by Marty Redhead
This morning I thought we would look at the parable of the good Samaritan. This is a very common parable and one that we all know, however I want to attempt to shed some new light and information on this story that Jesus told. I’m also using some of my information from a book that I’ve just recently finished reading called ’15 Revolution’ which is written by a man called Paul Scanlon who is senior pastor of Abundent Life Ministries in Bradford, UK. The book is nice and short so I was able to read it quickly and understand what it all said. Which was good for me since my attention span is fairly short. Anyway, the tag line for the book is ‘go ahead, inconvenience me”. In which Ps Paul challenges the reader to take 15 mins a day to be inconvenienced and help someone out. It’s not rocket science, but some basic and potentially life changing principles.
Let me read from the text in Luke 10:25-37
You may notice that this is the only gospel account that contains the story of the Good Samaritan. I don’t think that is significant except that it tells us that Dr Luke maybe paid a little more attention to the detail about what Jesus was saying. Maybe for some reason this story resonated with Luke, challenged him in his thinking and therefore became part of the fabric that makes up this gospel. What ever the reason, this story is only mentioned once in the Bible, and it’s found in Luke 10:25. So let me read.
Read Luke 10:25-37
I think many of us read this story and think that we need to help other people more. Which is true in a sense, but I think the real impact that Jesus made by telling this story has been lost through the generations. And now with our 2010 western world view glasses on, we lose the impact of the story as we fail to see the historical significance.
When the teacher of the law stood up in what can only be assumed a crowded temple setting he stood up with the intention to trap Jesus, paint him into a corner and make him look like a fool. I read the text and think that the lawyer is asking the question lined with sarcasm as if showing off to his friend. “Hey ‘teacher’ (as if I could learn anything from you) how do I get ‘eternal’ life”? I imagine the lawyer was pushing for Jesus to proclaim himself as the way to eternal life so they could claim heresy and stone him on the spot. Except Jesus is way smarter than the Lawyer thinks and turns the question back on him. ‘What do you think” says Jesus. The Lawyer responds by quoting Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18. (Love the lord) (and love your neighbour)
“Well done says Jesus”. But the lawyers not happy with that answer, he wants some more. I think that Jesus was happy to leave it there, but not the lawyer. Now I know some lawyers, and they’re not idiots. And I’m sure you know some lawyers that aren’t idiots. But if we’re being honest, there are some lawyers out there that just don’t quite ‘get it’. And I think that this lawyer was one of those guys that didn’t get it. So he asks as if feeling quite smug and full of himself, ready to take this so called ‘teacher’ down, and he says “who is my neighbour”?
And so Jesus launches into this parable. Right out of the blocks Jesus hits the original hearer between the eyes with the opening line “a man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho’. Straight away the listeners know that this man is a Jew, but maybe not a very bright one. Because it certainly wasn’t real smart to travel from Jerusalem to Jericho by themselves. People did it, but it was best done with others. See this piece of road is only 22km long, but is the fastest altitude dropping road in the world. Jerusalem sits at 640m above sea level – Jericho sits at 258m below sea level. That’s a drop of 898m in 22km. Which means every KM the road drops down 40m. It’s not quite Baldwin st, but it’s getting close.
Which means that it’s a rough and rugged road carved into the side of a cliff with lots of ins and outs and places to hide. A perfect place to attack and rob someone of their belongings. So when the original hearer heard that he was attacked and left for dead, there was not real surprise. This was a road that was synonymous for robbers, bandits and was a high risk road. In fact the road was called the ‘Way of the Blood’ because of it’s reputation.
After the man is beaten, bruised and the bible says ‘left half dead’, a priest comes along. He comes to where the man is lying, and does a quick assessment on him. Jesus stated that he was left half dead, which means that by just looking at the man he probably looked dead. This straight away brings a problem for the priest because if he touches the body of someone who is dead, he is declared ‘unclean’. We’re not told in which direction the priest was going, either from Jerusalem and therefore coming from the temple, or towards Jerusalem and so then would be on his way for his temple duty. Either way he would have defiled himself as a priest because of coming into contact with a dead body. However, I think the overriding thought that went though the priests head was “what will happen to me if I stop to help?”
