Wanted Help from an Unwanted Helper Luke 10:27-37 Good Samaritan

While studying the passage this week I kept thinking that I must turn this around. We always see ourselves as the hero in the story; of course I would help that person. Of course I would stop. I would give. I would love. Or at least I thought that as an innocent child the first time I heard it. Then I grew up and realized how dangerous it was to stop and offer anyone help along the road. People get killed doing such things. What in the world was Jesus talking about? Is he really asking us to risk our lives to show compassion? (That is a sermon for another day, but I'm sure most of you can guess the answer based on the story of the Gospel.)

So that was my first response...but then my mind kept moving and I remembered the time (see my earlier post on this passage by search the Gospel of Luke, cause I can't figure out how to link back), that I was broken down on the side of the road and I received unexpected aid. Perhaps part of the message of this passage is in how we receive aid, not just how we give aid.

Jesus does not label the man going from Jericho to Jerusalem, but we assume it was a Jew. Most likely he is going from Jericho to Jerusalem because that is the last leg of the journey for Jews traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem while avoiding Samaria. The man is on the road because he is avoiding Samaritans. It was a dangerous road, and the travelers knew it. They knew the risk and took it anyway to stay away from those they despised.

The inevitable happens and the man is stripped, beaten, and left for dead. No one knows his social, religous, or economic status now. The "nice" people avoid him. They certainly don't want to touch an unclean, bloody body. They are on their way to religious service anyway and they don't have time to stop. The original listeners expected this. Of course no one expected Priests and their helpers, the Levites to show compassion to ordinary people. But they did expect the one who showed compassion to be LIKE THEM. The next guy to come along is supposed to be the average everyday Joe. Ouch.

Average Everyday Joe is the one beat up in the ditch. He is not the one stopping to help. The one who stops to help Average Everyday Joe is Average Everday Outcast. The very one Average Everday Joe hoped to avoid on the road is the one who stops and helps him when he is down. Average Everyday Outcast does not just stop, he is moved with compassion the way Jesus is moved when he heals (the only other time this word is used of another person other than Jesus in Luke is when the father welcomes the Prodigal home). He doesn't just stop to see if the guy is OK, he poors oil and wine on them (not cheap supplies here), bandages him (risking uncleanness or infection himself), and puts him on his own animal...this would be like putting the bruised and bloody in the backseat of your Buick.

He takes him to an inn and pays...and then he says, whatever other charges are encured, I will pay. Do you know what a risk that was? It's like saying, "Here's a blank check" or even better, "here's my credit card, use it however he needs it."

What happens when Average Everyday Joe awakens? That is the part of the story I wish Jesus had told! How did he feel when he found out he had been helped by Average Everyday Outcast?

Most of the time we think we are showing the grace of God when we work: when we stop to help, when we give money to a cause, when we feed the hunger, when we give a week for a mission trip...and that is true: we are.

However, this story tells me that sometimes we show the grace of God by receiving the love and care of another human, maybe even one that we had once despised.

Monday, Sept. 24, my 2 daughters & I took a road trip to a state park. After we swam for a while, we drove to a small SW OK town where I went to high school. I only lived there 2 years, but graduated from HS there....had not been back for over 10 years and neither one of my children had ever been there. It is a town of less than 2000, so there is not much site-seeing to be done...






After a brief hike cut short by the sound of a rattler in the grass, we got in the car and drove the 10 miles to M------. If you have never driven in SW Oklahoma or West Texas you cannot imagine what it is like to drive where the land is flat, flat, flat, and you see so much sky you wonder why God made hills. We are about to M----- with the music cranked as high as it will go and my 7-year-old says, "Mommy, I just heard a pop." I said, "So." She said, "Mommy the car is shaking." I still didn't notice anything...then I heard this awful sound...and well, turned off the radio. Blowout. We are in the middle of NOWHERE. M---- is about 2 miles away...so I drove at 25 with blinkers on until we got to town. Pulled off in a parking lot and got out to look at my shredded tire. I started digging in the back of the station wagon for the jack and spare. A loud, old 68 Ford pickup with 2 guys in the truckbed rattles by. I see them turn around. The 2 guys in back jump out before the truck stops. They almost have the tire off the car before the hit the ground.

"Need some help?"

"Sure. But my jack is sorely lacking."

"Don't worry. We can lift the car if we can't get the jack to work. We ain't afraid of work."

The two guys bent over the tire are 20-somethings...wiry, tall, heads shaved, wearing nothing but boots and jeans. Tattoos cover their heads, faces, backs, chests, arms, hands....Their dad and older brother stood back and watched If this had been the city I might have been scared, but I figure if I started talking we'd figure out we went to high school together.

"I'm Kelly."

"We're the _______." They say in unison. I vaguely remember the family name. I ask them if the remember my brother.

The guy behind the truck. "Yeah I remember him."

They have the tire changed by now, and tell me where I can get a decent used tire for a fair price. They jump back in the pickup and tell me to follow them to the tire shop. So I do. Tattoed arms waving, they point to a tiny auto shop.

I don't know how you remember high school, but there are certain families that are labeled in small towns as losers. I don't know how it started with this family, but they had a certain label. It may have been something their great-grandpa did...but teachers and kids at school have a certain idea of a kid with a certain last name. Sometimes the kid chooses to live up to it, sometimes they try hard to overcome it.

