At church camp during the summer, I was privileged to be a counselor a time or two but more privileged to be the cook frequently for the kids.  And as such we got to judge their skits.  So usually Wednesday evening the kids would pick a scripture and decide to play it out for our vesper services that evening.  One of the favorite stories, because I think it involved a lot of catsup, was this story, the Good Samaritan.  They would always have the kids running in to the kitchen.  And they loved that one.  And it was second only to the one about Baal and the prophets where they also got to use a lot of catsup, slitting their wrists and trying to get the fire to come down and light up as a sacrifice.  But the Good Samaritan—nobody really wanted to be him in that story with the kids.  They all wanted to be the one that had the catsup all over them. 

            When we see the Good Samaritan we see, as older folks, maybe somebody that is in control of their life.  Somebody that is wealthy—he has an animal.  He has oil; he has wine.  He’s traveling on the road alone and charged seemingly well.  And we find comfort that we could be like that, don’t we?  We find comfort that we too go through our life in control, maybe wealthy in health.  And we have resources to offer others.  And we would be willing to be offering aid and comfort.  I want to think of myself like that. 

            And Jesus answers the lawyers question about eternal life; he really doesn’t answer the question.  He doesn’t say exactly anything about eternal life.  It’s almost like this verbal match going on between the lawyer and Jesus.  The lawyer answers Jesus question, “Well, you asked a question, I’ll ask you one.”  And that’s the rabbinical style—the teacher asks a question of the student when the student asked the question.  Jesus says, “Well what does the law say?  What do you read there?”  The lawyer quotes the Old Testament, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, the right answer—“Love the Lord with all of your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus says, “A+, you get a couple of stars, a gold one and a silver one!  You got the right answer buddy.” 

            And then the lawyer, it says, wanting to justify himself.  That’s a strange phrase in that story, isn’t it? Wanting to justify himself, to make an excuse for his behavior?  But anyway, he asked a question of every day life of Jesus.  “Well, who’s my neighbor?”  I found it interesting that Jesus really doesn’t go in to a lot of detail spelling out specifically, pointing a star and putting it on the poor guy on the road or the Levite or the priest or even the Good Samaritan.  Jesus doesn’t say, “Here it is.  Here’s the guy.  This is your neighbor." 

            Any of those folks could be us.  Any of those folks could be our neighbor.  But let’s turn our focus for a moment to those things that the Good Samaritan gives us so that we can truly be a Good Samaritan--those things that we ourselves might find hard to relinquish. 

The first is money.  That’s hard to let go of especially when you are on a trip whether it is a work trip or a vacation trip.  You’ve got it maybe budgeted out how much you are going to need to take care of your own needs.  And here is this guy traveling down a road that’s known to be one that is dangerous.  It could be a trick, the guy on the road.  But he lets go of his money where obviously it hurts the most.  He pulls out, when he gets the guy to the innkeeper, two denarii.  That’s more than two cents, more than two bills; it’s a month’s wages to help somebody he didn’t even know.   Right at the outset!  And did you catch this?  He said to the innkeeper, “Here’s some upfront money.  And, oh, if you have any more expenses, I’ll take care of those too.  I got my checkbook out.  Here’s a blank check. I’ll just sign it.”  Don’t you think that innkeeper’s eyes lit up?  Oh, we forgot about him, didn’t we?  Who would like to be the innkeeper now?  I won’t hesitate to pay any future debts that the care of this man might entail. 

And then there is that cost of time.  I know, microwave, instant messages, text messages, e-mail, and then, too, going somewhere just because it’s on the way.  Convenience, rationalization—it’s so hard to stop.  I know some of you set records going on vacation.  “I drove straight through. It only took 18 hours.  If we hadn’t had the kids, it wouldn’t have taken so long.”  Weren’t you going on vacation to be with the family?  But let’s not stop, let’s not pull over. Let’s set our records.  It’s hard to stop.  To stop, that might be the hardest four-letter word for some of us to say.  Stop!  I don’t know where this Good Samaritan was going.  I mean, we think we know that Jericho, Jerusalem Road, may be going to the city.  Glenn Beck told me last night he thought he was a traveling salesman.  He said, “Well, obviously he was a traveling salesman, he said he would be back.  It was a route that he ran.”  All I know is that the Good Samaritan not only gave money, not only said, “I’ll also pay for the future”, the Good Samaritan said, “I’ll be back”.  I will not only offer you my time here and now, I’ll catch you on the flip side.  I’ll give you a commitment of my life in the future.  He set aside future time.  I know some of you set aside future time, don’t you?  It’s called—when I retire.  That’s the time that we set aside.  Then the world will be different when we retire.  Some of you are retired and you still have the same lines.  To spend more time; you retired to spend more time and you find yourselves spending the same time. 

