With Whom Do We Identify?
Luke 10:23-37
Luke 10:23 Then turning to his disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see the things you see but didn’t see them; to hear the things you hear but didn’t hear them.”
25 Then an expert in the law stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the law?” he asked him. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.”
28 “You’ve answered correctly,” he told him. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. 34 He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’
36 “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
37 “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said.
Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.”
We have a game of sorts in our family in which we try to figure out which character in one of our favorite movies or novels we can best identify with. Sometimes we get to choose ourselves and say, “I think I am most like so and so in this novel.” But very often a family member will get to choose for us and say, “I think you are this character from the novel.” It’s fun. Fortunately, no one has yet said, “I think you are similar to Sauron (the most evil being) in The Lord of the Rings!
In the parable for today, we see four different individuals or groups: the robbers, the religious people (the priest and the Levite), the victim, and, of course, the Good Samaritan. With which can we, or should we, best identify?
We start with the robbers. They are clearly sinners. They beat the man up so he would soon likely die and they take his money and even his clothes leaving him naked. They violate the fifth, seventh, and ninth commandments: they beat him, steal, and they covet. They are guilty of the sins of commission. They do what the commandments tell them not to do. Do not murder, do not steal, do not covet. But if you think about it, the robbing and the beating would not have happened without coveting and greed. And coveting and greed come from a sinful heart. All sins in reality come about because of a sinful heart. As Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.” (Matt. 7:20-22).
So the question for you is, can you identify with the robbers? Do you do things you ought not to do, of thought, word, or deed, that proceed from a sinful heart? And if you know yourself and the commandments of God at all, you ought to be able to say, “Yes, I can identify with them. I am guilty of sins of commission.“
We move on to the priest and the Levite. There are two things that make them even worse sinners than the robbers. First, they are believers, or claim to be believers. They have been brought up under the guidance of the Scriptures. They would say they believe in the God of the Bible, confessing there is only one true God. But their confession of faith is betrayed by their lack of love for a neighbor in need. In other words, they are guilty of sins of omission: not doing what the commandments tell them do. They, too, were guilty of violating the fifth, seventh, and ninth commandments, not by what they did but by what they did not do. The fifth commandment not only says, “Do not murder,” but it also means you are to “help and befriend your neighbor in every need.” The seventh command not only says, “Do not steal,” but it also means you “help him to protect his goods.” The ninth commandment not only says, “Do not covet,” but it also means you are to look upon your neighbor in need with a heart of compassion, a compassion which would then translate into deeds or words of service and help and charity.
The priest and Levite passed by, did nothing, when they could have done something to help him. Why? Because they did not care, or thought it too time consuming, or were turned off by his appearance, or were in too much of a hurry, or thought he was not the kind of person they should or could associate with, or thought he was someone else’s responsibility, even though this was the person – the neighbor – God had placed before them. They were guilty of violating the commandments as much as the robbers, but they did so by omission. And sins of omission are terrible sins, especially if one professes to be a Christian. The apostle John put it this way: “We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18).
Jesus makes the point quite clear in Matthew 5. Notice the emphasis is doing what you ought to do, and not just for a select group:
“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. For your Father causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?”
And then he gives an example of a very simple way to love whatever person God puts along your path of life: “And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matt. 5:43-47). Have you ever passed by someone on the sidewalk without greeting him or her? Or in the hallway of your apartment? Or at school? Have you ever gone through the checkout line at the store without kindly greeting the cashier? Or the waitress at the restaurant? Or the person sitting next to you in a waiting room?
So again, the question: can you identify with this priest and Levite who are guilty of sins of omission? Not doing what you could have done or should have done for that person, whoever he is, right in front of you? When I think of the people next door to me, the people who live behind me, the people two and three doors down, people I probably don’t have a whole lot in common with, but neighbors God sometimes puts in front of me, I have to confess I can identify with the priest and Levite.
We move on. Now if you say “Yes, I can identify with the robbers and their of sins of commission” and “Yes, I can identify the priest and the Levite and their sins of omission – I am truly and seriously guilty before God,” then we can and should in one sense identify with another person in the parable: the victim, robbed of all that was his, lying naked, and dying on the side of the road. For he is picture of the one who says, I am a sinner. For the presence of sin in your life means, like Adam and Eve, you have been robbed by Satan of your sinlessness (even while you are held fully responsible). It means, like Adam and Eve, the nakedness of your sinful flesh is not and cannot be hidden from God; it is exposed. It means, like Adam and Eve, you will die because of your sin and your sinning. That man on the side of the road is a picture of you, fellow sinner.
