July 14, 2019        Word – Christ – Action                                      

Having preached on the text of the Good Samaritan, every three years for the last 30, I thought that this week, I would see what some other people had to say on the topic. When I googled Good Samaritan, I found a lot of sermons and stories about neighbors helping neighbors, and strangers helping friends. Which were quite inspirational. I also read a number of sermons that talked about being good neighbors and helping out the stranger. These also were quite inspirational. But there was something missing from these stories, that is in Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan, something important for us not to lose.

We have all heard that the Jews hated Samaritans, they claimed to worship the God of the Jews, but on their own mountain, and in their own ways. This led to a variety of skirmishes and violence between them, and to publicly shunning one another. But in the parable of the Good of Samaritan, it is the Samaritan who practices God’s commandment to show mercy, rather than the Priest – who knows the Word of God, and the Levite – who supposedly has dedicated himself to doing the works of God. The simple truth that Jesus is trying to point out, is that God can be in anyone who does God’s will, showing mercy to someone in need.

Now I know that you have heard this kind of sermon before, so I just wanted to consider what that means. In all the stories I read about Good Samaritans this week, it was always the benevolent wealthy person, or the good citizen, or the wonderful Christian person, who was featured as the Good Samaritan in the story. And yes, that is great news that there are people like that among us, but there is no getting around the fact, that the person who does the will of God in the parable, isn’t one of us, it’s someone who is labeled a heretic, unclean, an enemy.

In order for a modern day story to truly fit the story of the Good Samaritan, the injured person would have to be one of us, and the Samaritan would have to be a Muslim, or a Mexican, or an Asian, or any other foreigner. They could be a legal or illegal immigrant, or any other person, which our dominant culture considers unclean, or unworthy. Someone of whom we are to be afraid. The story of the Good Samaritan bears witness, that God can be found in everyone’s heart, no matter who they are, or where they came from.  Now while our worldly leaders repeatedly try to make us fear these people, and try to play us against one another, I think it’s Good News that God can be found, not just in us, but in them as well.

As I thought about this I googled immigrant Good Samaritan stories, and foreigner Good Samaritan stories, and ten best Good Samaritan stories of the year. One of these was the story of a Mexican immigrant here on a green card, who during an orange alert, saw a young girl under a canvas in the bed of a pickup truck, and sought to free her. He was beaten and left for dead, but he created enough of a disturbance, that the police were called and they quickly found the girl. There was a story about a Muslim cab driver in New York, who saw a woman being mugged, got out of his cab, and risked his life to chase off the attacker. There was also a story about a Muslim group, who in the last year, helped rebuild Christian churches that had been burnt to the ground, and has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to non-muslim causes, as a witness to the Spirit of God’s compassion for others.

These people are Good Samaritans, not because of their race or religion, but because of their ability to show mercy to those in need, and a willingness to suffer themselves for one another. They are not just people who have heard God’s Word, like our lawyer in the gospel lesson, or the priest, or the Levite in the parable, they are people who act upon God’s Word on behalf of others. For us Christians, that demonstrates the presence of the Spirit of Christ. And that presence gives us hope, that despite our differences, that we can all be one through that Spirit of Christ in our lives. And that is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Amen.