The lifestyle of the Good Samaritan—he was, like I said, apparently pretty well off because he was riding.  That was a pretty genteel type thing to have your own beast of burden, to be riding it rather than walking.  And he does two things—he gets off of it; he hops off of his donkey, which for some of us means getting up off our donkey; and he puts this man up on the beast of burden.  His own back is exposed, perhaps, to those that would be ready to take his life.  He lavishes his wine, he lavishes his oil.  And that’s not cheap stuff.  I mean, Rachel Ray would be impressed.  It’s EVO—it’s extra virgin olive oil.  It’s the good stuff. 

Lifestyle—he puts aside.  He puts aside time, he puts aside money, he puts aside his own convenience and stops.  Compare that to the priest and the Levite.  They had professional excuses!  They were doing God’s very important business.  Probably, since they were going down the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, they were going to conduct religious duties in the Temple.  And why would they take pains to avoid the wounded man?  Well, as I said they had a professional excuse.  It would have made them impure to go near a half-dead person, assuming that he was almost half-dead.  But they didn’t really go check to see if he was breathing. 

There were these most respectable images of goodness, the professionals, and Jesus uses them as negative examples in that story.  And why?  Why would that be?  Good people that do good things.  Jesus is answering the lawyers question, “Who’s my neighbor?”  But he doesn’t point it out.  The lawyer may have said, “My neighbor is the guy who lives in the neighborhood I live in which means he’s probably just like me and he’s probably got to go to the Temple with me or I see him there.  That’s my neighbor.”  Maybe Jesus used that kind of good person as a negative example so that the lawyer would realize that being good in the traditional sense was not at all the same thing as loving God or loving ones neighbor when you are given the chance to help face to face.  See they, instead of taking the time and spending the money and troubling themselves with this other guy and his troubles, they gave him a wide glance and walked away—on they went.  It would have ruined their day.  They wouldn’t have been able to serve.  So they turned their face.  They don’t just turn the other cheek; they turn their back on him, on the suffering.  They show no mercy. 

But the Samaritan, he risks.  The Samaritan was known to the Jew, the lawyer who was asking the question.  They were considered half-breeds.  It’s not a politically correct term that we would use.  My sister’s grandson, her step-daughter was a bleach blond beach kid, blue eyes, from North Carolina.  She went on a mission trip and married a young man named Eduardo.  Not from North Carolina.  Yes, that’s not a southern name, except for the very far south which was Panama.  So Sam, coincidently the Good Samaritan, Sam goes to a family gathering—not in Panama but in the United States where Eduardo’s brothers who have also come up from Panama.  And he goes, “Mommy, mommy, guess what?  There’s lots of kids just like us—half and half!”  That’s a nice term, half and half. 

The Samaritan has an inverse social standing from the priest and the Levite and even the lawyer.  And yet he is the one who offers the compassion and the mercy.  And he is the one, I don’t know if you caught it, but went to him.  Verse 34 says, “The Good Samaritan went to him.”  He didn’t wait for him to come, didn’t wait for the need to present itself in his face, he went to him.  So maybe this story helps us to see in a different way who is our neighbor. 

Maybe, but I think it tells us more about how, how, how should I love my neighbor?  There was a farm boy who accidentally overturned the wagon of wheat.  He was on the road and a farmer who lived nearby came to investigate what had happened.  He said, “Hey Willis, forget your troubles.  Come on over and have dinner and after we’ve had dinner I’ll help you.  I’ll help you turn your wagon back over and get it upright.”  Willis said, “That’s very nice of you but I don’t think Dad would like that.”  “Oh, come on, he won’t mind if you have supper,” said the farmer.  “Well, okay but I don’t think Dad will like that.”  So Willis went on to the farmer’s supper table and had a wonderful meal there.  He said, “Oh, I feel so much better now, really strong, but I think Dad’s going to be really upset with me.”  The neighbor said, “Well, don’t be silly.  Oh, by the way, where is your dad?”  Willis said, “Under the wagon.”  You see, part of being a good neighbor is how you are a good neighbor.  Make sure that you do what needs to be done.  Make sure you do what needs to be done not just the comfortable things or what you might do without asking questions. 

The priest and the Levite both had the chance to do what needed to be done but they didn’t.  Their misunderstanding of what was important and what mattered got in the way, didn’t it, of their compassion, of their humanity, of their mercy, of their faith.  They failed to act, they failed to see, they failed to feel.  Human agencies are sort of like that, aren’t they?  Government agencies, utility agencies—they’ll cut you off, they’ll delete your files sometimes by mistake.  They’ll reject your application.  They won’t give you the time of day.  They’ll make you wait. 

