Luke 10:25-37 on July 13th, 2025
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
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The parable of the good Samaritan is one of the most popular and most famous parables that Jesus tells. This parable has single-handedly reshaped the reputation of Samaritans who are now associated with care, compassion, and hospitals rather than with the long-standing civil and religious disputes they had with their Jewish neighbors. But in many ways, this familiarity can make it more challenging to understand. Many people have moralized this parable to make it simply about stopping to help somebody on the side of the road, which it might be about, but it's probably much more than that. Jesus' parables aren't simply lessons on how to act. They usually are meant to provoke, to challenge the listener's assumptions through a vivid and unexpected storytelling. But what happens when a parable is so familiar that the unexpectedness becomes expected? When it's told over and over again, and the sharpness of the point is worn away.
Well, we often just pluck this parable out of context that the set up for why Jesus tells this story is super important to understanding it. Luke tells us that Jesus was approached by a lawyer who sought to test him, asking Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus responds as he so often does, not by answering the question, but by posing his own question. What is written in the law? What do you read there? The lawyer responds by quoting the Shema from Deuteronomy 6. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind, and even includes a piece from Leviticus that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus agrees with the lawyer's answer, saying, do this and you'll live, but the lawyer's not satisfied. He goes in for another question. And who is my neighbor?
It's in response to this question that Jesus tells the story. And because Jesus loves a good reversal of expectations, we first meet the priest and the Levit, whom the audience would assume, would help the man, only to watch them pass by on the other side of the road. And then we meet the Samaritan, an opponent of the Jewish people. The Samaritans were despised by their Jewish counterparts, and they were seen as having both questionable lineage and questionable theology. Yet it is this person who goes above and beyond in his care for the injured man. He not only cares for his immediate wounds, but he also takes him on to further care and he pays for it all. And at the end of the story, the Jesus turns back to the lawyer and asks, which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? And the lawyer answers, albeit indirectly, the one who showed him mercy.
And while that's the right answer, Jesus, through his story, actually flips the lawyer's question upside down. It's subtle enough that we may not even catch it. The lawyer initially was asking for a definition, for boundaries and lines about who is my neighbor. Or maybe more to his point, who isn't my neighbor because if neighbors should be loved as one loves ourselves, then surely there must be limits of some sort. We can't love everyone like that. But Jesus doesn't set any boundaries. And instead, he doubles down. And rather than describing who one's neighbor is, he tells a story about how to be a neighbor. He changes the conversation from the neighbor is an object that you decide to love to neighbor as a subject, how one embodies the act and acts like a neighbor. And while it seems that Jesus doesn't truly answer the man's inquiry, I think Jesus intentionally ignores the actual question and instead points to a bigger one. Maybe the question should be, how do I love like a neighbor? Because that's way more challenging than who was in and who was out. Because when one loves like a neighbor, there is no limit. There is no boundary. There is no in and out.
Jesus instead teaches us that one is a neighbor by going above and beyond and caring for someone else, especially those in need. And an element that is often overlooked is that Jesus is very detailed in describing what this type of compassion looks like. Jesus could have done a little bit of lazy storytelling and simply said, the Samaritan stopped and helped this injured man. That Jesus explains thoroughly that the Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating him with oil and wine. He put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, took care of him and paid for it all. That's more than asking if this guy is alright. That is compassion. What gets in the way of our compassion? Not just when we see a car broken down on the side of the road, but in our lives, in our country, in our world. Why are we not more compassionate? Jesus clearly tells us that this is how we should live life. Yet there's so much indifference, heartlessness, moving to the other side. Are we too busy? Too angry? Too tribalistic? Too selfish? Too broken?
And right when we're feeling pretty bad about all this, Jesus pushes us a little further. Because Jesus didn't just use somebody, anybody, as the loving neighbor. He uses an example of enemies, of people from different sides. These people didn't even like each other. They were different, foreign, not us. Jesus erases the false divisions that we draw between us and them. Some erraton and the Jew were divided by history, by country, by culture, by race, by theology, and yet. Jesus declares the obligation to love supersedes it all. There is no exception about who to love, no limit to the compassion that we are to show, no boundary that keeps us from helping someone else. Again, Jesus clearly tells us that this is how we should live life. This is what it means to be a neighbor.
And all I can think right now is thanks be to God that Jesus doesn't treat us the way we treat our neighbors. Thanks be to God that Jesus doesn't cross to the other side. Thanks be to God that Jesus doesn't look at who we are, what we have done or left undone or where we're from. Jesus sees you and he stops. Jesus lifts you up, pays your debt, heals your wounds. Jesus shows us what being a neighbor looks like. And he does this for you, not because you deserved it, not because you passed some sort of neighbor test, but because that is who he is. He is gracious and merciful, compassionate and loving, healing and life giving. And Jesus comes near to us and bread and wine. Jesus cleans us and heals us in baptism. Jesus has compassion for us when we fall short. He lifts us up and he carries us to a place of healing and wholeness.
And because Jesus comes to us, because he raises us up, because he loves us and heals us, because he nourishes us and washes us, we can go and do likewise. You are no longer lying in a ditch. You are lifted, you are healed, you are graced. So now we can be neighbors to any and to all. We can choose to love. We can choose to cross boundaries. We can risk being compassionate. We can be a neighbor in a world that is aching for healing. Just as Christ has done for you. Amen.