Introduction to Luke Reading:
Today’s New Testament Scripture reading is from the gospel of Luke, the familiar “Good Samaritan” story. A Samaritan, in Jesus’ day, was a foreigner who lived in an area north of Jerusalem called Samaria. This was the area that was once the “Northern Kingdom” of Israel, but when it was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century B.C., many foreigners moved into the area, and intermarried with each other and the Jewish people who were left behind. So, Samaritans were people of mixed race, whose religion was a conglomeration of the various beliefs brought to the region by their ancestors. Samaritans were considered interlopers and were not well thought of by the Jewish people as a whole. “Priests” in this story refer to the religious leaders who presided over worship in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and “Levites” refer to members of the Jewish tribe from which the priests are chosen.
Luke 10:25-37
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall 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.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarrii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The lawyer said, “the one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Sermon Title: “Who Is my Neighbor?"
(Note: This week the sermon is a story—a “re-telling” of the Good Samaritan Story in contemporary terms):
A man was going down from Franklin to Boston to visit a family member in the hospital, when he fell into the hands of robbers—right there in the hospital parking garage. The robbers stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead on the floor of the garage next to his car.
Now, by chance, a minister was also visiting a family member in that same hospital, and, unbeknownst to him, he parked just a few spots away from where the wounded man lay. The minister turned off his car engine and sat for a moment in the quiet of the garage. This was the first time he had stopped all day. It had been a very busy month, with 4 podcasts, 3 on-line seminars, 2 funerals, several people in crisis, and now his elderly aunt had been rushed to the hospital after a major car accident. Plus, his wife was mad at him for forgetting their anniversary and missing their son’s live zoom presentation at the end of summer camp.
The minister closed his eyes for a moment and prayed for some relief from the stress he’d been feeling lately. “Lord,” he prayed, “I’m exhausted. It’s not like I want to stop serving you, it’s just that I need a little break. It seems like, lately, everyone wants a piece of me. I’m spread too thin. Can’t you ease up on me a bit? Isn’t there anyone else you could call on for a while? Please… Amen.” The minister kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, and let out a sigh of relief, trusting that God had heard his prayer and would begin to lift some of his burdens.
He got out of his car, hit the automatic lock button on his key fob, and started to walk toward the elevator, when he heard a slight moan coming from the space between two parked cars. It sounded like a sick animal. Maybe a raccoon or a cat. But when the minister went over to look, he saw the wounded man, who was curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the garage, with cuts and bruises on his arms and legs. “Oh, my God!” he prayed, and he took a step backwards. Then he looked around quickly, to make sure the man’s attackers were not hiding nearby, waiting to pounce on another victim. He saw no one else around, so he figured the coast was clear, but still, he did not jump to the man’s aid. “God,” he mumbled, more or less to himself, “I can’t handle this. It’s too much. Too much.” To the man he said, “I’ll go tell security that you’re up here, but I can’t help you myself. I’m sorry. I just can’t!” and he turned and ran out of the garage as fast as his legs would carry him.
As soon as the minister disappeared down the stairwell, another car appeared from around the corner and pulled into a parking space. It was driven by a middle-aged woman, a pillar of the church. She had come to visit her sister, who was also a fellow church member, who had unexpectedly taken sick.
She was glad to have found a parking space relatively close to the elevator, because being in Boston made her nervous. From her point of view, the hospital wasn’t in a very safe neighborhood, and she had been reading in the paper about how even children in this urban area were sometimes literally caught in the crossfire between rival gangs. The woman got out of the car quickly and locked the door behind her. She clutched her purse close to her body and prayed that God would keep her safe as she walked briskly to the elevator.
When she was almost to the elevator, something caught her eye in the space between two parked cars. She gasped when she realized it was a nearly naked man, curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the garage. He was dirty, and she could see cuts and bruises on his arms and legs. He was barely breathing. Then she noticed a crumpled paper bag near his head, and an empty bottle of some sort. Her lip curled up in disgust. “Probably another drunken, homeless drug-addict,” she thought to herself. Still, she couldn’t just leave him there to die, despite the bad choices he had obviously made. She pulled out her cell phone and punched in 911, but the call wouldn’t go through; there was no reception in the garage. Just then the elevator beeped, the doors opened, and a young Asian man in faded blue jeans and a hooded sweat shirt stepped out. His skin was dark, one eyebrow was pierced, and he had a small dragon tattooed on the side of his neck. The woman looked at him with fear in her eyes, and, frantically pushing the numbers on her phone, she rushed past him into the elevator.
The young man smiled kindly at the woman as she passed by, but of course, she couldn’t see his smile because he was wearing a mask! She was clearly in a frenzy trying to make a call that wouldn’t go through. As he looked back at her over his shoulder, he could see her practically pounding on the cell phone as the elevator door closed behind him.
He sighed to himself. It was a lot harder living in America than he had anticipated when he first arrived to go to college a couple of years ago. People who didn’t even know him sometimes seemed to fear him or even hate him. He tried to dress like the young American men his age—he even got a piercing and a tattoo to fit in with his peers, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Maybe he should just give up, quit school and go back home, but he knew his mother was counting on him to stay, earn his degree, and get a job so he could help his family get out of the terrible poverty they had experienced for generations.
As he stood in the garage, looking out over the sea of parked cars, trying to remember exactly where he had parked the car he had borrowed so he could donate blood at the hospital, he heard a soft moaning sound. He walked around the car in front of him, and he realized what had spooked the woman. There was a man curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the garage, in the space between two parked cars. There were cuts and bruises all over his body, and his eyes were almost swollen shut. The young man’s heart went out to the wounded man. He thought briefly about the risk of catching Covid, but he realized the man’s life could be hanging in the balance--so he would just have to take that risk. He ran over to him, knelt by his side, and took his pulse. It was weak, but at least the man was still alive.
The young man wasn’t sure how much the wounded man could hear, but he remembered learning from Grey’s Anatomy reruns on T.V. that even people in comas can understand more than we think they can. So he held the man’s hand and spoke to him. “Don’t worry,” he said, “Help is on the way. I’m sure of it. A nice woman was just here, and I saw her calling security. I’ll stay with you until they arrive.” He wasn’t sure what else to say, but then he remembered a Buddhist mantra that his mother taught him when he was just a boy. It was a prayer for strength. So the young man repeated it over and over as he waited for help to arrive.
As he knelt by the wounded man, praying for him, it occurred to the young man that the hospital security guards, whom the woman had, by now, no doubt notified, might well greet him with fear and suspicion as so many people did, might even arrest him as a suspect in the attack, but it was a risk he chose to take. The young man’s mother had taught him that a life without compassion was not one worth living, so once again he put himself in God’s hands and continued to pray for strength—strength for the wounded man, and strength for himself. “God help us all,” he prayed, “to be good neighbors to each other. Amen.”
Rev. Dr. Marlayna Schmidt
Franklin Federated Church
Franklin, MA
August 30, 2020
[Note: An earlier version of this sermon was first written and preached by Rev. Marlayna at Annisquam Village Church in Gloucester, MA on July 15, 2007; and in Watch Hill on July 26, 2015; in Manchester, NH on Aug 21, 2016; in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA in July, 2018.]