Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
July 15, 2007: Pentecost 7
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
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 denarii, 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?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
About a week and a half ago I pulled into the church parking lot to find a young man in a red sweatshirt sprawled out on the little patch of grass between the labyrinth garden and the street. His eyes were closed, his arms and legs were spread wide and he lay completely motionless. I got out of my car and, as I always do, gathered my things, and went into the office. But I couldn’t get him out of my mind. And so I came back out the office door and stood on the side porch watching to see if he would move, checking to see if he were alive. A few moments later he stretched, yawned and turned on his side. I felt relieved and, of course, guilty.
“The Parable of the Good Samaritan” the story in which three people encounter a man stripped, beaten and left for dead, has much the same effect on us. For I know how the story goes—how not one, but two official religious types like me pass by the man laid out on the road, pass by him, as the text says, on “the other side” of the road, and then a third person, a Samaritan—in this Biblical context, a despised one, a rejected one—comes near to the man and having pity on him, bandages his wounds, puts him on his own animal and brings him to an inn where he cares for him.
I believe many of us hear the Parable of the Good Samaritan in this way, as a story that confronts us with the distance between what we profess to value and what we do, a story of surprise and reversal, a story with a moral goad. “Hear, take that!” it seems to say. “Go and do likewise!”
But some who’ve studied this parable think that this is only one way of interpreting it. They think that just like Luke’s “Parable of the Prodigal Son” that is better renamed and understood as “The Parable of the Generous Father,” this Parable should be renamed to reflect what the real center of the story is. For them, this parable is “The Parable of the Man Who Fell among Thieves” because the real center of the story, the one we as listeners are asked and meant to identify with is not the Samaritan, but the one who was robbed, stripped, beaten and left half dead by the side of the road.
Why this focus on the wounded man instead of focusing on taking away what seems to be the moral of the story—that we are to behave like the merciful Samaritan?
Some of this has to do with what a parable is. While some parables do seem to have a moral, that is, they tell us something about how to behave rightly, many parables have a different aim entirely. They operate less like stories with a moral at the end and more like extended metaphors that disclose to us, even catch us up in the graciousness of the kingdom of God and the strange and surprising messiah who leads us into that kingdom.
And so if we, you and I, are the wounded one, the one robbed and beaten and left half dead by the side of the road (and all of us have been this or on some level are this in our lives) our parable, the “Parable of the Man who Fell among Thieves”, suggests that it is not religious authorities or the institutional church that will come near enough to us to bind our wounds and to carry us and bring us to the inn where we can rest and be healed. No, the parable suggests, it will be from an unlikely source, through one rejected by us, through an outsider like a Samaritan, that our help and healing will come.
Scholar Bernard Scott puts it this way: “This parable (suggests) that to enter the kingdom one must get into the ditch and be served by one’s mortal enemy….Grace comes to those who cannot resist, who have no other alternative than to accept it. To enter the parable’s World, to get into the ditch, is to be so low that grace is the only alternative. (And so) the point may be as simple as this: only (the one) who needs grace can receive grace.”
The grace of God coming to us who desperately need it through the one we would like to reject, the grace of God coming to us through the one who comes near to us and carries us: This is both about how our lives actually work and about the who our messiah is—the rejected one who does not pass by on the other side of the road but who comes near, who binds our wounds and who carries us.
It’s hard sometimes as an adult to admit we are so in need of such a messiah. And so I’d like to share this story, a true life story that is perhaps a parable all by itself. If it is a parable I believe it could either be called The Parable of the Traumatized Child or The Parable of Patient Therapist.
One day two women were out for a walk next to building that was under construction. As they walked by, they heard sounds of whimpering coming from inside a portable bathroom on the site. They opened the door to the bathroom and found a young boy who had been abducted and molested. He was three years old, had tape on his mouth and tape binding his hands and his feet. They called the police who came and got him and returned him to his mother who had frantically reported him missing just the day before.
Once back at home the boy followed his mother wherever she went. He begged her to board up the windows in his room and in other places in their house. He was terrified of any other adult.
It was then that his mother took him to a therapist who specialized in sexually abused children. At first the little boy regarded the therapist as an enemy, not to be trusted. And so at first, he wouldn’t remain in the therapist’s playroom without his mother there with him. But the therapist stayed with it, stayed with him, stayed near him session after session. Over time, the boy began to be more at ease.
And then one day in session, the boy pointed toward a narrow broom closet off the playroom. “I want you to get in there” he told the therapist. The therapist agreed, got up, opened the closet door and stood in the dark closet. Once the therapist was inside, the boy closed the closet door and began to pile toys and other objects against the door.
Then the boy said, “I want to get in there with you.” And so he took away all the toys and objects from the door and joined the therapist in the dark closet. Once inside he said; “It’s dark in here.” The therapist agreed. Then he said, “It’s scary in here.” The therapist also agreed. He took a deep breath and then said, “But it’s not as scary as in that bathroom!” And with this, that little boy kicked the closet door open and walked out into the playroom into the light, helped out of the darkness, so to speak by the one he had been suspicious of, the one he had wanted to reject, the one who by standing in the darkness with him helped him to bind up his wounds.
We, you and I live in the midst of so many parables. And while we might wish they were simple lessons with morals at the end of them that would tell us how we might inherit eternal life, this is not what we have been given. Rather we are in the middle of a story that is an unfolding mystery where at every minute we are surrounded by the graciousness of God in Christ and in others who come to our aid in our direst need who bind up our wounds and who help us move from darkness into the light.
Works Cited or Consulted
Brian Stoffregen’s exegetical comments on the Parable of the Good Samaritan in CrossMarks
The Moral of the Good Samaritan Story? Review and Expositor, 94 (1997) by Mike Graves
Bernard Scott puts it this way in his book entitled Jesus, Symbol-Maker for the Kingdom:
