Jump Start # 1145

Luke 10:31 “And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.”

  Our VBS continues at the home congregation. This evening, we look at the story of the good Samaritan and discuss serving. The heart of a servant is the heart of Jesus. Our passage, taken from the parable of the good Samaritan, is part of Jesus’ answer to a lawyer’s question about inheriting eternal life. The lawyer wasn’t an attorney like we use the word. He was trained to be an expert in God’s law. The law that he knew was the Old Testament. He is a religious person not one who deals with contracts, wills and lawsuits. He asks Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. That question alone, coming from one who is an expert in God’s law, is rather smart elect. Jesus makes him reveal what he knows. What’s in the law, Jesus responds. He answered by quoting the Bible. Good answer. Loving God and loving your neighbor. Right answer, according to Jesus. However, he wasn’t done with Jesus. He seemed to be showing off. He comes across not sincere, but with an agenda. He wants to show Jesus that he knows more about the law than Jesus does. How wrong he is. The text says, “wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”

Really? You are a LAWYER and you do not know the answer to that question? Jesus could have destroyed him intellectually right then and there. He didn’t. He tells the parable of the good Samaritan. It ends with Jesus asking him, “Who proved to be the neighbor?” Jesus then adds one additional step, “Go and do the same.” Quit talking so much and start doing. Long on arguments and short on actions, get busy.

We know this parable as “the good Samaritan.” The text never calls it that. I suppose we could also call it the parable of the bad priest or the parable of the neglectful Levite. Those titles are just as fitting. In the story, so real to the audience, a man traveling alone, down the winding road from Jerusalem to Jericho is jumped by a band of robbers. They do more than steal, they beat him and nearly kill him. He is left along side the road wounded. Luke, the doctor, uses the expression, “leaving him half dead.” Then follows our verse. A priest going down the same road comes upon the wounded man. The injured man must have thought God has answered my prayers. Help has arrived. I am now safe. Here comes a priest. Here comes a man of God. The Lord sent me a priest to rescue me.

What is revealing about our verse is that the priest saw him. It wasn’t that he was reading a book as he was walking and never saw him. It wasn’t that the injured man was unconscious in a bush in a ditch and he never saw him. Luke tells us that he saw him. He saw him and passed by the other side. “The other side,” indicates that he crossed over to the other side of the road. Sometimes when driving, we come across road kill. We pass around it. That’s what the priest did. He was the first to pass by road kill, except in this case, it wasn’t dead, and it wasn’t an animal, but a person.

Commentators for centuries have tried to get inside the thinking of this priest. Why would a priest walk away and do nothing. There is no indication that when he arrived at Jericho that he sent word back. He did nothing. Like the rich man a few chapters later, with sickly Lazarus at his gates, he did nothing.

Some have suggested that he may have thought that this was a trap. Possibly the hurt man wasn’t really hurt. Maybe fellow thugs were hiding and waiting to pounce upon anyone who stopped. That is pure speculation.

Others have suggested that if the robbed man was truly dead and the priest touched him, that would make him unclean. Possibly. However, the priest wasn’t going to Jerusalem, he was traveling away from Jerusalem. His service was over. It didn’t matter. Besides, doesn’t God place a higher value over compassion and heart than sacrifice? The broken and contrite heart moves God. Going to sacrifice while you have odds with your brother doesn’t fly with God. Jesus, in his sermon, said to settle things with your brother first. The right thing to do was to help the injured and then deal with your “uncleanness.”

My take on this priest is that he was heading home. Jericho was the center for many priests. He had served and now he was done. Why stop? Why help? He has already served God. There was nothing in it for him. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t his job. He was off duty, we might say. This drives at the real problem. This reveals what Jesus saw in these questions from the lawyer. A mechanical, heartless service to God. Being a priest was a job for this one. He didn’t have the heart of a servant. Once he was finished in the temple, he was finished. Don’t ask him for anything else. Why stop? I have served.

We can be like that as well. Thinking that what we do in church services is all that is required, we can close our eyes, and our hearts to the needs of others, often in our home and in our neighborhood. After church services, it’s my time, we may think. It’s nap time. It’s sports time. Go visit someone and have a prayer? Already had prayers in church. Go have a Bible study in the afternoon? Why? Already went to Bible study in the morning. Stick around after services and sing some more? Why. We already sang. It’s time to go home. It’s time to eat. It’s time for TV.

I heard a preacher once arrogantly announce from the pulpit that his day off was on Monday. He said publicly, if you have surgery, I’ll be there on Tuesday, but not Monday. Don’t call him on Monday. If there is a funeral on a Monday, he won’t be available. Monday was his day off and he meant it. I probably shouldn’t have said it, but on the way out I told this preacher that I hope Jesus doesn’t come on a Monday. He didn’t smile. Neither did I.

The arrogant lawyer was looking for loopholes. Jesus was looking for servants. The lawyer wanted to trap Jesus. Jesus nailed the lawyer. Service doesn’t recognize time, nor days off, nor vacations, nor after hours or such things. That is not the language of servants. The heart of a servant doesn’t matter if you are walking towards Jerusalem or away from Jerusalem. If you can do something, a servant will.

This parable reminds us that those who knew God’s law, such as this lawyer, didn’t know God. And those who got paid to serve in worship, as this priest did, didn’t get it. Sometimes those that stand in front of a congregation are not the best examples. We’d expect them to be, but this priest illustrates that some who serve do not have the right attitudes, heart or compassion.

How different Jesus proved to be. He came. He saw Israel, He saw us, destroyed by sin and stopped and helped us. The Lord wasn’t like the priest. The Lord wasn’t like this lawyer. The Lord cared. The Lord gave. The Lord saved us. If it was up to the priest or the Levite, this injured man would have died.

I wonder if the priest thought about that injured man any more. Did he feel guilt for doing nothing? Did he have a sleepless night thinking about that man? Did it cross his mind that it could have been him that was robbed and left? You wonder, did he not care?

The priest in many ways was about as heartless as the thieves. They didn’t care for life. They took. They injured the man. And they left him. The priest did about the same thing with his neglect. Now he would never see himself as cold and abusive as the thieves, but he was. He would have thought that he was better than thieves because he was a man of God. He went to the temple and worshipped. His heart proved that he was not a neighbor. His heart revealed that he did not love his neighbor.

I have sat in Bible classes and heard folks kicking around whether or not they ought to stop and help someone along side the road. Arguments, fear and all kinds of talk is given. Talk, talk, talk. And there sits a little widow, with her walker, who after services, struggles to open her car door to get in. Where are the Samaritans? Where are the helpers? I felt sorry for her. I ran and opened her door and she gave me the sweetest kiss on my cheek. I don’t think anyone had ever done that before. Did someone miss the point of this parable? Serve. Prove. Show you care. Talk is cheap. Doing demonstrates. Help those who you can. Have the heart of a servant. Quit talking and start doing.

I wonder if that lawyer ever got it. I wonder if I get it? Makes you think.

I can’t wait for tonight’s lesson. It will be a good one, taught by one who knows how to serve, one of our shepherds. I’ll have my Bible, my pen, and most importantly, my heart open. Wish you could be there with us.

Roger