Wellspring UMC; Fifth Sunday after Pentecost; July 1, 2007:

-Luke 10: 23-37

“Giving Outside our Comfort Zones”

How many have heard this story before? It’s a pretty easy story to understand. It’s direct and to the point. The neighbor is the person that is hurting, and we’re supposed to give them a helping hand. Easy...or is it?

For those of you who are visiting with us, we are in the middle of a sermon series where we are each being invited to give ourselves or something away. We’re praying a prayer each day, “Lord use me as an instrument of your love, then help me to give away your love,” then we’re listening and responding as we are so moved.

In going through this series it has been powerful to hear the stories of how and where God is working among us and through us, and normally we take some time to share those stories aloud at this time. Today, however, I’m going to invite you to share those together during our fellowship time and in your interactions this day and this week. We’ll open it up next week, however. What I’d like to focus on today is this story, and some of the powerful and radical things that Christ is teaching this lawyer and us about what it means to be His follower...what it means to be who God intends.

When I started reflecting upon this series and this call to giving I immediately realized that there would be two ways to take this. First, that this is a nice exercise – a reminder to be more kind and more giving, but I also realized that giving as Christ gave, caring as Jesus cares, is much deeper and much more radical than we usually want to believe. The truth of the matter is that we are more than members of a social organization that does good things, but we are called to be a movement empowered by the very essence of God to transform the world.

We start with giving, but God’s calling us to develop our faith so deeply that we give in radical ways which can at times hurt. We’re called to give sacrificially, even in ways that make us question whether we can actually give that much...that much money, that much time, that much of ourselves to another. We’re called to such giving because Christ is our example, and look what he did. We’re called to such giving because this world is in dire straights, and too often the church does far too little to change the world.

I’d like to walk through this story, giving some context and commentary, pointing out the radical nature of what Jesus is saying here. This parable is far deeper than lending a helping hand, but it reveals that Jesus calls us to give outside our comfort zones.

A good Jew in that day and age believed that a “neighbor” was someone who was ‘in’. The neighbor was a fellow Jew, and those who would be helped would be other Jews worthy of assistance. So when this teacher of the law approaches Jesus asking, “Who is my neighbor?,” he is really wanting Jesus to support the norm that neighbors are like us.

But from numerous stories of Jesus work and life, we know that’s not the case. Instead, Jesus hung around with tax collectors, prostitutes, and lepers. He deliberately went to the unclean. So this teacher, on one hand wants to show all around him that he is pious and holy, while on the other hand is attempting to set up Jesus. He tosses out this question to ‘get him.’ But Jesus doesn’t fall for it, instead he tells this story.

A man is beaten up, stripped and left half dead. In the ancient world, and still today, there are two ways to identify who one is and where they are from. The first is how one is dressed, if you doubt that, women try walking through Saudi Arabia dressed in Western clothing. Second, one was identified by their speech. Think Northern and Southern accent and you get the point.

The man is left stripped. No clothes. No identifiable markings, and he’s half dead and unconscious. He can’t speak. So Jesus here deliberately sets up the story by saying, that this man is some human being, but we don’t know who he is.

Now this attack took place on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho – a well-known and well traveled road. From the Temple in Jerusalem it was 17 miles down hill to Jericho. It was a winding road, and most of the road was a little wider than one of the paths that burros carry people down into the Grand Canyon. There was a cliff on one side and a wall on the other. It was a dangerous road filled with robbers and thieves, so Jesus is not throwing out some weird scenario.

This was an important road, because Jericho was an important town, and every two weeks there were three groups of people who served in the temple – Priests, Levites, and Jewish Layman. They would serve their two weeks in Jerusalem, then they would return to serve the Jewish community. So as Jesus spoke, they would make the connection that those who passed by were temple workers.

Now, often when we hear this story the Priest & the Levite get a bad rap. Yes, they both pass by, but the situation presented was a serious ethical dilemma. They had just come from serving in temple, and part of that service included being purified to serve the community. If they returned unclean, then the whole community would be delayed in vital rituals. Aside from this responsibility, they were faced with choosing to follow one of two Levitical laws.

