Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – Luke 10:25-37

So, a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan walk into a bar. Ouch!

Is there a better-known parable than the Good Samaritan? Even folks who have never read the bible seem to know what it means to be a good Samaritan. We’ve got laws named for him. Sometimes when you’re driving on 465, you might see a CVS/Samaritan van pulled over to help out a stranded motorist. But why is this story so popular? Maybe it’s because it sounds like a simple lesson about being a good neighbor. You don’t have to be Christian to know that’s a good idea. But what if there’s more to the story? What if Jesus is talking about something a lot more controversial than just being helpful people? I mean, Mister Rogers was always telling us to help others and no one tried to crucify him, so let’s dig a little deeper into what Jesus is saying.

Consider the priest and the Levite – they’re the bad guys, right? They see the poor guy suffering in a ditch and ignore him, like some kind of criminal negligence. But to be clear, this guy laying in the ditch isn’t just beat up – he’s half-dead. He may not survive. In fact, Jesus doesn’t actually tell us whether he pulls through in the end. Which is major, but don’t jump to conclusions yet. Point being, this isn’t like a couple of jerks ignoring someone stranded on the side of the road. He’s almost dead and these guys aren’t doctors – what are they going to do? Give last rites? Let’s be sympathetic – maybe they don’t know what to do. What if they make it worse? What if they think he’s already dead? We don’t know. What would we do? Except, Jesus makes a point that this is a priest and a Levite. Holy men. You bet they know God’s commandments inside and out. They know God’s call to care for the afflicted, but they don’t, and Jesus doesn’t tell us why. Which doesn’t stop us from judging even though we don’t have all the facts.

But wait a minute – what about the robbers? Aren’t they the real problem? But Jesus doesn’t say much about them. They’re anonymous. Why? Well, Jesus doesn’t have to, because it’s the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It’s got a reputation – “The Way of Blood.” This road was rife with bandits, like a sea of pirates. It’s infamous. Yet at the same time, Jericho’s like a suburb of Jerusalem, and folks walked it every day to work in Jerusalem, including more than a few priests and Levites. So think about it. Obviously not everyone gets attacked. So maybe there’s a right way and a wrong way to take the road, and this guy just made a bad choice. Alone. Nighttime. We don’t know, but it’s not hard to imagine. We hear about dangerous Indy neighborhoods all the time. But don’t we get a little too used to this kind of evil? I confess – I do, every time I read about another black body killed by police and I don’t react. So many bodies. But do we question the police, or do we just wonder what someone did to get killed? Of course we’re talking about robbers here, not police, but it’s still strange when we blame the victim and when we don’t. But either way, someone’s still dying in a ditch.

Now, we’re kind of spiraling downward fast, but there’s a clear hero – the Samaritan. Let’s consider him. He comes out of nowhere, he finds the dying man, he tends to him anyway. It’s incredible! Puts him on his own animal and takes him to an inn. Kind of a savior, right? We want to be just like him – wouldn’t the folks hearing this story want to be too? The lawyer and his friends? Nope. Because they hate Samaritans and Jesus knows it. See, the Samaritans are all descended from intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles. Half-breeds. To the folks listening to Jesus’ story, this makes them something less than human. And what always happens when you start de-humanizing folks? Violence. And so much ethnic violence between Jews and Samaritans at this time. Of course, we’re way beyond how it started in the first place, because it’s generational by now, and besides, you reap what you sow. But the lawyer and his buddies don’t think about their part in it. They only know that Samaritans are worthless, violent thugs. Doesn’t everybody know that’s just how they are? They can’t even get their own act together, let alone help anyone else. Did you notice – when Jesus asks the lawyer who was a neighbor to the man, he can’t even bring himself to utter the word “Samaritan”. “The one who showed him mercy.” How much do you think he resents Jesus right now? Or is it just stunned disbelief?

But the thing is, Jesus knew. He knew exactly what the lawyer was up to. He asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life, but that’s not a real question. He wanted to test Jesus, and that doesn’t mean a quiz. Everyone knew just how well Jesus knows the law. No, the point was to entrap Jesus, to set him up to say something scandalous like he always does. And Jesus gives them the most repulsive answer possible. Sure, he tells about robbers, a priest, a Levite, an innkeeper, but they’re just doing what you expect them all to do. But it’s obscene that the enemy Samaritan is the only one who obeys God’s law. And if you can’t be the Samaritan, who’s left? The dying man in the ditch. And that’s what Jesus is really telling them – you fail to love your neighbor because you don’t see your neighbor, and that makes you as good as dead. It’s not about what you did or didn’t do – it’s about the blindness that’s embedded in your heart. And the thing with blindness is that it’s something that happens to you, and you can’t remove your own blindness. Can you see – it’s not just the breakdown in society destroying us by sowing violence and death. It’s not just that we see the stranger as nothing but a threat. It’s the way we become desensitized to it all. It’s blindness, and it’s our new normal. And it’s killing God’s children, who we don’t always recognize as God’s children. Jesus says – Love your neighbor as yourself, and you will live. But if we can’t even see our neighbor, let alone love them, then what’s left for us?

But Jesus doesn’t take us to the edge of the abyss to let us go. No, he loves us too much for that. That’s why he engages the lawyer. They don’t see it, but he tells them and us this good news anyway. Even from this Samaritan who you hate, the least likely person in the world, God will have God’s way. And what does God want more than anything? To reward us for good works? No, because God knows the road to hell is paved with good intentions. No, what God wants to do most of all is to rescue dying people from ditches. Dying people like the lawyer and his friends. Dying people like you and me. God always hears the cries of the afflicted, and God does not stand still. But, it’s not by teaching us how to be better people. We mess that up all the time, and don’t you think God knows that? No, it’s because we’re so blind that we can’t see the ditch we’re in. So God sends the most unlikely folks to pull us out. Even when we don’t know how to ask, even when our prayers dry up, even when we feel so forsaken and alone. God still shows up.

After all, this is the God who creates everything out of nothing with a Word. The God who turns death into life. The God who always does what we can’t. If you want to know what that looks like, look at Jesus, God’s only son, who was crucified on the cross, died, and was buried. And after three days, risen from death, resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit. By the waters of our baptism, he binds us to his death so that we might rise with him. All because none of us are beyond the reach of God. That’s why the guy in the ditch had to be half-dead, because that’s as helpless as you can get. But it’s not hopeless. None of us are hopeless, and we have to hear this, over and over, because we forget. Jesus knows this – he always has good news for the lawyer who just wants to set him up. His good news will prevail – the in-breaking kingdom of God can’t be stopped. That’s why it had to be a Samaritan binding the wounds of the dying man, because only by the power of God would this even happen in the first place.

To be sure, God knows this racial and ethnic violence doing its damnedest to destroy us. By the power of the Spirit, God removes our blindness, to behold the lies of our preconceptions. Not to convict us, but so that we might finally recognize everyone as God’s beloved children. So we can’t help but speak out, even when we never said a word before. The Spirit will fill our mouths with words that we don’t expect. To speak on behalf of victims of violence, to be present for families and communities torn apart by hatred. To reach out to those who perpetuate this suffering. We have hope and confidence that the Spirit will flow through us to soften their hearts, because the Spirit has softened ours. People will listen, especially because they know that we have failed and wounded others, because we are all Samaritans. We are the least likely people for God to use to redeem the world. But this is exactly how God in Christ wants to save us all. Thank God for that! Amen.