H. Stephen Shoemaker
Myers Park Baptist Church
Charlotte, North Carolina
February 4, 2001
FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO
Text: Luke 10:25-37
The ancient church named the parables of Jesus by their first line rather than the punch line. So, instead of the Prodigal Son, the title was "A Certain Man Had Two Sons." I like that. If Jesus had said, Let me tell you the story of the Good Samaritan, he would have given away the surprise ending -- like a person who says, "Have you heard the story about" . . . and then proceeds to let the punch line slip before the story gets started.
So let's call today's parable "From Jerusalem to Jericho." Some entitle it "The Man Who Fell Among Thieves," but think of all the hospitals which would have to change their names from Good Samaritan Hospitals to The Man Who Fell Among Thieves Hospital.
I
The story begins as a "nomikos" an expert in scripture, a scholar in Torah and Mosaic Law, comes to Jesus and asks, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He asked this to "try him out." Was it to trap him? Or was it with some inner hope that Jesus could give him the answer to his spiritual longing? We can't know for sure.
Jesus did not answer him directly but asked a question: How do you read the Torah on this? The man quoted Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and your neighbor as yourself."
Jesus said, "You have answered right; do this and you will live."
Doing the word, not just giving the right answer, is what leads to life. The black poet put it this way: "You don't know something 'till you act on it."
Then the lawyer said, "Who is my neighbor?" He asked it, the text says, to "justify" himself -- to put himself right before God. Whom do I have to love as my neighbor to gain eternal life? Which is also to say, whom do I not have to love? What are the limits of my obligation?
The New Testament word for neighbor, plesion, means "one who is near." Define "near." Does "near" mean my family, my village, my fellow Jew? Who is the neighbor I have to love as myself?
Jesus again doesn't answer directly but this time tells a story. Think of it as a bluesy ballad of four stanzas, B.B. King on guitar. . .
Stanza One
A man was travelin' down the road
From Jerusalem to Jericho
He fell among thieves who beat him and stripped him
And robbed him and left him half dead
Robbed him and left him half dead.
The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a treacherous seventeen mile stretch that dropped three-thousand feet in altitude. There were numerous narrow passes and blind gaps where robbers liked to hide. We all have our Jericho roads with seen and unseen dangers, where harm or self-harm is likely: "Through many dangers, toils and snares."
Stanza Two
Now a priest came by going down that road
From Jerusalem to Jericho
He stopped his carriage, took a look
And passed by on the other side
Passed by on the other side.
Imagine the scene. It's out in the middle of nowhere; a dangerous road where robbers hid and preyed upon travelers. You see a sign:
"Next exit: 20 miles."
Why did the priest not stop? We can both guess and sympathize. Was he scared the robbers might get him too? Was the body a "plant"?
The man had been stripped by the robbers, left naked. All identifying marks of class, status and station in life were gone. How could you tell if he was a neighbor or not? How do you trust somebody with no clothes? As Mark Twain quipped: "Clothes make the man; naked people rarely make an impact on society."
There are people you'd surely help if you knew who they were. "I'd have helped if I'd only known it was you."
Perhaps more importantly, the man could have already died. A priest wasn't allowed to touch a corpse, else he would be made ritually unclean. He couldn't get within four cubits of a corpse without being defiled. What if he drew within four cubits and discovered the man had died? An unclean priest is about as useful as a doctor with active tuberculosis. Imagine, he'd just been to the temple in Jerusalem helping with the sacrifices. What would it have been like to have to return the next day and go through the week-long public ritual of purification? People would walk by and say, "Wasn't he the guy who helped me with my sacrifices yesterday?"
The law of Moses also said, "Do not go to the aid of a sinner." This man lying there could well have been a sinner.
There were many reasons not to stop and help, and the priest's religion did more to hinder than to help.
Stanza Three
A Levite also came down that road
From Jerusalsm to Jericho
He stopped at the place where the poor man lay
And passed by on the other side
Passed by on the other side.
First, the preacher blew it. Here comes the Levite. Levites helped with the worship in the temple. Sometimes they were musicians and liturgical assistants. They set up the place of worship. So think "minister of music."
First the preacher, now the minister of music. He stopped his Buick, took a look, and passed by on the other side, passed by on the other side.
The crowd was now enjoying the story. The priest and Levite were the set ups in the story, the fall guys, and the crowd knew, or thought they knew, what was coming. It was like doctor, lawyer and preacher jokes or rabbi, priest and Baptist preacher jokes. In Jesus' day people told "priest, Levite and Jewish laymen" stories. After the priest and Levite, the people expected the next figure to be a Jewish layman. The punch line would then come and he'd most likely be the hero.
The preacher blew it, the minister of music blew it; now comes the humble deacon (is this an oxymoron?) or the missions circle president. And he or she would do what was right! Preach on, preacher!
But Jesus threw the most unexpected turn into the story.
Stanza Four
Another came travelin' down that road
From Jerusalem to Jericho
He stopped and saw him, had mercy and helped him
He was a Samaritan!
He was a Samaritan!
(Note the change in the language of the parable: The priest came "down the road"; the Levite came "to the place", but the Samaritan came "near him" to the man.)
