Our Sunday worship service on July 14 included sending off the youth mission trip group for our trip to Houston. This week’s sermon focuses on the familiar story of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37. Although I ended up going a different direction than he did, this column from David Lose was helpful.
How many of you, before you came to church today, had heard of the “Good Samaritan”? It’s one of the most famous parables in the Bible. And as I’ve been thinking about it, I don’t get it. This good Samaritan might be the most famous example for how Christians ought to act, and I don’t see what’s so great about this guy.
Really, what he does is basic human decency. I hope every single one of you would do what he does. If you see a beaten up guy lying on the ground, I hope all of us would have the decency to stop and check on him, or at least call 911 and report there’s a guy having what’s clearly a medical emergency.
In fact, our society expects this enough to we have laws protecting people who stop to help others. We even call them “Good Samaritan laws.” So why is this story so exceptional?
I think it’s because so often, people fail to help. Good people (good religious people!) whom we would expect to stop and help like the priest and the Levite in the story really do just walk by on the other side of the road.
In 1973, two behavioral scientists from Princeton University wondered why sometimes people don’t do what we all agree is the basic human response. They set up a study with seminary students from Princeton Theological Seminary – people who were studying to be pastors. Generally, that’s a group of people who put a high value on helping others.
The students were told to prepare a sermon about the Good Samaritan story, then to walk to a different building to deliver their sermon. A third of them were told they were ahead of schedule and had plenty of time to make it over to the building and preach their sermon, another third were told they were on-time but needed to go right away, and the last group were told they were running late and needed to hurry.
To get to the other building, each seminarian had to walk down a narrow alley, where there was a stranger laying on the ground looking like he was in need of help. Remember, they’d all literally just prepared a sermon on the Good Samaritan.
In the first group, the ones who were told they were early, 63% stopped to help the stranger. In the “on-time” group, it was 45%. And in the group who were told to hurry, only 1 in 10 stopped to help.
I guarantee within the next week, every one of you will encounter someone in need. Hopefully it’s not as dramatic as someone beat up and lying on the side of the road, but I’m sure you’ll have some opportunity to help someone. Maybe it’ll be someone in need of physical help, or maybe just a conversation, or someone to listen. There’s lots of ways of loving neighbors.
And if you’re like me, it’s pretty safe to say you’ll miss some opportunities. This morning/evening, I want you to think about what might stop you from being a neighbor to that person.
That study from Princeton says being in a rush is a huge factor. Often, of course, we’re in a hurry because we’re on our way to something worthwhile.
In a sermon he preached on this parable, Martin Luther King Jr. speculated perhaps the Levite who passed by was on his way to conduct a study of crime in the region of Jericho, and the priest was on his way to Jerusalem for a meeting of the National Committee for the Improvement of Public Highways.
I know time pressure is a big one for me. I’ve had times when I’m trying to get somewhere and don’t want to stop and talk, so I’ve walked more briskly and tried to look focused when I go past people. I know I’ve walked by garbage on the sidewalk and not picked it up because I’m in a hurry.
What can you do this week to slow down and notice when people are in need? And then when you notice, to actually take the time to help them?
What else might stop us from being good neighbors?
Too often, it’s that the person in need is different than us. Sometimes, it’s judging someone based on assumptions and stereotypes, sometimes it’s fear of the other, sometimes it’s just not liking something about the person in need. It’s easier to ignore people who are different, or who are far away.
Jesus is very intentional in who he picks as the hero of this story. The one who is a neighbor, Jesus tells this Jewish lawyer, is a Samaritan. For Jews at that time, Samaritans were strange people. They’re weird. They’re different. They don’t worship right, they don’t follow all our laws, they even eat different things. There are lots of rumors about them. They’re a shady group of characters. Yet, it’s the “other” who is a neighbor, says Jesus.
Especially for the group going to Houston, we’re going to encounter people who seem very different than us. Maybe they look different, or dress differently, or have different living arrangements. Maybe they’re older, or younger, or unemployed, or suffering from an addiction, or homeless.
Jesus’ parable tells us our neighbors include both the people we like and the people we don’t like, the people whose lifestyles are similar to ours and those who are wildly different from us. We don’t get to decide who counts as a neighbor.
Perhaps what I find most impressive about the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable is his willingness to sacrifice. He doesn’t just say he’s willing to help this guy on the side of the road, he puts his money where his mouth is. He gives the innkeeper a deposit, and then says, “When I come back, I’ll pay you whatever you’ve spent.” Unknown costs scare me.
One of my responsibilities for Houston has been arranging for hotels for our group while we’re traveling, so I can say with some authority that there are a lot of expensive hotels and inns out there! But this guy is willing to sacrifice. He’s willing to pay the cost of being a good neighbor, and sometimes there is a cost.
What are you willing to sacrifice for your neighbor? Are we willing to pay a cost, to give up some of our time, even to risk being taken advantage of?
What is it for you? What keeps you from loving your neighbor as yourself?
Perhaps what’s so great about the parable of the good Samaritan isn’t that what he does is so exceptional. Perhaps it’s that in this story, Jesus gives us a picture of the kingdom of God. We long for a day when what the good Samaritan does is unexceptional, because that’s God’s kingdom.
When people love each other as neighbors despite their differences, when people take the time to notice and help neighbors in need, when people sacrifice to put their neighbors in front of themselves, we see the kingdom of God.
Amen