A Sermon from First Church, Scarborough… 

A sermon offered by the Rev. Ian F. “Jack” Steeves in the public worship of the First Congregational Church of Scarborough, Maine on Sunday, July15, 2007.  The principal reading was Luke 10:25-37. 

“The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper.

‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ (Luke 10:35).” 

“When the Man was put together, the World was right, too.” 

One summer evening, a small, five-year-old kept interrupting her tired father as he struggled to read the newspaper.  In an attempt to divert her attention, he took from the newspaper a map of the world, hastily tore the map into small pieces, mixed them up, gave her the pieces, and asked her to see how quickly she could put the world back together again. 

Minutes later, she was back, her face glowing and the map complete.  Her father asked the obvious question, “How did you finish so quickly?”  “Oh, Daddy, it was very easy.  I turned all the pieces over and found a man’s picture on the back.  I put the man back together, and when the man was put together the world was right, too.” 

“…the world was right, too.”  That is what the parable of the Good Samaritan is all about.  By reaching out to our neighbor in need, by being a neighbor to our neighbor, we heal the world.  You need not look far for your neighbor, says Jesus, because the world is not distant.  It is at the end of our fingertips. 

Let us go one step further.  If you have ever looked away, passed on by or averted your attention and energies from another human being in need, today’s gospel calls to you, as it does to me.  The key questions around this scripture have been read to us: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life, and who is my neighbor?” 

One can find eternal life even if one has not explicitly known or called upon God, but no person finds salvation and God who has not explicitly and purposefully loved a neighbor in both word and deed.  And whoever is of the opinion that he or she can know God expressly in their thoughts and feelings but has not loved their neighbor, they know little or nothing in a saving way of God and how to be related to God.  (This thought is paraphrased from the writings of the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner.) 

The question the parable poses is: will we get involved with our neighbor?  Our neighbor is already here, a point made very clear by the late Martin Luther King, Jr., in a Christmas sermon.  King asked: 

      “Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning (or anywhere else) without being dependent on most of the world?”  King went on to ask who made your alarm clock, who made the bar of soap with which you washed your face?  Who provided the beans for your cup of coffee, or picked the leaves for your tea?  Who raised, who harvested, who ground the grain for your toast, and who baked the loaf of bread?  “And before your finish your breakfast,” King concluded, “you’ve depended on more than half of the world.” 

It easy for us to miss or ignore or deny Jesus’ basic teaching: making the world right by putting individuals back together – within themselves, alongside each other, and more closely with God. 

The Good Samaritan had been on a personal journey long before his dangerous trip from Jerusalem down to Jericho.  His journey began as an inner trip that took him into the topography of his own soul.  It was a spiritual journey in which he explored his own neediness, his own brokenness, his defeats, his anger at persecution and assaults on his own person for just being a Samaritan. 

He may not have been ethnically a Samaritan at all.  The word “Samaritan” was sometimes used to describe a person who was a heretic and a breaker of the ceremonial law.  Perhaps he was a “Samaritan” in the sense of being one with whom all orthodox, good people would customarily avoid contact.  In John’s Gospel (8:48), Jesus himself is called a “Samaritan.”  Let us also recall that the word “Christian” was first used not as a friendly and polite designation but as a slur and epithet.   

The Samaritan is moved to compassion not only in seeing himself by the side of the road, but also in knowing the value there is in every person.  In such acceptance, Jesus said salvation comes to us. 

Whatever we do, good or evil, we do because we think it is good (at the very least, good for us personally).  To do evil, we must first convince ourselves it is good and necessary for us to so do.  The Priest and the Levite thought it was a good for them not to help the robbers’ victim.  Jesus doesn’t tell us their motivation, but the reasons were convincing for them.  The man looked dead, probably was dead, or soon would be dead, and touching a corpse brought religious contamination.   

The scribe’s question about “neighbor” is genuine.  The ancient scribes would quote Leviticus (19:18), which bids a person love his neighbor as himself; but with their characteristic penchant for definition  they sought to define who a “neighbor” was; and at their worst and their narrowest they confined the word to include only their fellow Jews. 

By not serving the victim, the priest and the Levite preserved their individual purity and thought they were serving God.  And they were terribly, terribly wrong because “when the man was put together,” and only then, “the world was right, too!” 

The beauty of the parable is its simplicity.  Even the scribe, however reluctant to utter the word, “Samaritan,” had to acknowledge the obvious point of the story.  Neighbors don’t come to us; we go out to them.  How important is our choice of the word that we give to our times of fellowship, times of “neighboring.”  “To neighbor,” is a verb.  We neighbor each other in Jesus’ name. 

This parable is a rejection of rules that hinder mercy.  It is a rejection of the hair-splitting that often infects daily religion.  It is a criticism of church-going, obedience and prudence (which are all normally virtues) when these practices are substitutes for courage and action.  It raises many questions about current confusion of values and priorities, and about the pressure to conform in church and society.  It is a story of what one person’s freedom and courage can do through the grace of God. 

We must help any person in need.  Any person of any nation, race or creed who is in need is our neighbor.  Our help must be practical and not consist merely in feeling sorry for the needy.  The priest and the Levite may have felt a pang of pity for the wounded man, but they did nothing.  Compassion, to be real, always issues in deeds.  What our Lord said to the scribe, he reiterates to us, “Go and do likewise!”