The Samaritan stopped and had compassion ("as God has compassion," Luke wants you to note). Here is another story about the politics of compassion, having mercy as God has mercy. He bound the man's wounds, using oil to cleanse and soothe them and wine to disinfect them. He did not worry about purity maps and uncleanness. He was already considered unclean. Compassion, not cleanness, directed his actions.
A Samaritan! Jews despised them for their racial impurity and laxity concerning the law of Moses. To the lawkeepers the Samaritan was the lawbreaker, to the lawyer a scofflaw. The Samaritans had even built a rival place of worship to the temple. Impertinence!
A Jewish proverb said that to eat the bread of a Samaritan was to eat the flesh of a swine. A Hebrew prayer prayed that Samaritans not enter eternal life.
I read an old sermon by Bob Jones, Sr., founder of Bob Jones University. It was entitled "There is a Hell." In it he argued there had to be a hell because his momma wouldn't be happy in heaven if all the thugs and murderers and sinners and unbelievers were there. Samaritans! Has to be a hell!
I don't know whom you have the most trouble with in life, who gets under your skin and pushes your buttons. But this person, this Samaritan, has just entered into eternal life, doing what God wants, and Jesus has just made him the hero.
II
Where do you fit in this story? The Priest, the Levite, the Samaritan? The Lawyer? Some of you may have humbly identified with Jesus!
But maybe the role you most need to take is the role we all try to avoid identifying with -- the role of the person lying by the road, beaten, stripped, robbed, left half dead.
We've all dressed up in our Sunday clothes, our best face forward, but my guess is that there are parts in all of us that have felt like this man: robbed, beaten, exposed, left to die.
Imagine being beside the road. You see a priest come by and leave you there. You see a Levite come by and leave you there. When you are about to give up, you see through a swollen and half-shut eye a figure coming. You try to call out but you're too weak. As he draws near, your stomach does a nose dive. It is a Samaritan.
Ever been so sick in a hospital that you had to accept help from anybody?
Imagine being in such desperate shape that any help from anybody would feel like an act of God. And who should come along but your ex-husband or ex-wife or ex-business partner or ex-friend. You have all the reason in the world to hate them. Perhaps it is they who have all the reason in the world to hate you.
And they see you and have compassion on you and save your life.
III
I want you to see where the story takes you now. After the first four short stanzas the story stops and lingers over what the Samaritan does.
He comes to the man, sees him, has compassion (as God has compassion), stops, cleans and bandages the man's wounds. Then he puts the man on his donkey and walks, leading the donkey to the next town. To walk by an animal was to take the role of a slave, a servant.
When he reached the town the Samaritan took the wounded man to an inn. He paid for the lodging, stayed the whole night with him, taking care of him all night long. The next morning he gave the innkeeper two days' pay and said, "Take good care of him until he's well. Use this money. If you need more I'll pay the bill when I come back through."
Here is a Samaritan pulling him into a Jewish town and checking him into a Bed and Breakfast. He could have been blamed for the robbing. He might well have just dropped the man off on the steps of the inn in the middle of the night and disappeared. That would have been gracious enough.
Imagine the wild West. Dodge City, 1845. A Plains Indian walks into town with a scalped cowboy across his horse, barely alive. The Indian checks him into the saloon and spends the night with him, taking care of him. Could you imagine that? The Indian would be lucky to get out of town alive.
But that's what the Samaritan did and the next morning left his credit card imprint with the innkeeper and said, "If he needs more, charge it to me."
Here is a shockingly extravagant, even reckless act of compassion, done at great personal risk. He literally risked his life for this nameless victim on the road.
Who can be such a neighbor? Who dares love like this Samaritan? So we ask, Who is the Samaritan in the parable.
IV
Who is the Samaritan? It was a book by a brilliant young Harvard theologian named Arthur McGill which opened up a whole new vista on this parable for me. McGill died in 1980 from a disease which began in childhood. In 1968 he wrote a profound book Suffering: A Test of Theological Method In it he explores the parable and asks, Who is the Samaritan in this parable? All the parables, he says, were about the kingdom of God coming and embodied in Jesus. So he asks a series of questions:
Who has come to us in a form so offensive that he was despised and had no place to lay his head?
Who loves others even while being persecuted by them?
Who will care for us through the night and take responsibility for us and promise to return and pay any debt?
Who is the man who becomes the true neighbor to us and whom we can love as ourselves? Who has come to stay?
The Good Samaritan is Jesus Christ, who has loved us extravagantly, recklessly, giving away his very life for us. Jesus, who was even called a Samaritan and refused to deny it when reviled by that name. Who still comes to bind your wounds, to take all of you into his arms and take you where you need to go to become whole?
What can make me whole again? . . .
Is there no balm in Gilead, Jeremiah cried,
Is there no physician there? 1
You see a figure coming down the road. You have no strength even to cry out. Here comes the stranger, his own face half-ruined with suffering. He takes all of you into his arms and carries you to that healing place where you most need to go.
Now is not the time to say, "Oh, I'm fine." Let him come.
1 Arthur C. McGill, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method (Philadelphia:
Westminister Press, 1982), pp. 108 ff
See also as resources, Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet and Peasant and Through
Peasant Eyes (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmons 1983), Bernard Brendon Scott,
Hear Then the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989).
Copyright © 2001 H. Stephen Shoemaker
Return to Main Sermons Page