We live in a society that scream you you you you. Get what you want, when you want it, how you want it. How will I be affected from this action? We are a selfish people who always look out for us. On my way to Invercargill on Wednesday I was following a vehicle and then on the side of the road came into view a parked red BMW with it’s fuel flap open and the man on a cell phone in the drivers seat. I have about half a second to decide what to do. In that half second I started to reason with myself.
- I’ve got a young person in the van with me so and it might not be safe.
- I’ve got a schedule to keep, and appointments to keep
- He could be on the phone with help already on the way
- He might not have actually run out of fuel, he could have pulled over to talk on the phone and the fuel flap could be broken and so just happens to be open.
By the time I had made the arguments in my head, justified myself and driven on, I was well down the road and even though I could have turned round, I did not. That man in the red BMW might not have had a problem, but he may have run out of fuel, and needed help. But I was to busy thinking of me. Thinking of what I would lose and how I would be inconvenienced. What would have you done? Stopped….Driven on….or not even seen the problem?
For whatever reason, the priest failed to help his fellow Jew on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho that day. He weighed up the options, refused to help, and carried on his way.
Next comes along a Levite. Another people group that the original hearer would have related to. The role of a Levite was to look after the temple and the goings on of it. When Israel came to the promised land, the tribe of Levi was the only tribe not given any land, but was rather given cities and then each other tribe was to give a tithe to the tribe of Levi. All the priest that served in the temple were of the Levite tribe and you would have been considered a person of significance if you were a Levite. Once again we’re not told why the Levite didn’t stop. Maybe he was in fear of his life. As many times before robbers would put one of their own guys in the middle of the road and appear to be hurt. When the innocent person stops to help, all bandits jump from their hiding place and attack the do gooder. This may have been flashing though the mind of the Levite as he passes. Whatever the reason, our Levite friend didn’t stop to help the beaten man.
By using the imagery of a Priest and a Levite Jesus is building up a picture to the hearer that if anyone is going to help this fellow Jew, then these people would be it. He is taking the listening crowd on a journey with fairly relatable people just to flip the script and smack them between the eyes with the third and final person.
As Jesus takes the crowd and builds the story up you can sense that the crowd and in particular the Lawyer are wondering where Jesus is going. So far nothing out of the ordinary, everything is pretty relatable.
And then Jesus drops the bomb.
Verse 33 “But a Samaritian, as he travelled, came where the man was”. This is where in our context we struggle with the impacting hammer that Jesus has just laid down. Jews and Samaritians were sworn enemies. They hated each other with a passion, and could not even stand the other race. In fact at the end of the story when Jesus turns to the lawyer and ask who was the man’s neighbour, he can’t even bring himself to say the word Samaritian. Instead he says “the one who had mercy on him’. The original hearer gets smacked between the eyes, and you can almost hear the audience gasp as Jesus says the word Samaritian. In our country of NZ we do not have an equivalent racial tension that is shown here. To not even be able to mention the word of the other race depicts just how deeply this hate for each other goes.
If anyone of the 3 people that came by the beaten man that day had reason not to stop, it was the Samaritian. He was not only the sworn enemy of Jews, but he was also taking his life into his own hands. The Samaritian stopped, and bandaged his wounds put him on his own donkey and took him to help. He disregarded his own safety, his own personal welfare, and his own time schedule as he helped his fellow man.
I’d like to look back at verse 33 again though. Where Jesus states ‘and when he saw the man, he took pity on him’
Are we moved with compassion towards those in need? Is something of our heart moved when we see someone in pain or discomfort that we want to help them? I know for me that I can grow hard sometimes to what is happening around me. My compassion levels are low, my patience is thin and right at that moment I just don’t care. So my prayer has become to ask God to break my heart for what breaks his. To make me moved with compassion when I see someone in need and have the courage to do something about it.
I was talking to a young person this week who was having a bit of trouble and I was trying to encourage them and getting them to think beyond the current situation. In the course of conversation I asked ‘what are you good at?’ This young person looked at me and said “I’m good at nothing, I’m worthless and a loser”? My heart just broke, and tears welled up in my eyes. For a moment I felt that I saw this young person as God saw them. With hope, potential, a plan for their life and a future. My heart broke for them and I was moved with compassion.
