Sunday 07.13.25 - "On Being a Good Samaritan" - Fr. Jeromie Rand

Transcript

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This is an audio sermon from Christ Our Hope Anglican Church in Fort Collins, Colorado. We're glad you're here, and we hope that you'll be able to join us at the table soon. And now, here's today's message.

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At the south end of my neighborhood, just about a mile from here, there is the Good Samaritan Village, which is an assisted living facility that is down on Trilby. And the name obviously comes from the story that we heard today. the story of a man who is leaving Jerusalem, going down to Jericho. He's beset by robbers. He has his goods taken from him. He's beaten and left on the side of the road, passed by by a priest who is coming down alongside the same road, passed by as well by a Levite who is coming along the same road, and before being helped by a Samaritan. And this story is so well known, both inside the church and even outside of it, that it has become a way to refer to somebody who does good deeds on the sake of others is to think and call that person a good Samaritan. And so there is the Good Samaritan Village not far from here. In probably a tremendous number of cities within the United States, you can find a Good Samaritan hospital somewhere. And there are even Good Samaritan laws, laws that are designed to protect somebody who might go and help in the case of an emergency and doesn't want to open themselves up to sort of litigation later. But familiarity with the story and with the phrase of Good Samaritan does not necessarily mean understanding, and there's a lot more to this story than just a simple encouragement to help others in need. If we want to see what that is, we have to turn and look at the story in context. So if you have your Bible, you can turn with me to Luke chapter 10, and the portion that we read today begins in verse 25. It says, The framing of this story is that a lawyer comes and talks to Jesus. And lawyer in this particular case does not mean somebody who practices civil law and is going before a judge and is in some ways trying to either get prosecutions or defendants and get people off. This is talking about somebody who is an expert in biblical law, in the law of Moses, the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament in particular. They're probably all of the scriptures that they had at that time. This person is somebody who is exceptionally well-versed in what the Bible means, in other words. And he is engaging with Jesus as a rabbi who is a known teacher, and he's coming to speak to him, and he's asking a question that was actually fairly common to ask of a rabbi in the first century. He says, Now, one of the little details of this passage is that it said the lawyers stood up to put him to the test. standing up to speak to the rabbi was actually a posture that was considered respectful. It was common in that time. The rabbi would sit to teach and somebody would stand up and show him honor in the way that they spoke to him. So that's fine, but there is this sense that he is doing it to put Jesus to the test. There is something that Jesus knows or sees in this person that says that his motive is not just curiosity or seeking a deeper understanding. He wants to actually test Jesus, the word is pretty strong in the Greek. There's one translation that says he's trying to trap Jesus, and that probably is accurate. He's trying to get him to say something that doesn't accord with his understanding of the law that he already has. We don't know exactly what that is. The Bible doesn't unveil what kind of test he's making. It could be related to some of the things that Jesus said that might have been somewhat scandalous, like just a chapter before in Luke chapter 9. He told his disciples that if they wanted to have life, that they had to follow him. And so maybe he's wondering, if I ask Jesus this, is he going to ignore the commands of Torah? and instead say that in order to have life, I have to follow Jesus, in which case I can sort of catch him in a trap and show that he doesn't actually follow the word of God. But Jesus... responds to his question with a question of his own. Again, a pretty common teaching style and a pretty good one to engage with still in this day. Asking questions often leads to deeper understanding as people reveal what they already know and then sometimes find that they fall short in that. But Jesus asks him in verse 26, he says, what is written in the law? He's speaking to the person who is an expert in the law, asking, what do you see in the law? How do you understand it? And the man gives a great answer. He says, Elsewhere in the Gospels, this is the exact answer that Jesus gives when he is summarizing the law. Oftentimes, this combination of love God and love neighbor is thought of as one of the unique ways that Jesus taught. So this answer is exactly the answer that Jesus would give. And Jesus tells him, you answered correctly. which for somebody who is an expert in an area, who is an expert in the law, this is exactly what he wants to hear, right? This is what we want to have when we come and ask a question of a teacher, and we give our best answer, and they say, you've answered correctly. You've got full marks. You've passed the exam. Great job. But then Jesus adds one other thing that perhaps makes the man feel a little bit uncomfortable. He says, do this, and you will live. Just knowing the answer is not enough. You have to actually live this out. And so now the man who's come to test Jesus finds himself perhaps being tested by the very law that he is an expert in, feeling