4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Luke 10:25-37
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him{Jesus} to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And 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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Our favorite verses:
Opening
joke....A young lawyer died and was escorted to the
pearly gates. Upon arriving the lawyer started protesting for he was
only 32 years old, and there must be some mistake. The listening
angel agreed that perhaps it was a mistake and agreed to look into
it. After a few minutes the angel came back and said “I’m sorry
sir but I am afraid there is no mistake, we calculated your age by
how many hours you billed your clients, and you are at least 96.
Deuteronomy 6, very
familiar words, we read this for a baptism! “hear oh Israel, the
lord is One...One God”. Not a god of sun and a god of the harvest
and a goddess of moon and gods of fertility and whatever..but One
God. YHWH. The creator, God who made a covenant with Abraham, saying
your descendents will be like the stars in the sky...the Lord who
freed the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt.
The Lord who is not to
be forgotten, when we have homes and enough to eat....this was told
to the Israelites after their 40 years in the desert, when they were
about to enter the land that had been promised to them. Remember Who
brought you to this...who was WITH you thru the 40 years, God was
with them..as a cloud during the day...a cloud is protection from the
sun when you are in the desert...and as a pillar of fire all
night...a source of light and heat and protection from animals. Even
tho the israelites had to wander, taking 40 days for a 2 week
trip...God was with them thru it all. And in deuteronomy, Moses is
reminding them of all of that.
this is the beginning
of the Great prayer, the Shema, prayed daily by Jewish people every
day-for 5000 years! When Jesus said this, his listeners would have
known immediately what he was referring to.
Jesus did refer to this
prayer...our passage from Luke is one of the times that Jesus said we
are to Love God and Love one another. And he told a famous story to
illustrate it.
Imagine you are in the
crowd around Jesus. Listen to what He has to say...
READ GOSPEL LESSON
now this is a story
Jesus told, it didn't actually happen, but it could have. The setting
was a road that was well known and known to be dangerous. But Jesus'
telling of this story would have challenged his listeners. A priest
went by! A holy man, the person perhaps most trusted in the whole
community! Remember in these times, one went to temple every day,
prayed several times a day. The priests and levites were the most
influential, important people in the Jewish community. And Jesus says
this man crossed to the other side of the road, from the poor victim.
A Levite, was another religious leader who assisted in the operations
of the temple... and did the same thing. Not only ignoring the man,
but crossing over to avoid him. Jesus -and there may well have been
some of these people IN the crowd, was saying that someone could be
hurt or dying and the community leaders just might ignore you and
continue on their way. Now there were strict rules about cleanliness.
If either of these 2 men were on their way to temple, helping the
dying man would cause them to become 'unclean' and they would not be
able to perform their tasks in a timely manner. But it seems from
Jesus telling of this story that there is something else going on
here...
now in our times, we
speak of “Good Samaritan laws' and so on. We don't truly get how
the Samaritan in this story would have challenged Jesus' listeners.
You see the Jewish people and the Samaritans hated each other. There
had been centuries of bad blood between them. They feuded over
worship, over many traditions and by this time in their history, they
completely avoided each other. There was hate, mistrust. So for Jesus
to say a Samaritan helped the injured Jewish man, well this was
radical stuff. I'm not even sure how we can envision today how
radical this is.
And Jesus said, which
one of these is the neighbor?! And told the lawyer, go and do
likewise. Go and put aside all your differences with anyone! Treat
others as you would want to be treated, as you would want your
nearest and dearest to be treated!
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King day. He spoke on this very passage the last night of his life. I want to share a bit of what he said....
Dr King:
But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible
that those men {the Priest and the Levite} were afraid. You see, the
Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I
were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem
down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my
wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his
parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive
for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 feet
above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or
twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. {did
you get that? You descend 3400 feet in a 20 min drive) {Dr King
continued} That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to
be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible
that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and
wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they
felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting
like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there,
lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question
that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked
was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
This is what King said...he said we are
to reverse the question. We are to ask what will happen to that
person if I do not help. What will happen to my neighbor, if I don't
help? What will happen, not to me, but to that child—if I do not
help. What will happen..., to this community, to this church? If I
do not help?
This is what we need to be asking.
Every day. What will happen...
Whether they be young or old, spry and
fit --or tired & weak of body and soul, whether they be married
or single, straight or gay, even male or female. Whether a person has
addictions, is recovering from disease or injury, whether they live
in a grand home or in a shelter. Whether they just came to this
country or have been here since the Mayflower, or are Native to this
land, which so few of us are. What will happen if we do not help?
We just read our covenant..in the
Reformed Protestant tradition, we 'covenant together' we mutually
agree to be together as a gathered body. In that covenant we say “we
seek to affirm”. That means we uphold even defend others, no matter
their age, marital status, gender, ethnicity, sexual identity,
health....we choose to AFFIRM, not condemn. We choose to think, what
will happen to them....that is at the core of the values of this
church, of the 2 churches that came together. Let us think and pray
today and every day about how how WE can be better neighbors to each
other and to our community and beyond.
What do we need? We need love, and
wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice.
We need to remember who is our neighbor, and what will happen to that
person if I do not act. If I do not give, if I do not care.
Let us pray...
Let's sing together hymn Red 637
Instruments of Your Peace.
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