Are you moved with compassion when you see someone in need?
In the book that I talked about at the start of the message called ’15 Revolution’ Ps. Paul Scanlon challenges the reader to take 15min, or even only 15sec to inconvenience themselves each day to help someone else. Sometimes I think that we are moved to make a change in our world but don’t know how. Maybe we get caught up to much in looking for the divine appointment and look for big spiritual arrows above people’s heads. Now I know this sometimes happens, which is fantastic. But in my experience this is the exception rather than the rule. Most of us don’t hear the audible voice of God telling us what to do, instead we just feel a gentle prod, and quiet tug, and a move on our conscience. Sometimes we don’t even need a prod from the Holy Spirit, but rather we just need to be nice. We just need to show an interest in peoples lives and actually care about what’s going on. I know it’s just social etiquette to say ‘good’ or ‘fine’ when someone asks how you are. But we need to take a genuine interest in others lives and just be nice to them.
- Last Sunday Steph, myself and a group of others were at the Croydon Lodge for lunch. There was about 15 of us and we hadn’t booked a table. When we turned up there were 2 other groups of about 10 each sitting down for a meal as well. There would have been about 35 people there maybe, and only 1 waitress. She did her best, and got the food out as best she could with the resource she had. It was a good time with plenty of chatting and no one was really too worried about how long the food was taking. At the end when we went to pay, I just dropped a comment saying I thought she’d done a great job under fairly difficult circumstances. We chatted for about 15 secs and then I said thank you again, she she’d done great, and carried on.
Now I would like to say that that girl is now coming to church, has given her life to Christ and is thinking about going to Bible College next year. However, that is not the case. As far as I’m aware she is still waiting tables at the Lodge and still isn’t a Christian.
But that’s ok!! We should never ever view people as something we can notch up on our evangelism belt. It took me no time to pay a quick compliment to the girl saying she was doing an awesome job. And I don’t know what impact that had on her, it may have lifted her day, or meant nothing to her. But that’s not my responsibility, that’s God’s. My job is to be the face of Christ to those who I come into contact with, God is big enough to do the rest.
- I was getting my hair cut a while back and as always before I had it cut one of the apprentice hair dresses washed it for me. I decided to engage in conversation with her and told her that I was a youth pastor at Calvin Church. Which can sometimes be a real conversation killer as nobody actually knows what to say next. They can’t relate to my job and so we have to find some other common ground to talk about. Anyway, I told this girl that I was a youth pastor and then the conversation progressed and she told me that she was 7th Day Adventist, although hadn’t been going since leaving home. We chatted about church and differences between them, and she told me about her parents and how they were kind of a big deal in the 7th Day Adventist Church. She also mentioned she didn’t really like the strict rules so much and that’s why she hadn’t been for the last couple of years. And then she finished and I think I ended the conversation with something like you should think about having a look at our church at some stage. And that was that.
Being nice to people isn’t that hard. Going out of our way and inconveniencing ourselves to help someone out isn’t that hard. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as stopping and helping someone who is hurt and beaten on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, all it could be is a genuine interest in how someone is doing. A conversation with your hairdresser about how life is at home. Talking to your neighbour about their kids at school. Telling the meter reader that they’re doing a great job or whoever you run into during the day. Even just having a conversation with someone with a genuine desire to find out how they are doing. A complement to someone can be as powerful as the most selfless act of kindness.
When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samartian, I think that the teacher of the law and all the people who were listening got the point. Jesus flipped the script on what the teacher of the law asked and challenged the listener in the original context, and challenged us today, that everyone is our neighbour.
Play You Tube Video straight away – Tears of the Saints LIFENZ01
If we don’t do something, then who will? IF we don’t stop and help, then who will? If we’re not moved with compassion and move, then who will. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, we are the hope of the world. We are the answer to our hurting community.
My intention is not to make you feel guilty, or that you become a doormat for people’s problems. That is not what God wants. He wants us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. He wants us to be moved with compassion by our neighbours problems as we would our own.
My challenge to you this week, is to just one time be inconvenienced by someone for 15mins.
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