a little bit uneven, an uneven footing. And so he asks the question that verse 29 says he's desiring to justify himself. The message translation, when it translates this verse, says, looking for a loophole, he asked Jesus a question. He's trying to make sure that he's able to keep the demands and that they aren't too much for him, so he asks the question, and who is my neighbor? This was also a question that was debated in Jewish law. And generally, oftentimes, I think in the first century, the answer that was given was those who are within Israel, both people who are Jews, but also people who have come to live with us, people who have adapted themselves to our customs. We have limits on who we are going to see as our neighbor, and we're supposed to take care of those in our immediate sphere around us. and just sort of be able to stop there. And so perhaps this is the answer that he's expecting Jesus to give so that he can come back and say, well, then I have done that, and I shall live. But Jesus then tells a story to give him the answer, and he tells the story of the Good Samaritan. The story itself is, again, one that you're probably familiar with. It involves this man who is walking down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was a well-known path, a well-walked passage. It's down the road because Jerusalem was higher than Jericho, but it's along a really rocky, sort of narrow path with cliffs on certain sides. There's lots of rocks that made a really great spot for robbers to hide behind rocks and waylay travelers. So this was actually a really dangerous road. It's like somebody telling you to go over to the wrong side of town, and this is the story of taking a place where you might expect to get mugged if you weren't prepared. And that's what happens in the story, of course. The man is walking along the road. Somebody comes and stops him. A robber's coming to beat him. They take all of his stuff. They beat him and leave him for dead along the side of the road. And fortunately, others are passing by the same road, and they... are walking by, and first there's a priest who you might expect to be somebody who would stop and help somebody in need, but he doesn't. And then a Levite. This is somebody not of the priestly, not a priest, not one of the lineage of Aaron, but also somebody who is helping in the Jewish temple, and so they're called another person who you'd expect, part of the religious establishment, who knows the law, knows the law of God. You might expect him to help somebody lying on the side of the road, but he doesn't. He passes by. And then Jesus says that there's a Samaritan that comes by who stopped to help the man. To make somewhat sense of what this parable is saying, you have to understand the relationship between Jews and Samaritans at that time. The Samaritans were hated. And the feeling was mutual. It kind of went both ways. There was, in fact, it was an insult at times to call somebody a Samaritan. There's this passage in John chapter 8, 48, where somebody comes up to Jesus and says, isn't it true that you're a Samaritan? There's rumors that are being spread about him, that he's a Samaritan, as a way to sort of dismiss him, to talk about, undermine what he's teaching. And part of the issue, probably, of why that particular name was given to Jesus is that the Samaritans mostly followed the scriptures, except that they only followed the Torah and not the rest of the scriptures that were given. And they didn't believe that they had to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. They had a different location that they worshipped outside of Jerusalem, outside of the temple. And so there was this animosity that it could only really exist between two people who are really close to one another, but differ on key issues. And those are oftentimes the people who are most at one another's throats. And so when people are calling Jesus a Samaritan, part of what they're probably implying is you're teaching something that's almost like what we think God says. but it's really not quite. So maybe you're a Samaritan and that's why your teachings differ a little bit from what we're expecting. And we can dismiss you if you're a Samaritan because we already know that we hate them. In fact, in John 8, 48, it says, isn't it true that you're a Samaritan and have a demon? So these two things kind of go together in the people's minds. So this person that is coming along by the road is not just, oh, this is another person. This is the last person in the world that you would want to see if you're a Jew who needs help. The last person in the world who you would expect to stop and help you. But that's exactly what this Samaritan does. He stops to help the man who is along the side of the road. He had compassion. it says in verse 33. So he went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Takes care of him. He bandages him. Takes care of what he can to make sure that it doesn't turn into an infection, to take care of the wound so it can heal. He sets him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him there. Inns aren't known for being the most sort of scrupulous places in first century. In general, when you're traveling, you'd rather stay with a relative, a friend, somebody that you knew. They might have a guest room in their house. But in this case, he stays in an inn. And the fact that this is not necessarily a place with the best reputation is important for the next detail. It's not that he's taking him to a place of lesser quality. He's taking him to where he can go, and he stays with him that night. And then he offers to pay for whatever he needs. He gives two denarii, two days wages, to the