(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 07/22/07)

INTRODUCTION:

The Good Samaritan is a heart-warming story, isn’t it?  Hospitals are named after this parable.  Headlines are written about it.  “Good Samaritan Returns $7000 Found on Bank Parking Lot.”  There’ve been a thousand and one uses of this story.  Sadly, it’s quite possible that a thousand out of a thousand and one uses of this story have been misuses, like this one:

[excerpts] A Good Samaritan became the 23rd person killed in Richmond this year. Now a school district is mourning the loss of a long-time employee who stopped to help a pregnant teenager in trouble.  Terence Martin lost his life trying to help a pregnant teenager, but friends say if he had another chance, the long-time Richmond school employee would do the same thing again.  Don Lewis, victim's friend: "If he could come back today and do it all over, he would do it all over again. That's just Terence. That's Terence."

The 40-year-old Martin was gunned down Tuesday afternoon near Dejean Middle School where he stopped his delivery truck to help a pregnant 16-year-old who police say was being beaten on a street corner by her 17-year-old boyfriend.   Sgt. Enos Johnson, Richmond Police Department: "During the course of that, a gun was produced by the suspect, a shot was fired and unfortunately Mr. Martin lost his life trying to help out."

Now the West Contra Costa School District mourns the loss of Martin, who spent 22 years working in Richmond as a custodian and warehouse driver.  Sylvester Greenwood, assistant superintendent: "I think everyone who works for us has it in their heart to help somebody, especially kids and things like that because they're in those kinds of positions. Terence saw something he didn't think was right and he tried to work it."   Crystal Porter, victim's co-worker: "God just took one of his saints home. And when you're a good person, you kind of go early."   Don Lewis, victim's friend: "It makes you sit and wonder whether trying to do the right thing is always right, but you never know."

Apart from a tragic ending like this one, Good Samaritan stories tell of a person who, out of the goodness of his/her heart, helps someone in need – heart-warming stories.  Yet, in its context and at its core, Jesus didn’t mean this to be a heart-warming story.  The expert in the law knew what the Bible said but didn’t see his inability to love God wholeheartedly and his neighbor as himself.  He missed what Jesus was getting at when Jesus asked, “What is written in the law?  How do you read it?”  With that second question Jesus wasn’t asking, “What are you reading in the law?” but, “In what way are you reading the law?  If you see God’s commands as a to-do list for getting into heaven, you’re in big trouble.”  The same fatal flaw will be ours if we view this story as Jesus’ way of describing and prescribing what to do to make sure God is smiling at us.

But look how our indignation rises when we watch the first two men walk past!  “That wicked priest!  That wicked Levite!”  Even in an age of con artists and scams where people pretend to be victims so they can get up off the ground and rob you, where people who ask for money are going to go to the first package store they can find, where the guy who put on the shabby clothes and held up the cardboard sign at the interstate exit made $170,000 a year – walk past someone truly in need and not help??  State Farm is not the good neighbor.  I am!  I would never have walked past! 

Jesus didn't launch into a tirade and I don't need to either.  Calmly and with a genuine concern for the self-righteous, egotistical person he knew he was talking to, Jesus was saying, “My friend, you don't really love your neighbor  as yourself.”  Or as John wrote: “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”  The Good Samaritan story was Jesus’ way of asking the Jewish Bible expert, “How do you feel about Samaritans?”  Jews hated Samaritans.  This Bible expert, in answering who was the neighbor to the victim, couldn’t even get himself to say, “The Samaritan.”  He said, “The one who had mercy on him.” 

With this story, Jesus is asking probing questions.  How do you feel about panhandlers and homeless people (They should get a job!)?  How do you feel right now toward the person who has clashed with you or gossiped about you or lied about you?  Is there a sincere, profound love, or has it become etched in your granite memory, “I will always have reason to think less of this person.”  How do you feel toward the person with the grating personality (I wish they’d just shut up!)? 

Jesus told this story to make God’s legal requirements real and personal.  God’s law – in what way are you reading it?  The Good Samaritan – how are you reading it?  Reason to feel good about yourself, or reason to hang your head in shame before God?  If we’re hearing it as Jesus intended it, it comes out like this: I have been the priest.  I have been the Levite.  I have not been the Good Samaritan, and the Law (God!) condemns me for this.

I’m sorry but this story doesn’t teach that there’s a certain level of goodness to which you can attain to gain eternal life.  It disqualifies every one of us from eternal life.  Not even the Good Samaritan himself could stand before God and say, “I have loved you and my neighbor as you have told me to.”  This story puts every one of us to shame and every one of us in hell, until we look into the eyes of the story-teller.  What does the law say?  How are you reading it?  It condemns me.  Jesus, deliver me!

Jesus Rescues “Good” People

…people who fancy themselves to be good.  He rescues them from themselves.  He rescues us from ourselves.  Jesus is telling this story to rip our clutching, grasping fingers off of any and all thinking that we need to be good enough or have been good enough or can be good enough.  He is not being heartless and cruel, he's being a caring, loving Savior when he says, “Stop it!  Stop thinking that.  It will land you in hell.”

You and I don't need a Savior who tells us what we should do to improve or to be better people.  That's not a Savior; that's a coach.  We need a Savior who over and over again reminds us of what he has done for us.  Only Jesus has ever had a love for God and for people like that of the Samaritan, in fact a love that goes far, far beyond that.  A murderer like David, an idolater like Ahab, a madman like Herod, a betrayer like Judas, a doubter like Thomas, a denier like Peter, a persecutor like Paul, a planet full of people all of whom were born unwilling to even acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, the creator of the universe and the Savior of all people, a corrupt, foul sinner like me, I who am like the priest, like the Levite, and not like the Samaritan – all of us and everyone he loved, not only as himself but more than himself because he gave himself to death and hell in place of us all.    

Jesus’ life is the only pure loving of God and neighbor there has ever been - that's how we have to read this.  Only his death has paid for love not shown.  His return to life is what tells you that you have a Savior from sin and a provider of eternal life, not a story teller who lets you know how to be a good person.       

Do we want to model our lives according to the action of the Good Samaritan?  Sure we do!  But the only reason I want to love God and neighbor is always and only as a thank you to God, not because it makes me feel good or merely because it's the right thing to do, never as an attempt to show God how good I am or, God forbid, as a way to blaze my own trail into heaven.  God promises to enable us to love him and people, as we remember that even our less than pure thank-you acts to God also have to be and have been made acceptable to God by the blood of Jesus. 

We could talk for days about the selfless, charitable acts of the Samaritan.  But for the time we have today, there had to be the primary truth of the lesson. Can I live forever with God by loving God and my neighbor?  Were you to do it, you would make it, but no one has and no one can.  Only the gospel about Jesus says one person did for you and one person died for you and a gracious God has done it all for you and eternal life is never a wage, only a gift.  Misapplied as it ever may be, this cherished parable is doing its job when it leaves you saying, “I've been a wretched neighbor but I have a wondrous Savior – Jesus Christ.   He is eternal life for me.”  That will fill you up with love for God. Jesus Christ is eternal life for me.  That will make you want to stop and help or do whatever it is that people around you may need.  Jesus is eternal life for me. 

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