This morning I want us to begin by playing a game that we will call, “Name That Neighbor.” Here’s how it works. I’m going to show you a picture of a well-known INDIVIDUAL and I want you to call out the name of their well-known NEIGHBOR. Here we go:
- Mr. Wilson—Dennis the Menace
- George Jefferson—Archie Bunker
- Fred & Ethyl Mertz—Ricky and Lucy Ricardo
- Wilson the volleyball—Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks)
- Wilson—Tim the Toolman Taylor
- Mary Tyler Moore—Rhoda
- Ray Barone—his mom
- King, Owl, Mailman—MR. ROGERS
Okay—how did you do? How did your “Name that Neighbor I.Q. turn out?” Anyone score a 100%?
We are continuing our study of stories that have changed the world—and of course I’m referring to the parables of Jesus. I decided to play this game because the parable we are looking at today has a great deal to say about neighbors. In fact, you could rightly say that this parable can—and should—radically change the way most of us understand what it means to be a neighbor. My prayer is that after our study each of us will have a much higher “name that neighbor I.Q.!” Take your Bibles and turn to the 10th chapter of Luke’s gospel and let’s read this familiar story together. It is recorded in verses 25-37.
25 – On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 – “What is written in the law?” He replied. “How do you read it?”
27 – He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 – “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 – But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 – In reply Jesus said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
31 – A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
32 – So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 – But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
34 – He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.
35 – 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.’
36 – “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 – The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Okay—Let’s begin our study by taking a closer look at the CONTEXT of this particular world-changing story. Verse 25 says that the Lord’s interrogator that day was an “expert in the law” and this would of course refer to JEWISH law and not ROMAN law. In other words, this man was a THEOLOGIAN not an ATTORNEY. I also want you to note that the QUESTION he asked that day was a great question but his MOTIVATION in asking it was not so great. Let’s just say that his was not the inquiry of a SINCERE SEEKER but rather that of an ADVERSARY inspecting our Lord. I mean, he didn’t want to find an ANSWER to his question as much as he wanted to find FAULT with Jesus—and he wasn’t alone in this quest. No, as I reminded you last week, he represented most of the members of the current religious establishment—theologians who were troubled by the growing popularity of Jesus—and they were troubled because they considered Him an unorthodox and unapproved Teacher.
Now, look closely at this theologian’s question. In verse 25 he asked, “What must I DO to INHERIT eternal life?” Please note that Jesus didn’t quibble by pointing out the contradiction in this inquiry. I mean, you and I know that we can’t DO anything to INHERIT a gift and eternal life IS God’s gift. No…INHERITANCE is based on RELATIONSHIP not ACHIEVEMENT. We should also note that Jesus didn’t ANSWER his question. Instead He deflected the man’s by asking him what the Jewish law had to say on this issue. With this tactic, our Lord reversed roles such that the questioned became the questioner. But this strategy didn’t trip this guy up. He provided a brilliant answer to Jesus’ question. First he quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and said,“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” And he combined this with Leviticus 19:18, where it says: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
As I said, this was a great answer—and it should be because it is the same answer Jesus had given His critics in Matthew 22. The linking of these two Old Testament verses is not found previously in the rabbinic tradition, so I think there is a good chance that the theologian may have been simply repeating what he had heard Jesus say. In any case, combining these two Old Testament texts should remind us that genuine biblical faith isn’t RITUAL, but rather it is a heart RELATIONSHIP with God—a relationship that shapes every facet of life. Our relationship with God is inseparable from our relationships to the people in our lives. We can’t be in a love relationship with God and not act in love toward other people. As 1 John 3:17 says,“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” Love for people is an overflow of our love for God. So when we don’t have enough love for those around us in need—well, this is an indication of an even greater lack. Martin Luther once said,“Faith alone justifies, yet faith is never alone. It is never without love; if love is lacking, neither is there faith, but mere hypocrisy.”
