Sermon "You Can Make A Difference"
Rev. Lonnie Richardson
Sunday September 7, 1997
Luke 10:25-37
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You Can Make A Difference!
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to testJesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do toinherit eternal life?" "What is written in thelaw?" He replied. "How do you read it?" Heanswered: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart andwith all your soul and with all your strength and with all yourmind' ; and, `love your neighbor as yourself.' " "Youhave answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this andyou will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so heasked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" In reply Jesussaid: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, whenhe fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of hisclothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priesthappened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man,he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came tothe place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But aSamaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when hesaw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged hiswounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his owndonkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day hetook out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. `Lookafter him,' he said, `and when I return, I will reimburse you forany extra expense you may have.' "Which of these three doyou think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands ofrobbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one whohad mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and dolikewise."
A young boy, on an errand for his mother, had just bought adozen eggs. Walking out of the store, he tripped and dropped thesack. All the eggs broke, and the sidewalk was a mess. The boytried not to cry. A few people gathered to see if he was OK andto tell him how sorry they were. In the midst of the words ofpity, one man handed the boy a quarter. Then he turned to thegroup and said, "I care 25 cents worth. How much do the restof you care?"
The good Samaritan is a simple story, and even so, with allour sophistication in science and technology, we hark back to it.We can remember it and retell it. We see examples in our dailylives that bring it to our minds. It is reinforced in the secularmedia through television stories and literary narratives thatbuild on its simple outline.
Jim Casey in the Grapes of Wrath is the good Samaritan.So is the Lone Ranger. Albert Schweitzer on the muddy trails ofAfrica is the good Samaritan. Mother Teresa in the dusty streetsof calcutta was a good Samaritan, and in some ways, PrincessDiana was good Samaritan. The good Samaritan is the legendaryfigure who helps someone else along the road ... It defines whatit means to be compassionate.
The story begins, with a random act of violence. We don't knowthe man's name who was beaten, robbed, stripped, left half deadin the ditch. He is simply one of those anonymous victims whichare heaped up on the sidelines of the evening news. He was justtraveling along and got hurt. Doesn't say anything about hisbackground only that he was hurt.
This parable is a narrative set in a literary device meant tomake us ask, "What now? What will become of the poor,bleeding man in the ditch?" What happened?
The priest hastened past the man. The Levite would take norisk to help so he went by. Then Jesus introduces the nextcharacter as a Samaritan. I am sure the hearers thought thevillain had arrived. The name Samaritan was sometimes used todescribe a person who was a heretic and at odds with tradition.
What did the Samaritan do? He made a difference! The Samaritantakes money out of his pocket, the equivalent of two days' wages,a large amount of money indeed, and gives it to the innkeeper,saying,"Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, Iwill repay you when I come back." The Samaritan, stops hisown journey when he sees the need. He risks, detours,extravagantly responds to the needs of the man bleeding in theditch, becomes the voice of the victim in the ditch who neverutters a word.
I've always found it curious that God is nowhere to be foundin this story. No one quotes scripture, Hebrew or Christian. Thestory begins in violence, a man left in the ditch, beaten blackand blue, with the stench of death hovering about. We wish Jesushad offered some reason for the violence, pin it upon poverty, orpoor education among the bandits, or injustice. We'd always likea reason for violence.
But Jesus does not attribute motive to the robbers' brutalityand thus their violence raises the specter of evil in its worsthorror. Random, senseless, inexplicable, violence. Jesus doesn'tsay that the robbers might have been victims of poverty, thus"explaining" their robbery. He doesn't say they wereabused as children, thus "explaining" their adultviolence. In its cold blooded randomness, evil most horriblycalls our very existence into question. Little wonder we gropefor reasons, explanations, somebody, some social force to pin iton. Then, finding none, we hurry by on the other side.
Two men came down the road and assumed that the situationcould not be modified through their activity. By avoiding the manin the ditch, refusing to stop, they conferred absolute powerupon the present evil, raised the status quo, almighty violenceand death to a sacral status... What can anybody do? You can dosomething. You can make a difference. Follow the lead of theSamaritan.
The third man is not much of a philosopher, psychologist orsociologist. He sees, he stops, he goes, he binds, he cares, hegives. He refuses to bow to the power which has so disempoweredthe beaten man.
We aren't told whether or not the man recovered. That isirrelevant. Nothing in the story leads us to believe that thethird man who stopped, who cared, who gave was motivated by someallegiance to a successful ending. He showed compassion and madea difference.
There is no reassurance here that everything will turn outalright in the end. Evil is real, but it is not the ultimatereality. So I ask you a question, a question which is raised bythe story: what is real? Does destruction have the last word inyour world? Or is life let loose? Walking down many roads inlife, each of us must make a decision about that question. Whoshall name the world for us? What is real? Not to decide, to lookthe other way, to pass over to the other side, is to decide.
One day a student asked anthropologist Margaret Mead for theearliest sign of civilization in a given culture. He expected theanswer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or grinding stone.Her answer was "a healed femur." Mead explained that nohealed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival ofthe fittest, reigns. A healed femur shows that someone cared.Someone had to do that injured person's hunting and gatheringuntil the leg healed. The evidence of compassion is the firstsign of civilization.
Prayer: Lord, give us eyes to see, hands to help. Save us fromthe temptation to pass by on the other side when we areconfronted with the needs of others. Remind us of ourconsiderable gifts for service toward others. Recollect in ourminds how we were needy, we were hurting, we were without hopeand you reached out to us. Help us to help others as you soextravagantly helped us. Amen.