So what do we do? Well for sure, at this point in the parable, we cannot identify with the Good Samaritan. We cannot yet say, “I am like him. I do what he does.” But there is somebody else who can identify with him fully. In fact, this somebody else actually is the Good Samaritan.
There you are sinning everyday of your life, violating in one way or another the commandments of the holy and just God. You are robbed of a sinlessness. You are not on the path of life, but instead you are lying in the ditch next to it, dying and knowing that your death is coming. And men that pass by have nothing to offer you and really don’t want to help you anyway, no matter how prestigious and religious they may be.
But then a lowly Samaritan comes along, one that the priest and the Levite abhor. His is name is Jesus. And though he is a man, he is not merely a man. He also happens to be the Son of God. He sees you in your sinning, in your nakedness, and your dying, and he has the greatest of compassion for you. And for a time, he becomes the victim. His sinlessness is stripped from him, and he bears the shameful nakedness of your sins. He is beaten and then lies on a cross naked not only before men, but before God his Father, where he is dying, and his Father makes sure he does die. But in that death is the forgiveness of all your sins. In that death is your life from death.
And he comes to where you are right now and covers you with the bandages of that forgiveness he purchased on the cross. He pours into your wounded, naked, and dying body oil and wine that fight against the deadly infection of sin. He gives you new life. He lifts you out of the ditch of death, he puts you on the road to life, carries on his own animal, his own vehicle, you might say. Or as we more commonly say, he carries you along the path of life by his vehicles or means of grace.
He brings you to an inn, a church, where you can be nurtured, cared for, and fed by an innkeeper, a pastor, who has been given instructions to care for you until this Good Samaritan, Jesus, returns. And he tells the pastor innkeeper, “Spend whatever you have to for his spiritual and eternal health until I come back. And I will.”
Jesus cannot only identify with the Good Samaritan, but he is the Good Samaritan. He is this pastor’s Good Samaritan. He is your Good Samaritan.
And once you understand what this Good Samaritan has done for you, then you can begin to identify with him. Then you are to get out of the bed in the inn, and you are to “Go and do the same.” You are to go and “show mercy” as you have been shown mercy.
I want impress upon you what this means for you today and tomorrow.
You are to show mercy to the person that God puts across your path in life. You do not have to love every person in the world. That is impossible and that is for God to do. But the person God puts across your path of life today or tomorrow, who might have a need, that is one to whom you show mercy.
They may be those you see every day of your life, like family, your friends, people you like to hang with. They may people who love you and are easy to love in return. Or they may not be. They may be the church member who could really use a visit or phone call because they are lonely or sick. They may be the clerk you can greet in the checkout line. Or they may be someone you can’t stand, or horrifying to look at. Or they may be someone who is unkind to you, someone you fear, of a different culture, or different religion, or who is living in some ugly but society-approved sin. Or, as Jesus said, they may be your enemy, an enemy of Christ, and one who persecutes you. They may be, most importantly, one you are to share the message of the Good Samaritan with – the message of salvation in Christ. This is what it means to be a Good Samaritan.
You know when you get to heaven you just might say, “Why did I have to spend all that time on earth when I could have been in here?” And the answer is, so you might be a Good Samaritan to those God has put across your path. That is really the only reason we Christians remain here: to love others with deeds, with words, and from the heart. And it doesn’t have to be something fancy or elaborate. It can be simple. A greeting, a visit, a kind gesture, a prayer, a listening ear, a meal, financial help, or whatever. But many times it will be hard and difficult, as we see with Christ.
When I was a pastor in western Minnesota, I was visiting a member in a nursing home who was dying of cancer. He looked terrible. His appearance was horrifying. He was scary to look at. While I was there, a friend of the family came in who had not seen him like this. She did not “pass him by on the other side of the road,” but she walked up to him with no hesitation and no fear, gave him a big hug, and kissed him on his cheek as if he were her own dear child. I said to myself, “That is a Good Samaritan.” For that is how the Good Samaritan, Jesus, loved. He loved us just as we are with all our horrifying sins and sinning. Without hesitation and with great compassion, he went to the cross for us all. Now go and identify with your Good Samaritan.
Amen.
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