Well, Jesus gave this theologian an “A+” on his answer. In verse 28 He in essence said, “You’ve been paying attention in class! You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.” Now, please note. Jesus was not saying that it was possible for this guy could get eternal life by obeying the law. No—Our Lord was simply reminding the man what the law SAYS. And the Jewish law said that people were required not only to KEEP the law, but also keep it PERFECTLY without omissions or failures. To be perfectly justified under the law one must BE perfect. Perhaps this is why Jesus’ response didn’t satisfy this man. He wanted the law to be cut down to manageable size. What he wanted was a list of RULES that people could keep. Instead Jesus described this RELATIONSHIP to God that shapes our day-to-day lives.
Perhaps in the hopes of GETTING a list of rules, the man probed FURTHER and asked, “Who is my neighbor?” In ASKING this question this O.T. lawyer was doing what most lawyers do so well. He was looking for a loophole in the law. He was saying, “Do I have to love EVERYONE? If there is a neighbor that I must love, is there also a non-neighbor I do not need to love? Where should I draw the line Jesus?” This man apparently thought he could put up fences limiting his neighborliness. And his fellow rabbis had already spent a great deal of time exploring this very issue. I say this because, since Leviticus 19:18 uses the term “neighbor” as a synonym for “brother” or “people,” many rabbis taught that one’s neighbor was really only a fellow Israelite. And, most Jews followed suit. They never considered that anyone could be a neighbor BUT another Jew. In fact, they thought of the 10 Commandments in this way:
- Thou shalt not steal (from a Jew)
- Thou shalt not kill (a Jew)
- Thou shalt not bear false witness (to a Jew), etc.
They had even re-written part of the Sabbath law to say that if a wall should fall on someone on the Sabbath, enough rubble could be cleared away to see if the injured man was a Jew or Gentile. If he were a Jew, he could be rescued—if a Gentile—he must be left there to suffer until the next day. The Pharisees went so far as to exclude any non-PHARISEES from their definition of “neighbor.” And in Matthew 5:43 when Jesus said, “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy…” Jesus was referring to the current philosophy that personal enemies—even other Jews—were also excluded from the circle of “people I should think of as my neighbor.” So that day this budding young theologian raised a familiar issue out of current debate. Perhaps he brought this up to show that he was “up”on all the current denominational issues.
And you know, its easy to be critical of his attitude, but it is far more common even today than we care to admit. I mean, you and I are very good at limiting our neighborliness. We ride on crowded metro cars every day and never make eye-contact with the people around us. We can live next door to people and they are like strangers to us because we rarely involve ourselves in their lives. We never make it our business to know about their needs. I mean, if we were honest with ourselves this morning we would have to admit that just like this man in the parable, we tend to pick and choose with whom we will be “neighborly.” Again and again we put our own needs and lives first. In our busy-ness we all struggle from time to time with what has been called the “disease of me.” Like this ancient theologian, we wonder, “Certainly there are limits to my love. I mean how far does my responsibility go? Who is my neighbor? Who don’t’ I have to love?”
In answer to this question, Jesus told this world-changing story about a man beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the ROAD that winds down from Jerusalem to Jericho. This road is 17 miles long and plunges 3300 feet. Here’s a few pictures of the Jericho road. It was referred to as “the way of blood” no doubt because of the vast amount of blood that had been shed there by robbers over the years. I mean, it was a notoriously dangerous highway. As you can see, it traversed rugged, barren, lonely terrain with lots of bends in the road….perfect for robbers to hide and attack their prey. Well, the audience would have known all this. In fact there’s a good chance that Jesus was standing on or near this road as He told this story since He was on the way to Bethany to visit Mary and Martha and that is the same path one would have to take. So it was kind of like telling a scary story in a scary place…like putting a big movie screen up on the beach and showing the movie JAWS to people floating on inner tubes in the ocean. I can imagine someone saying , “Hey, Jesus, don’t you have another story? I mean, it’s bad enough to BE here; don’t REMIND us of the danger!” I remember traveling this same road a few years ago myself when I was in the Holy Land and it is still a haunting path. As our bus pulled out of Jericho onto this road, heading literally UP to Jerusalem, we came across several burned out cars and places where their had obviously been gunfire. At this point all talk on our bus ceased and the only child in our group, little Megan Ward, began to cry and we could all sympathize with her. It was and still is NOT a road you travel alone.
