“A Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him he was moved with compassion.”
· Review from last week: “Why Bad Things Happen to Smart People”
◦ Direction, not intention, determines destination.
◦ Arrival at our desired destination requires us to align our direction with our intention.
◦ We must connect the dots of each decision we make along our path in order to reach our intended goal – the picture we have of how we want our lives to look
◦ Failure to connect the dots causes people to end up making decisions that lead to bad (and unintended) outcomes.
· The name “Samaritan” doesn't pack the same punch for us today as it did in Jesus' day. Instead of “Samaritan” you might try inserting “Al Qaeda” or “Hitler”; perhaps pimp or child molester or rapist. That deep-in-the-belly repulsion we feel is similar to what the lawyer who tested Jesus would be feeling at the mention of the Samaritan.
· This lawyer knows Jewish law inside and out, backwards and forwards, and every which way from Sunday, the way the late Senator Byrd knew the constitution of the United States.
· This Lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The lawyer already knows the answer Jesus is supposed to give; he's an expert in the law. You might even say that the Law is the lawyer's gospel. He may even figure that he knows the law better than Jesus does.
· What the lawyer doesn't bargain for is that the “teacher” is about to teach him something he doesn't know — the difference between the Law as gospel and the Gospel as law. The distinction is huge! It's one thing to recite the laws; it's a whole different country to live the Law. Anybody here ever exceeded the speed limit?
· We may know Christians who can recite Bible passages chapter and verse and think they know more about God and Jesus than we do – that they are better Christians than we are. Again, it's one thing to recite the words but it's a whole other story to live the Word.
· The lawyer seeks “to justify himself” (10:29) and asks, “And just who exactly is my neighbor?” And that's when he leaves the gospel in the ditch for his first love, the Law. As that happens, he gets lost.
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· It is very easy to get lost along the way to our intended destinations.
Our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness sometimes sends us off in wrong directions, which as we know explains why bad things happen to smart people.
· Andy Stanley (The Principle of the Path) writes that what so often trips up us smart people is that we are on a happiness quest not a truth quest. The happiness quest trumps the truth quest and before we know it, we're the ones in the ditch on the side of a dangerous road.
· Look at Lindsay Lohan. Is this a woman who pursues her own happiness over facing her own truth? Did you see the shock on her face when she heard “90 days in jail” and her name in the same sentence? Did you see the expletive sketched on her fingernails? Did you hear her defiance outside the courtroom? “I am NOT going to jail!” She's the talk of the town — but not the way she had dreamed of when she started out.
· The truth is, she already is imprisoned! She can't admit it; perhaps drugs and alcohol help her keep the truth from herself. She fell off the path to stardom a long time ago and hasn't been able to find her way back — and she won't, until she can speak of the real reasons she's where she is today. She needs a good Samaritan to help her out of the ditch she's in and show her the way out of the dangerous place.
· Being deep-in-the-belly honest with ourselves is tremendously difficult. We want to have “lawful” reasons for making the choices we make; it's too hard sometimes to admit the real reasons behind what we do. Selfishness is not a Christian value. So we set out in defense of our personal happiness on what Stanley calls a “Justification Safari.”
· Basically, after we have decided to do something that we think will aid in our happiness, we have to set our brains to the task of justifying why it's OK to step off our intended path.
· For example, It's like trading in one SUV for a newer, flashier, more expensive model and justifying the higher car payment (that's not, by the way, on our path to financial security) by telling ourselves (and others) that we made the trade for better gas mileage. We can trade in one SUV for another for a number of reasons, but good gas mileage isn't one of them.
· And so it goes with the priest and the Levite. Each refused to help a fellow Jew; Luke doesn't tell us why each holy man “passed by on the other side” of the road, but we can make an educated guess that as soon as they did so, their justification safaris began. They told themselves, “Coming into contact with blood (or a dead body) would make me ritually unclean for my work in the temple”; but the real reason they avoided the man is, ”it's too dangerous to stop here and help that man because I could end up in the ditch myself.” “It will make me late for my appointment.” Etc.
· Because they are unwilling to pause in a dangerous place to help their brother, the two holy men show that they are more concerned with themselves than with the needs of their neighbor. Like the lawyer, they wanted a choice about which neighbors they had to love.
· The Samaritan, however, is willing to pause in a dangerous place to show mercy and compassion — to love his neighbor first -- before considering his own comfort, his own happiness. He sees the truth in the situation.
· When happiness points in one direction while wisdom, truth, integrity and common sense point in another, that's when smart people end up in really bad situations and start doing really stupid things.
· People have a hard time leveling with themselves, whether we are talking SUVs or the gospel.
· As long as we are lying to ourselves about why we are making the choices we make, it will be impossible for us to get to where we want to be. To find the path to where we want to go, we must break the cycle of self-deception. Pretending that our choices are prudent and lead to our intentions gets us sooner or later stuck in a dangerous place. That dangerous place is away from the God who gifted us for the journey and sent us his son to lead us in the Way.
· If you're pausing in a dangerous place right now, be honest about the situation. What's the real reason behind the choices you're making? Without this kind of brutal honesty with ourselves, we surely will make unwise choices.
· Like Lindsay, What we won't know will hurt us. Truth sets us free; lies hold us captive; each is a path. Which choice will we make? Which path shall we take?
· Being honest can be painful; we can feel beaten and bloodied and left for dead as we go through the cleansing process. But it's worth it, because
◦ When we learn to tell ourselves the truth, we will know exactly where we are and understand then how to get to where we need to be. We give up the justification safaris in exchange for the God quests. For one thing I know:
◦ There is a savior who is willing to pause in our dangerous places and lift us out of the ditches we have gotten ourselves into.
◦ There is a savior who, at the cost of his own life's blood, brings us to the inn where our wounds are dressed and we are fed, clothed and cared for until our savior returns to settle our account.
◦ There is a savior who does more than pay our bills, he forgives us our sin and heals our transgressions.
◦ Yet what does this Savior require of us? Simply this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
· The parable of the Good Samaritan is a story for travelers on the path — a scriptural GPS (global positioning system) if you will – “guiding us in the only direction God desires: the way of love and compassion for ALL (emphasis mine) others”#.
· This is his promise; this is his power; this is his path; and this is our hope. “Do this, and you will live” (10:28).
July 11, 2010
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