Leviticus 22:3 says that if someone unclean gets near the sacred donations dedicated to the Lord, then that person would be cut off from God’s presence. In other words, they could not fulfill their role of service. Additionally, what the priests and Levites ate were portions of the temple offerings. So if they touched a dead person or bodily fluids, they’d be unclean, thus not only couldn’t serve but would lose their source of food. But they also knew well Leviticus 19: 17 which says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

So no matter what, they have to break one law! This is a case of situational ethics.

Which law will one weigh as heavier. They pass by on the other side of this narrow road.

Meanwhile, the crowd listening to the story knows who the next person on the road is. It will be the Jewish Layman. Ahh, he’ll save him. But Jesus throws them a curve ball. It’s a Samaritan, one who was literally HATED by Teachers of law, and I never use the word ‘hate’ lightly. Jews hated Samaritans, and Samaritans hated Jews, and much of this is based on the fact that Samaritans did not believe Jerusalem was the center of the earth. Rather they believed that a mountain in Samaria was. As a result, the Samaritans scattered human bones in the sacred temple court in Jerusalem. Not a good way to win friends and influence people.

In response the Jews publically cursed the Samaritans in worship, and daily a good Jew would publically pray that Samaritans would not be partakers of eternal life! There is no love loss here.

It is ludicrous for the helper to be a Samaritan, and to top it off, he uses oil & wine to treat the man...the same elements that the priests & Levites used in they daily work! Are you beginning to see that this is deeper than we usually hear it?

Imagine what it would have been like to hear this story, but it doesn’t stop there. The Samaritan puts the man on his donkey, which would have been a sign of respect, then he takes him into town. In that day and age, for a Samaritan to be seen with a Jew was grounds for the Samaritan to be killed on the spot. He literally risks his life for some unidentifiable, nameless, but hurting person. Not only that, he takes him to the innkeeper and pays everything so that, just in case the man was a Jew, that Jew would not be indebted to a Samaritan, which would be a great disgrace!

This nice little story is about more than roadside assistance and lending a helping hand. Remember, the question was, “Who is my neighbor?” Translated – Who do we avoid? Who do we judge? Who do we place in a box? Who do we never reach out to because they double crossed or abandoned us? Who do we keep at arms length? Dare I even say, Who do we hate?

Jesus is saying, “So often our language points toward the other, as if there are qualifiers as to whether or not someone is worthy to receive our gifts. But God calls us to give unconditionally, and what we give comes from and belong to God anyway.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “before we talk about the other, we need to focus on ourselves.”

Did you notice at the end of this passage how the lawyer responds to Jesus’ question of “who was the neighbor to the injured man?” He cannot even say “Samaritan.” Instead he mumbles, “The one who showed him mercy.” He cannot separate the prejudice from the fact that the injured man is first and foremost human...a child of God worthy of grace and salvation, worthy of our compassion, worthy of risking ourselves and giving what we have so he might live.

We’ve been praying, “God make me an instrument of your love everyday, and use me to give Your love away.” We’re digging deeper and being invited to discover what it truly means to care as Jesus cares.

At times we’re like that lawyer, justifying ourselves before Jesus asking, “Well who is my neighbor anyway?,” and we balk at Jesus’ answer, and yet there are times when we do hear and respond. And when we do the Kingdom of God breaks through, and find ourselves moved to a different level of faith.

My friends, caring as Jesus cares is never easy. It calls each of us to a higher standard, and forces us to give outside the norm, outside our comfort zones, outside ourselves...to give outwardly. Lord knows the world needs it. Lord knows God needs us to. Lord knows, and deep down we know, that we need to for the salvation of the world and for our own salvation. Amen.

*Much of the commentary work for this sermon comes from Rob Bell’s sermon, “Why God Wants to Save Christians VI,” which can be found at www.marshill.org .