Somewhere on this nefarious highway a Jewish traveler, foolish enough to do so, was set upon by a band of robbers. He was not only robbed but brutalized and left bloody, naked, and dying. Along the road came a PRIEST. In that day priests served in the temple on a rotational basis. Most of them lived outside of Jerusalem, and many lived in Jericho. In fact Jericho had become a priestly CITY where priests and other temple personnel resided when they weren’t fulfilling their duty in the temple in Jerusalem. Perhaps priests and Levites had immunity from attack due to some superstition surrounding their calling—because they constantly traveled up and down this road.
The fact that this PRIEST was “going down” indicates that he was moving AWAY from Jerusalem. He had probably just been involved in some form of temple service. But suddenly he encountered this fellow Jew lying in a pool of blood, his life ebbing away. And…his reaction was instinctive. Carefully circling the situation as you would a cowpie, verse 31 says he “…passed by on the other side.” The Lord doesn’t tell us why he did this. But it’s easy to IMAGINE what was going on. He was after all, a priest. And, according to Leviticus 21:1-4, contact with a dead body would be ceremonially contaminating and this victim was at least NEAR death. The priest has ALREADY been away from home for a period of time pulling his shift in the temple and the ritual of cleansing after touching a dead body was costly and time consuming. So, at the very least, involvement with this half-dead man would require a return to Jerusalem and the interruption of his plans. And we can understand the entanglement that involvement with “needy people” causes. Helping other people can force us to face difficult…even dangerous…situations. We may not feel good about choosing the other side of the road, but we do feel a lot safer. Besides, others are usually better qualified at this kind of thing. Perhaps this priest thought that—maybe he told himself, “I’m a priest not a paramedic.”
Okay—do you remember who came next? It was ANOTHER religious figure—a Levite—and Levites had important roles in the service of the temple although they did not serve at the altar. We don’t know why but, his response duplicated that of the priest. Perhaps he feared for his own safety (the robbers might still be in the vicinity), or maybe he too was afraid of being defiled—but understand, he didn’t stop and help because he couldn’t afford to. Due to the position that religious leaders like priests and Levites held in the nation, they both would have been men of above-average wealth and would have had the financial means to help.
Please don’t make the mistake of thinking these two were bad men. They were not necessarily bad. They were just busy. They were too busy working FOR God to care LIKE God. For them and too often, for us, people in need are problems, interruptions, nuisances. They intrude on our privacy. They pull us from our duty and distract us from our responsibility. They keep us from our pleasures. We agree that they need help and we hope that someone does help them but not us…not now…not here.
Well, by this time, the Lord’s audience was no doubt caught up in the hearing of His parable. Like us, they love it when the clergy turn out to be the bad guys—which is why the sinful actions of TV pastors like Jim Bakker and Ted Haggard get so much press. And Jesus’ listeners could probably already guess who would be the hero of this story. No doubt it would be a “layman”— an ordinary citizen — one of them. They could never have expected the twist the tale took in verse 33 when Jesus said, “…but a Samaritan…” Please understand—when Jesus used these words He touched a raw nerve and put electricity in the air—for the Samaritans were a mixed-race. They were the descendants of people from other nations imported to Israel during the exile who intermarried with the local Jewish population. As such the Samaritans enjoyed the lowest rung on the Jewish social ladder of the day. They were hated by the Jews of “pure” blood. You and I call this the story of the “good Samaritan.” But to the first century Jew there was no such thing. This was as unthinkable as a good member of HAMAS would be to an Israeli citizen today. These two words that have become a cliche for us—well, the words “good” and “Samaritan” would never have been used together back then. In fact, we can see this prejudice in the lawyer’s RESPONSE when Jesus finished His story and asked him who was a neighbor to the injured man. The lawyer could not even bring himself to say “the Samaritan.” He simply said, “…the one who showed mercy on him.” I mean, with the introduction of a Samaritan, Jesus deliberately and carefully shocked His audience, because in His story the unlikely hero did not pass by the wounded Jew…even though the pillars of Jewish religious society did.