innkeeper and then leaves an open-ended tab that says, whatever else you might need, I'll pay it when I come back. He's made himself vulnerable by stopping on the road to help. by slowing himself down and carrying someone else, by spending his own resources, by giving an open-ended tab to somebody who he doesn't know if he can trust what he says when he comes back as far as how much it really costs to care for him. He's done a great sacrifice to himself. He has helped this man. So the lawyer, who's hoping to justify himself, who has maybe heard that Jesus relaxes the law in some way, and is maybe expecting Jesus to give him an answer that is something he can follow and do. Instead, what he gets is an example of extravagant, selfless love. Love that is not just confined to a few people that are right near me, but love that is open to anybody. Love that is not determined by what you say, but by what you do. And it's actually interesting here, the same word for love is used for what it means to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Agape, that whole giving, self-giving love is used for how we're supposed to love God, and it's used for how we're supposed to love our neighbor in this same passage. And so, his answer to the initial question, what must I do to inherit eternal life, is to show perfect, selfless, sacrificial love to God and to everyone else. There's a sign that somebody across the street in my neighborhood neighborhood has that says, love your neighbor who doesn't look like you, doesn't think like you, who doesn't love like you, who doesn't speak like you, who doesn't pray like you, who doesn't vote like you. Just love your neighbor. No exceptions. And there's some reality to the way that that is phrased and framed and that we are called to love in a self-giving way for everyone. And this call to love is real. It is the standard that God places for what it means to live a holy life, where we could be justified before God. But also, if this is the standard, then none of us can really meet it. On the one hand, it's really simple. Love God. love everyone else. On the other hand, it's impossible. We just can't give in that way perfectly all the time. This is kind of the second layer to the parable. It does show us what real love looks like, but it also sets up in our minds an image of self-justification that is impossible. And this is the thing that the lawyer perhaps doesn't get in this story. We're not told how he responds after this, But certainly his attempts at self-justification were a failure. Because we don't need, ultimately, self-justification because we cannot justify ourselves. We cannot make ourselves right before God. We need someone who is able to be a justifier, who is able to make us right before God. This is perhaps why the earliest interpretations of this parable were all allegorical. We have interpretations of this parable that date all the way back to the second century, so just probably less than 100 years after this was written. The most common interpretation was to look at this parable and see in it a depiction of Christ and the way that he reached out to us. In this interpretation, each thing, in an allegorical interpretation, each thing in the parable has a sign that it kind of stands for something else. So the man is like Adam. And Jerusalem is, Adam was in paradise, and he was leaving paradise and going out into the world, which is represented by Jericho. And along the way, he was beset by robbers, which are the hostile powers of sin and death and Satan. And he fell and is wounded and cannot save himself. In this interpretation, the priest is like the law, which came by and passed him by. It was not enough to save him. The Levite is like the prophets, also given by God, one of God's ordained people, his ordained word that is given to help his people, but it was not enough to save his people. And then the Samaritan is Christ, who loved and gave himself up sacrificially for the sake of others. There are further details in some of the allegorical interpretations. Every little thing stands for something else, and I don't think I need to go into all of that. This was really the most common interpretation right up until the Reformation, and John Calvin dismissed all allegory and said that this couldn't be the right interpretation because it wasn't what the plain meaning of Scripture was. We have to be careful sometimes with allegorical interpretation. It's too easy to put whatever meaning we want on the text. But when we see this really common interpretation among all of the earliest church fathers who had a tradition that was passed down from those who were just after Jesus, we have to wonder why this came about and what it is saying. And it's not because they were foolish and didn't understand how to interpret the word, or they didn't understand what it was, what Jesus was saying in the plain meaning of the text. It was because they took very seriously the words of Christ, the words of Jesus, when he said that all of scripture points to me, everything points to what I am doing, everything points to what I am saying. And there is a sense in which when we look at a parable like this and we find in the plain meaning a standard that we cannot live up to, and we ask, what is Jesus telling us? And we look at the love that he showed us and say, Jesus is the only one that has ever lived this perfect love of God and perfect love of others, and it is he who is reaching out to us to lift us up. It is his love that heals us. It is the love of Christ that gives us healing that we cannot attain for ourselves. And whether you get that from the allegorical interpretation of this parable or just from the