Here I am in a tiny farming town in southwest Oklahoma living inside the parable of the Good Samaritan. Believe me, no one would have guessed the dust covered 90 Ford Taurus I drive is the car of a college professor. At the moment I looked like an Okie (I do say it proud, Vince Gill, but I did look like one). My station wagon is loaded down with junk cause we have been on a day trip at the lake. My 2 kids & I have just been swimming and digging clay. I had my hatch up and junk spread around on the gravel, just trying to dig for the spare tire. Did cars drive by and see my distress? Oh yes. Who was it that stopped? The guys that got beat up in school because their family was labeled.

Palm Sunday Year C Luke 19:29-47

(photo courtesy of www.HolyLandPhotos.org)


Finding Ourselves in the Crowd


Luke 18:31-34 And taking the twelve, he said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered to the Gentile sand will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; they will scourge him and kill him, and the third day he will rise. But they understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them, and the did not grasp what he said."



Four chapters later, James and John request that they could sit on his right hand and his left.

Did you even hear what he said, James and John? The son of man must die! He's going to die and all you're concerned about his who gets to be first in line. Does anybody understand who he really is? Why must you put your anticipations upon him? Why can't you let him be himself? Why are your only concerns selfish when your master is about to suffer and die? Is it because you really can't believe anything will ever happen to this powerful man? Is it because all you can think of is that your dreams of a Messiah overthrowing the Romans has blinded your vision and made you deaf? And you James and John, might dare to dream you are able to drink the cup he is about to drink? Surely, you think, surely, if it leads to glory we can do anything...

The rest of the disciples become angry with James and John. Is it only because they didn't think of making the request first? And how does Jesus handle this dispute among his friends? "Let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader, as the one who serves."

And they could not understand...they didn't know how quickly Jesus would show them exactly what he meant by that statement...

"Son of David have mercy on me!" Cries blind Bartimaeus as Jesus enters Jericho on his way to Jerusalem. Jesus heals him. His impending week of sorrows does not keep him from having compassion on those who cry out to him.

He prepares to enter Jerusalem, knowing what will happen if he does. They come to Bethany, near the Mount of Olives. Jesus tells his disciples to go into the city to get a colt for him to ride upon. The people are curious; the disciples tell them what Jesus had said...the Lord has need of this colt. It seems perhaps then the curious followed the disciples to Jesus. The people begin to gather. They throw their cloaks on the colt, they spread leafy branches...

This is the man who had heals the blind. Who had fed the five thousand. How many in that crowd had been fed? This is only one with any kind of power. The Zealots had not been able to free them, with their system of vigilante justice, attacking Roman soldiers and officials. Their own religious leaders were so corrupt the common people found no direction from them. Where is God? Surely he must be found in this man acting just like the Messiah prophesied in Scripture. Not all these thoughts crossed everyone's mind, of course, but it is so easy to get caught up in a moment, to get caught up in what the mob is doing

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

He had said when John's disciples asked him in if he was the Messiah that the lame walk the blind see the hungry are fed...hadn't he said himself that he was the one they were all waiting for? Waving and shouting they followed him into Jerusalem

But the nagging question in the back of their minds continued to pound...why is he riding on a colt, and not a stallion? Echoes of Zechariah 9:9-10 "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cutoff, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth." But how many people remembered this passage? How many people instead, remember stories of the mighty military power of David, and cry out, "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" Hosanna means Save us! For even in their praises they were asking him to deliver them from what they thought was the worst oppression. They didn't know their true oppression lay in the evil of their own hearts...as they would show later that week.

He is deliberately showing he is the Messiah, but a Messiah without arms, without weapons, riding down the road of the Suffering Servant.

The people crowded and pushed each other, each trying to get a glimpse of the Son of David atop the colt. Shouting joyfully they stepped on each other's toes, no one minding because their minds were on one thing....at last, at last God has fulfilled his promise to us. Nothing else matters because the Messiah has come. Tomorrow Rome will see who is boss. Pilate will be run out of town, his fancy chariots breaking down under the immense speed as the Lion of Judah pursues him...to destroy him. And on to Rome!!! We'll show them. The center of the world will be the holy timeless city of Jerusalem, not the pagan city of Rome. Tomorrow he won't be sitting on a colt, but a white stallion. He will be clad in robes of scarlet...

The gods of Rome will be overthrown by the Son of God, the Messiah. The only true God will show the world who rules...

This is the one who healed you in the past as you lay dying from a serious illness. This is the one who brought you out of poverty and led you to a decent job. This is the one who transformed your life so completely your old comrades don't recognize you...but today, today you say, he let you down. A huge crisis came and went and things didn't go the way you prayed for them to go. Not everything you expected has happened. Yesterday you were waving palm branches, lifting your hands and praying, praising him. Today you cursed him, wondering where he is in all this grief and sorrow. Today you cried crucify him because he didn't live up to your expectations.

But tomorrow has come and all he's doing is throwing out moneychangers from the Temple. He is angry...showing power and the people hope he his beginning his takeover. But instead of heading to Herod's palace he returns to Bethany and the home of his friends.

The week progresses and nothing the people expected happens. And then he is arrested...

Philippians 2:5-11 "who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness...."

Today we want to celebrate...but we must realize in shadow of the palms lies a whip, a crown of thorns, three nails, and two beams. And if you found yourself in the procession crying Hosanna, you might not believe it now, but you will inevitably find yourself in the mob crying crucify him--in only five days!