The question Jesus asked the theologian at the end of His story required him to put together two impossible and contradictory words in that culture, “Samaritan” and “neighbor.” You see, in Jesus’ parable it was not the Samaritan’s NATIONALITY that set him apart. It was his COMPASSION. The Samartian didn’t SEE anything the other two didn’t, but he FELT something they didn’t. As verse 33 says, “He took pity” on the man lying in the ditch. All of the normal hostility between Jew and Samaritan was swept away as he allowed what he saw to affect his emotions. But it was not just a feeling. The Samaritan allowed his feelings to lead to action. He bandaged the man’s wounds—probably tearing up his own garments for this purpose. He poured on wine to cleanse his wounds and oil to soothe the pain. Both of these elements were highly prized and expensive remedies in this day. Then he placed the man on his own donkey and led the animal down the hot, dusty road to an inn which meant the Samaritan would have to walk. And we should note that this was also an act of great COURAGE. After all, this was Jewish territory and a Samaritan transporting the Jewish victim of a mugging would be subject to all kinds of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. It would be like an American Indian riding into Dodge City in the late 1800’s with a scalped cowboy draped over his horse, saying, “I found this guy on the road. I’ve tried to help him. Where’s the doc?”
Once they got to the inn, the Samaritan continued to look after the man. Understand—this victim was a total stranger—a man of another race and religion…stripped and penniless. Yet the Samaritan’s compassion led him to assume responsibility for his future needs. In vs 35 He told the innkeeper, “When I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you have.” He said this was with no plausible reason to believe there was any hope of recovering his expenditures. He was freely expressing undeserved and unexpected love to a person in need. This should remind us that GENUINE neighborly love means interrupting our schedule, putting aside our “to-do lists,” expending our money, ruining our property—even for a stranger. It should teach us that Godly love is the compassion that FEELS, the care that INVOLVES, the commitment that ENDURES.
What OTHER lessons can we learn from this story that will help us to better understand how a Christian should respond to the needs of the people around us? I can think of two.
(1) First I think this parable shows that Christians like you and me must learn not to be AFRAID to help people.
You see, as I said earlier, in life often we “pass by on the other side” when we encounter people who obviously need our help…and we do this because we are afraid that their needs will be greater than our resources. We know that being a neighbor is costly. Our experience has taught us that there is risk involved. We think we don’t have the time. We don’t have the money. We fear that meeting the needs of others will make us needy ourselves. And it very well might do that. I mean, we often talk sentimentally or idealistically about compassion—but getting close to those who are hurting almost always costs us money or other resources. Working with other people’s wounds invariably gets very messy. Investing in the lives of hurting people will take us off our normal schedule. “Crossing over to their side of the road” will inconvenience us and subject us to entanglements that can go on for a long time. In other words, crossing over requires denying that very self which we’ve often protected and maintained. Crossing over requires dying to self. It means walking as Jesus walked.
As you know, we almost always take our summer vacation on the beach of Ocean Isle, North Carolina. Over the years we’ve noted that when we walk to and from the beach and the pool every day there is almost no interaction between vacationers. Oh there are plenty of polite waves and even a few “Hellos” but no one gets any deeper in conversation than that. I mean no one gives their name or invites others to share a meal. And this is because of this instinctive knowledge that doing so can be costly and when we are on vacation we tend to be especially selfish. We don’t want to interact. We want to concentrate on ourselves, OUR rest, OUR recreation. Well, this is somewhat understandable on vacation but the problem is many Christians live that way all year long. We NEVER get involved in meeting the needs of others.