uniform example of everything else it says in the New Testament, this is true that the love of Jesus justifies us when we cannot justify ourselves. And when we receive the love of God through Jesus Christ... that is able to restore us to relationship with our Father and heal the wounds that we could not heal for ourselves. It restores in us the ability to love others. The plain meaning of the text is true as well. Jesus does wish us to love like this, but not for the purpose of self-justification. If you are seeking to live a life where your actions in the world are what is going to put you in a right relationship with God, you will find over and over again that you fall short, that you are not able to keep the standard of loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. Our only hope is that the infinite love of God, that he loves us in this way, restores us to who we are supposed to be so that we can love within the limits that we are able to exercise. Because we are finite beings. This is particularly... particularly evident in our own world, where now with the transmission of information over the globe as quickly as it is, we are inundated over and over again with people who need help beyond what we could possibly meet. I see not just people who I walk past in the street, but I see people in Texas right now. People in Africa. People in the Middle East. All over the world, there are those who need help and need the love of God, and I am finite and limited, and I cannot love them all equally well. But God can. And when we accept that it is His love that is transformative, it frees us to love others with the sort of self-sacrificial love that Jesus shows us, but within the ability that He... the people whom God has placed in our own lives. And so one of the questions that I would place in your life, place before you today, is who are your neighbors? It's not just limited to those who are in the church. It's not just limited to those who are your family. Jesus makes that evident. But who are the people that God has placed in your life to whom you can show genuine, self-sacrificial, self-giving love. Oftentimes, these are our real, literal neighbors. Sometimes we take the answer that we're supposed to love everybody and we generalize it so much that we love nobody in particular. And that's easier in some way. I can't remember who said it, the context, but it has been said that it is easy to love mankind and hard to love any particular man. And so you need to have an answer to the question of who is your neighbor? Who is the person whom God has placed in your life? Is it somebody who's literally next door to you, who might be lonely, might need a help mowing their lawn from time to time? Or maybe you just need to show them kindness. And oftentimes this question is hard to answer, in part because of the way that we have things set up in our world, where many of us come home to our houses, we're in our cars, we drive past people, and then we drive into our driveways and enter our house, so we don't actually know anybody who's our neighbor. We don't know anybody who actually lives near us. We don't really have even opportunities to run into people in places in public spaces. You're looked at kind of weird if you actually try to talk to somebody in the grocery store these days. And so part of the way that we can begin to answer that question of who is my neighbor is actually to change the way that we live, the pace that we live at, so that we have the opportunity to encounter people on whom God can place on us the impetus to love them as he has loved us. not particularly proud of it, but I can say that there are many times when I've thought of this parable as I've passed somebody on a highway, where I didn't register that they were on the side of the road and needed help until I was already a quarter mile down the road because I was going by so fast. And there's these moments where you kind of figure, well, they probably have a cell phone. They're probably able to get the help that they need, and it's probably okay. And you're just going so fast that you don't have time. And it's like, where do I turn around? Well, it's too late for me to turn around, and what do I do? And part of the answer to that is actually to be in spaces where you are able to move more slowly. Walk around your neighborhood and pray for people. Walk and actually speak to people on occasion in the places that you go. Open yourself up to them. Let people look at you weird. That might be part of the cost that God has for you. But know people who are near you so that you may be a neighbor to them. And then when you see a need, love as well as you can. Use the resources that God has given you, whether that's your money, your time, your knowledge, your kindness. Give generously. Because God has given to you, not for the sake of self-justification, but for the sake of showing the love that we have received to others. And entrust them ultimately to the love of Christ. You cannot heal everyone's wounds. And if you try, out of your own strength to do so, It will leave you empty and it will not actually make them any better. But you can love them as well as you are able and entrust them to God's love because his love is the love that ultimately binds us. It's his love that heals us. It's by his stripes that we are healed. So, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your soul, and all of your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself, trusting in God's mercy as you seek to carry out this call, and in trusting in the love that Jesus has shown to you, and trusting others to his love as well.

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