The Other Side of the Road
Pastor Mathew Magera – 8/30/15 – Sermon 117
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
If I were to ask you for
some differences between the United States and England there are a few things
that might come to mind rather quickly. You might say that our governments are
different. We're a democracy whereas England is a monarchy. You might
stereotype them as drinking an abundance of tea whereas in America, especially
in a Lutheran church, we drink coffee. Most of us anyway. But perhaps one of
the biggest differences you might tell me about the US and England is that they
drive on the wrong side of the road. Nearly two thirds of the world drive on
the right side of the world, while England and the other third drive on the
left. I personally have never been to England but I have been to the Caribbean
and if you've never been to a place where traffic drives on the left hand side
of the road, it catches you off guard even if you're not even driving. For
instance, if you are trying to cross a road and you come up to the curb, your
first instinct is to look left for any traffic. When you don't see any, you
might have the instinct to start moving forward while you turn to the right
only to find a car barreling down at you. As you risk your life trying to
maintain balance while getting out of the way, you might get mad and think,
"well, if they only drove on the right side of the road, I wouldn't have
almost been killed just now."
I find it interesting how we
think of other cultures, in particular today, when we talk about what side of
the road we drive on, or just rules of the road in general. Our own culture
goes with us wherever we go, so that when we are somewhere else and see cars
using the left side of the road we think about how wrong it is and how much
better it is to drive on the right. While our Bible story today does not have
cars, we do find ourselves on a road in which people are passing each other. I
want you to come with me down this road as we hear about the rules of the road
and how one person broke the rules to lend a helping hand.
Jesus is talking with a
lawyer and the lawyer tries to trap him by asking about who his neighbor is.
So, Jesus, in his true form, gives nothing close to a normal straight forward
answer to this man, but instead launches into a story about this man who was
walking down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He became the next victim to
some bandits on the way and was left half dead on the side of the road. Who is
this man? He has no name, no land of origin, no job, he's not identified at
all, he is completely anonymous. It could be anyone. It could be you, it could
be someone you know. He is only identified by what happened to him on the road.
He was stripped, beaten, and left alone. He has nothing left to identify him as
anything. He could have been a rich landowner. He could have been a shepherd.
He could have been a fisherman. But, after his encounter with the bandits,
nothing could identify him other than his desperate need for help.
Now, this road that we are
on is a very famous road but not for good reason. "The road from Jerusalem
to Jericho was notoriously dangerous. It descended nearly 3,300 feet in 17
miles. The road ran through narrow passes at points, and the terrain offered
easy hiding for the bandits who terrorized travelers."[1]
So, being that this road was famous for its crime, people might prepare for
criminal intent along their journey and would certainly not travel alone or at
night. So, now that we have this half dead unidentified man lying on the side
of the road, in come three travelers. We don't know which way they were
traveling, only that they were passing by the crime scene. Interestingly,
enough an audience who would be hearing this story, would expect someone was
going to help the man. We have the first two passing by, the priest and the
Levite. Then, "By storytelling conventions, the audience can expect that
in a series of three, the third character will break the pattern created by the
first two."[2] What
makes this story shocking is that the first audience of this story would expect
the third person to be someone like them, namely, an Israelite. The audience
would be expecting that last person not to be a Samaritan but an Israelite
saying that the ordinary Israelite would do what the priest and Levite would
not.
By Jesus putting the
Samaritan in the story, he breaks all rules of the road. A Samaritan, Jesus?
Really? Those terrible people are the ones you cause to be the hero in the
story? You see, of course, the Samaritans are not the most well-liked by
Israelites. They were regarded as unclean, descendants of mixed marriages. You
just stay away from them. This is much like how we interact with people, right?
There are some people we approach, and others we don't, just because of who
they are.
For example, there are some
people I know I would be okay talking about in my sermon. Take this person for
instance. I could walk up to this person and use him as an example and I'm
quite certain he'd be okay with it. There are others who I would not mention at
all because they would be uncomfortable. There are some things we do with some
people that we would not do with others. I could approach Jerry after worship
this morning and say, "hey, let's go out for a beer sometime and talk
about flying" and he would say, "Alright, let's do it." There
are some of you when we shake hands that I know I can use a very firm
competitive grip and there are others that would probably not find that very
appealing. I think you get my point. There are some places we behave in certain
ways that we would not behave in other places. There are some people we would
rather just stay away from. They're just bad people. We don't want to get close
to them. Let them do what they're going to do and we'll just do something else.