We “pass by on the other side” because we fear that if we stop it will cost us more than we can afford to pay.
In Langdon Gilkey’s book, SHANTUNG COMPOUND, he shares his reflections on what it was like to be in a Japanese internment camp for three years during WWII. Gilkey was attending a preparatory school in China during those years and, after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese placed all Allied citizens in the region in these camps. Gilkey was sent to a former Presbyterian mission in the coastal province of Shantung where the living space was cramped, the food supply unpredictable, and the future uncertain. He was astonished that the pervading fear and insecurity which haunted some 1,500 American, Canadian, British, and European citizens, most of them highly educated and socially sensitive, this fear could turn even Christian missionaries into raging survivalists. When it was a matter of their own welfare or that of their children, even they lost all concern for the COMMON good.
A dramatic example occurred when the American Red Cross succeeded in sending 2100 food parcels into the compound. The Japanese guards decreed that each prisoner would receive one parcel, and because the shipment had come from their country, the Americans could share the remainder, which meant the Americans would have 600 extra food parcels to share—three parcels each. Well, when this decision was announced, the Americans caucused and formally protested. They proposed that since the parcels came from the AMERICAN Red Cross, each of the 300 Americans should receive seven packets and the remaining 1200 prisoners should receive none! This taught Gilkey that in life there are two extremes—LOVE and FEAR—and each has the power to negate the other. 1 John 4:18 says, “Perfect love has the power to cast out fear…” but Gilkey saw that the reverse is also true. Fear has the power to cast out love. And he was right, for we can become so afraid of our own needs not being met that we walk by others who have needs.
As Christians, we must mature to the point that we realize that we can trust GOD to meet our needs, even as we expend our own resources to meet the needs of others. We must learn to trust in the promise of Jesus in Matthew 6:8 when He said, “…your Father [in heaven] knows what you need before you ask Him.” And as Paul wrote in Philippians God will, “…meet our needs according to His riches in glory.” The dynamic that led the Christians in the early church “to hold all things in common” (Acts 4:32, 34-35) undoubtedly resulted from the security that they came to feel in God’s care.
So, one thing this parable can teach us is that we will be more likely to reach out to the needy people around us if we learn to trust in the provision of God. We don’t need to be AFRAID to minister to a neighbor God puts in our path.
(2) And then, a second thing this parable can teach us is that as Christians we must learn to see each and every person in NEED as our NEIGHBOR.
As I inferred earlier, the word “neighbor” has lost much of its meaning these days. Usually we don’t even know the people who live next door to us. We tend to spend our precious time with people we enjoy and end up defining a “neighbor” as someone whose company benefits us in some way. But Jesus’ parable overhauls this philosophy. It literally changes our view of the world because it teaches that our neighbor is someone we see who has needs, not someone who offers us something. In fact, I think the main reason Jesus told this story was to point out that as Christians—as His followers—we are automatically neighbors to the whole human race. It doesn’t matter whether we know the person, or whether his race or lifestyle is like our own. It doesn’t even matter whether the person appeals to us or repulses us…if they like us or hate us. If someone inhabits this planet and has a need, he or she is automatically our neighbor.
In his book, Opening Blind Eyes, John Claypool defines MORALITY in this way, “The fewer persons you are concerned about as you consider what to do with your life, the less moral an action is; the more people you take into consideration as you consider the impact of your action, the more moral it becomes.” And, we see this principle in this parable. The thieves who robbed the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho represent one end of the continuum. They cared only for themselves and used their power without regard for the harm it did others. At the other end of the continuum is God Himself, Who is described in John 3:16 as loving the WHOLE WORLD so much “…that He gave His only Son.” God takes the whole of creation into account in the exercise of power. And in this parable Jesus is teaching that the goal of each of His disciples should be to love the WHOLE WORLD in this same Godly way. This is the MIND SET we must embrace. God became inextricably involved in meeting the needs of all mankind and He calls us to follow His example. He wants us to feel the pain of ALL those around us as if it were our own.