I’ll call her Lucy.  She came to the office last Friday afternoon.  It was about 4:00 p.m.  Like Bob sometimes I’m here on the day that is supposed to be my day away.  I’ll see Bob’s car over here and think, “It’s your day away.”  Just stopped in to check on something.  I was ready to leave.  It was about 4:00 p.m. and I was even locking the office door.  Libby was still there working on the books.  But I wasn’t supposed to be there.  And then she presents herself, this woman, Lucy, comes to the door.  It’s about 90 degrees outside.  She’s hot and sweaty and she looks in despair.  “I need some help.”  It happens often on Fridays or on Saturdays.  She said, “I need some help.  They’ve cut off my electricity.”  Its 90 degrees outside; the trustee office is closed.  It was the Friday of the weekend of the 4^th.  Normal people weren’t working; that’s what she heard.  She called Duke Energy; it turned out, on Monday of that week and said, “I’ve lost my job.  I want to make payment arrangements for my $80 some dollar bill.”  They said, “Okay, you can make payment arrangements.”  Except she didn’t write down who she talked to and so on Friday, someone who didn’t know who was a normal, that working person wasn’t there.  She talked to four supervisors on Friday.  Nobody knew and it was too late now baby.  I’m all out of love.  That’s what happened.  She has a son who has asthma.  Do you know what happens when you have asthma and it’s hot?  You can die from an asthma attack.  And so her son, she said, “They wouldn’t listen to me.”  And I said, “Well, let me get on the phone with them.”  She said, “They won’t do anything.  I have to have enough money to pay the bill.”  And, oh, by the way, the bill has now gone up to over $400 because there is disconnect, a reconnect, you got it.  Did she feel like she was beaten and bloodied and on the road?  Despair, talking to an agency!  They go by the numbers.  I got on the phone and I said, “There is a medical emergency in this household, can you give them a medical exemption?”  “Well, yes we could if she had done so before the electricity had been disconnected.”  Does that make sense?  She has pre-existing condition but it is only going to be noticed if she lets you know before you cut off the electricity. 

Now I’m not blaming Duke Energy, they went by the rules.  But God goes by the Book doesn’t he?  God says, “When we were yet sinners suffering from a pre-existing condition, that Christ died for us.”  God does not expect us to clean up our act before we can be worthy to approach him and receive that love that grace, that forgiveness.  If that were the way it worked, what’s the point?  What’s the point of saying, “Well, if you’d only let us know before the electricity is cut off we could restore the electricity.”  God’s love has no small print.  God’s love has no exceptions.  And God says, “No problem.”  See, God does work in partnership with us for healing and for change.  It might require some work and effort on our part.  The woman didn’t want to come and ask for help but she was at her last moment and her child was in danger.  See, God does not reward us with His love because of our work does he?  If you would just…God doesn’t say that!  If you would just clean up your act, if you would just let me know before.  God doesn’t have those kinds of pre-existing conditions.  You’ve got to let me make sure that you’re worthy.  God doesn’t play that.  God just says, “You can come as you are.  Everything is covered.” 

There was Jerry who during the week came to me.  Jerry who was mentally challenged.  And I wasn’t beaten at the line on the floor but I felt pressure.  There were some files, there were finances, there were things in the office, there was the sermon, you know, people to visit, things to do, pastoral duties like the Levite and the priest.  And Jerry wanted me to have lunch with him.  Jerry’s 50 some years old, maybe 60, lives in Whiteland.  I had him in my congregation there.  Jerry would bring a flower by frequently.  He doesn’t drive.  His only real caregiver passed away, that was his mother, about three months ago.  And Jerry wanted to have lunch with me.  So we went to the Dairy Queen.  I didn’t have time to but somebody brought Jerry so I went there.  And through a hamburger Jerry bought me lunch.  He wouldn’t let me pay.  And he set there and punched the play button on the cassette and he said, “Me want you to hear this.”  And it was Jerry and Don McIntire giving a testimony at a businessman’s luncheon here in Franklin. 

See, sometimes Jesus is our Good Samaritan and we recognize him.  Sometimes we get to play the Good Samaritan.  I did with Lucy.  We had not enough money in the Good Samaritan fund to cover her bill.  But through another church pledging and some time on the phone, I finally got somebody that said, “Okay.”  And through the giving that you allow to flow through this church, a ministry, I was blessed to be able to give, to relieve someone’s burden that day.  But sometimes we, even the pastors, are the ones that are in the ditch.  Tired, needing someone to say, “Wait a minute, it’s not the programs, it’s not the projects, it’s not the finances, it’s not the files, it’s the person, it’s the people.” 

I’ll leave you with this story.  A man fell down into a pit and he couldn’t get himself out.  A subjective person came along and said, “You know, I feel for you down there.”  The objective person came by and said, “You know, it’s logical that somebody would fall down there.”  The Pharisee came by and said, “Only bad people fall in to pits.”  The mathematician, of course, calculated how that man fell in to the pits.  The news reporter came by and wanted the exclusive story on the pit.  The fundamentalist came by and said, “You deserve your pit.”  The IRS person came by and said, “Are you paying taxes on that pit?”  And a self-pitying person said, “You haven’t seen anything until you see my pit.”  The charismatic said, “Just confess that you are in a pit.”  The activist said, “Things could be worse!”  And the pessimist said, “Things will get worse.”  But Jesus, Barbara Johnson says as she tells this story, but Jesus, being a man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit.  Jesus comes and he comes back.  Go and do likewise.  Amen.           

E-mail Comments to: Pastor Nancy Blevins

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