This is the Israelites relationship to the Samaritan. You just leave them
alone. They stay in their territory, we stay in ours. If we don't know
something good about them, it's likely we'll just pass them by on the other
side. That is exactly what is going on here. The anonymity, the unknown is
found along the path of the priest and the Levite and follow those rules of the
road, those social presuppositions and they do the "right" thing and
pass by on the other side. So, when the audience of this story knows a third
person is coming, not only does Jesus tell them the hero is a Samaritan but he
goes into depth on how that Samaritan cared for the unknown man. If you were an
Israelite, you'd be outraged at such an outcome. Jesus says, as good as your
intentions as an Israelite might be to be the third person to stop and help
this one in need on the side of the road, the rules are too strong to break.
Chances are you just won't do it. But the rules are not strong enough that the
heart of a Samaritan, in enemy territory won't stop and help the man lying in
need.
This story is a wake up
call. The least likely person bursts onto the scene and does the unthinkable,
he provides for the man's needs. Jesus challenges the long-standing enmity
between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus demolishes all boundary expectations. Social
position, race, religion, and origin count for nothing. Jesus showed how easy
it is for us to see someone in need and to simply pass by on the other side.
Jesus is saying we are so stuck in our own man-made rules that we neglect to
see the people in need on the other side of the street. Who was it who told us
not to, using the expression, go over to that side of the tracks? Who was it
that said they were bad people? Do you know anything about them that makes them
bad? Or is it, again, only what we were taught?
The Lutheran church in
particular has problems with the side of the road they are on. We say we are
trying to reach out to those who are different from us. Invite people to
church, they'll come. Yes, they might. But what about those who don't? Invite
them again. Still they don't come. Now what? Create a catch phrase, organize a
free dinner, silent auction, bake sale, then they'll come. Yes, they might. But
what about those who don't? We can go on and on and on about this and there
will still be people who we have not reached out to be a helping hand.
So, Jesus reveals this truth
to this lawyer by putting the Samaritan in the most unlikely place, the place
he believed he would be, the place we believe we would be. The lawyer,
obviously upset at what Jesus is saying doesn't even utter the word Samaritan
in Jesus' question. Jesus asks, "which of these three do you think was a
neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" Of course, we
know what the answer is. The lawyer knows what the answer is, but he simply
says, "the one who had mercy on him." He couldn't bear to say the
word Samaritan, that's how strong these social rules are, he could do nothing
but grit his teeth as he had to say what he didn't want to say. The Samaritan
showed the man mercy but the lawyer won't say that. And yet, even as the lawyer
seeks to avoid using that dirty word, he answers Jesus' question correctly,
more correctly than if he had said the word Samaritan. The truth is anyone can
show mercy to another person. It can be a Samaritan. A neighbor can be a
Muslim. A neighbor can be an alcoholic. A neighbor can be rich. A neighbor can
be poor. A neighbor can be a Lutheran. A neighbor can be Wisconsin synod,
Missouri Synod, LCMC, ELCA, NALC. The one who shows mercy can be and is a
neighbor. Being a neighbor has no boundaries, has no social rules. Race,
origin, financial status, criminal status, it doesn't matter. Anyone can be a
neighbor. And where it hits us the most is when we hear Jesus tell us that a
neighbor can be the person in our life we despise the most. You know who that
is. You know their name. You know why they wouldn't possibly be of any help in
a situation like this yet Jesus puts them in this very story and makes them the
hero. Then he looks at you and asks you, "who was the neighbor?"
Well, it's not the pastor, it's not the council president, and it's not you.
It's that despicable person. And Jesus points at that person and says to you
"go and do likewise." Dare to live on the other side of the road
where the hurt is, the same side of the road your worst enemy could be on helping
the fallen man in the ditch. Dare to forget about the social rules of the road
that have been placed on us.
Two thirds of the world
drive on the right side of the road. And in our minds, one third drive on, not
the left side, but the wrong side. Two of the three men that pass by the
hurting man on the side of the road
continue on their way while one, not an Israelite, but the wrong
character altogether, a Samaritan break the social rules of the road and he
helps the one in need. Jesus can break down barriers that we have in place. He
can take the wrong that someone has done to you and forgive that wrong just as
he can take the wrong you have done to others and forgive you. The story of the
Good Samaritan is not about who is right and who is wrong, it's about how the
least likely person in your mind can be used to bring life into a situation
that left alone would bring death. It's about reaching into the world where
souls are dying and bringing the lifesaving message of the love of God in
Christ Jesus to a world that, left alone, would surely die but when carried,
bandaged, loved, and cared for can be given life. It can be given the same life
that has been so graciously given to each of us because we were all at one
point the man on the side of the road, stripped and beaten by sin. And as Jesus
cared for us and gave us this life, in this same love, we should listen
carefully to the words of Jesus given to the lawyer and we should all "go
and do likewise" and live not on the right side of the road, but dare to
cross over and thrive where there is a world in need on the other side of the
road. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.