In his book on the parables, Gerald Kennedy writes, “When I was in Liberia I talked with a man about that country’s head, President Tubman. The President has wielded power for a long time and I inquired as to the secret of his influence. ‘They have a saying here,’ my friend reported, ‘that if a little boy out in the bush stubs his toe, President Tubman says “Ouch.”’ Well….It is this quality that the world needs to see in all Christians.”
So, the question this parable should initiate in us is not “Who is my neighbor?” but rather, “Whose neighbor am I?” Our need is not to DEFINE neighbor but to BECOME the kind of people who cannot pass by on the other side. I know this sounds overwhelming. After all you and I cannot possibly help EVERY SINGLE needy person in the world. What we need to do is be ready and willing to help the needy people God places in our path. I think this is what Ephesians 2:10 is getting at when it says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God has custom-designed us to meet the needs of the hurting people we encounter. He has prepared in advance for us to help them. With that in mind, when we see a “neighbor” in need we should trust our Creator and reach out to help them.
I’m reminded of the story of Cameron Hollopeter. Two years ago Cameron made his way down the steps into a New York City subway station to wait for the train. All of a sudden, something went horribly wrong in his brain, sending him into a violent seizure. He fell to the ground, got back up, and began stumbling along the edge of the subway platform…and then tumbled down into the railway bed, right as the rumbling of an approaching train began to shake the station. No one managed to capture the moment on video, but we know how the people in the subway probably reacted. Some turned away, eyes clenched against the horror of what was happening. Other commuters stood frozen in a sense of utter helplessness. Others were in such a hurry to get to where they needed to go, that they missed the moment altogether. In mere seconds, a young man with dreams of becoming a Hollywood producer would meet an unthinkably violent end, and no one could stop it. No one WOULD stop it—except for the one man who did. A 50-year-old construction worker named Wesley Autrey did the unthinkable. This middle-aged black man from Harlem who had little in common with a white Harvard student, chose to do what no one else at that scene elected to do: he chose to cross over. Autrey strode across that subway platform, jumped down into the ditch, and covered Hollopeter’s bloodied, writhing body with his own. He held Hollopeter against the ground while the subway train thundered over them. Perhaps due to his construction experience he knew there was a 2 foot clearance under the train as we can see in this diagram. Later, when interviewed about the incident, Autrey said that when he saw the headlights of the No. 1 train appear, he knew he had to make a split decision. He said, “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help.” The fact that Hollopeter was in need made him Autrey’s neighbor.
You know, the words to the old hymn text are absolutely correct when they say, “Out on the highways and byways of life MANY are weary and sad…” In other words, as Autrey’s experience shows you can’t go about your life without encountering hurting, needy people. And when you see them you must learn to do as the hymn text says. You must, “…give as was given to you in your need…love AS THE MASTER LOVED YOU…Be to the helpless a helper indeed…unto your mission be true!” This IS indeed the way God has loved us for just like that foolish traveler on the road to Jericho, you and I travel down a road of sorts, the road of life. The journey we make from birth to death is a road of great peril. In fact we can’t make this journey without being attacked from time to time by thieves. Any one who has traveled this road knows these thieves well. Their names are: despair, loneliness, fear, lust, anger, defeat. Whatever the name, they are part of the kingdom of sin. They spring upon us when we are least ready and eventually they beat us and leave us half dead and their attack is such that, unless help comes, we surely will die. But, the wonderful news is that Someone has come to our aid! He has helped us when we were unable to help ourselves. Like the Samaritan in this parable, our Rescuer was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, and well-acquainted with grief yet He saw our need and has made it His own. He did not pass by. Even now He stops and offers to bind our wounds and pay the debt that we cannot.
This morning if you have never met the REAL Good Samaritan. You can right now. Jesus stands ready and waiting. All you need to do is invite Him into your heart and life. I encourage you to do so because it would be foolish to travel on the road of life any farther alone.
Let us Pray