person left for dead by the side of the road, so beat up by what life has thrown at us that we truly are simply the recipients of grace – and it really doesn’t matter who it comes from, because ultimately it comes from the same source.

 And that source is what we celebrate when we gather at the table and share the wine and the bread.

So whether you are a Priest, a Levite, a Samaritan or someone who has been bludgeoned and traumatized by what life has brought you this week, know that you are welcome at this table, you are an honored guest, known by name and invited to share in the unmerited grace of a God who is FULL of surprises.

(Communion)

           

Let’s pray.