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2022-07-10 – 15th Sunday & Title: Good Samaritan. Law. Location
[_01_] The Gospel this Sunday is the parable of the
Good Samaritan.
This
is an example of a Good-Samaritan episode in which I received the goodness of
the Samaritan in my life.
Once upon a time … many years ago, I was
driving back to New Jersey from my college campus in Pennsylvania when our car,
vehicle, broke down. I was with a friend. It was just the 2 of us. This was so
long ago that the car was a Datsun.
“Datsun” is now Nissan.
For some unexplained reason that Datsun/Nissan
left us stalled by the side of the road on the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76). It
was dark. It was after Dark at sunset, after our final exams in December and we
were going home for Christmas.
This was so long ago that neither of us had a
mobile phone or cell phone to call for help. And, while we did have AAA
roadside assistance, we had no way to call AAA directly.
And all we could do was hope that someone
coming along would help us would assist us. I'm sure that a Pennsylvania State
Trooper would have come along to assist us but we were eager to get going. So, we
took matters into our own hands – and arms …and waved our hands and arms from
the road shoulder to flag down another driver. Do not try this at home.
Being young and rather foolish. We went
outside the car in the dark into the shoulder of the road and waved to passing
drivers to help us. Then someone stopped, a driver whom we did not know. We got
into his car together, my friend and I and he drove us to a mechanic to a
service station so that AAA and a tow truck could be called and the tow truck
than with the tow truck, we went back to the car got the car took it to a
mechanic.
We actually had to stay overnight at a motel
while our car was being fixed…the next morning we were on our way.
It was not a big deal to fix the car, but
somebody first had to pick us up at the side of the road.
This was 1984, almost 40 years ago, it was
not unusual in those days to rely on and trust, perhaps trust a bit more in the
kindness of a stranger, of a “Good Samaritan”.
Who was our 1984 Good Samaritan?
[_02_] I
remember a few details about his appearance and age. In any case, our “driver / Samaritan” was a
well dressed in business attire, jacket and tie, He was older than we were. Perhaps
we would have appeared to be have been his college- age children. In any case,
he took us in he made us his own.
Our driver/Samaritan took a risk, he chose to
pull over to the side of the road judging that we were legitimately young
people in just needed to lift, just needed a ride.
And by risking himself, he gave up something
of value. But he could have kept driving he could have kept going. There were
dozens of cars that passed us by on the side of the road,
I myself have driven by many people stalled
by the side of the road.
[_03_] The Good Samaritan parable is about the danger
of discipleship, of following the Commandments.
I’d like to discuss this risk in two aspects
of this they boast over the letter L. One is the example in terms of the LAW and
the commandments And, the other is in terms of the LOCATION and the community.
[_04_] 1st.
The Law. It is notable that Jesus has this discussion about true neighborliness
and being a neighbor with a scholar of the law, someone who knows the
commandments very well.
Also, Jesus includes in the parable 2 religious
and “legal / Commandment” leaders in his example: the priest and the Levite.
Why does it go down this way? One biblical explanation
as to why the priest and Levite did not help is that they believe that the man
was in fact deceased, it was already he'd already died. And for them in their
position, touching a corpse or a dead person would have left them ritually
unclean, and unable to serve at the temple
Then again, Jesus relates that they were not
on their way to the temple. Because they if they were on their way to the
temple, they would have been going up the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. But
Jesus specifies carefully
that they were coming down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. In other words,
they were leaving the Temple, they're finished. In any case, they did not stop
to help.
In a commentary on the Good Samaritan based
on his own pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King
wrote this about the possible danger of a crime or violence in such a dark and
threatening road with a reputation for
danger.
MLK: “it's possible that the priest and
Levite looked over that man on the road and wondered if the robbers were still
around. The robbers who hurt that man were still around, or maybe the priests
of the league I felt that the man on the ground was really faking it. That he
was acting like he had been hurt in order to lure them in and trap them and
make them captive. I think we've all seen that movie, that scene where
somebody's lying on the ground pretending to be heard. And then he jumps up and
does his does his thing. So the first question, the first question the priest
is asking, and the Levite asked is, if I stop, if I help this beaten man, what
will happen to me? I've asked that question. If I stop and help this beaten
man, what will happen to me but Martin Luther King, Jr. writes, but the Good
Samaritan asks a different question, if I do not help, what will happen to him?”
[_04.01_] What
will happen to you or to me if you or I become a Good Samaritan?
Have you ever faced a situation in which you
resisted extending yourself or speaking up to do the right thing or say the
right thing? Because you wonder what would happen to you, I have resisted in
this way.
And this isn't necessarily because I didn't
pull my car over to the side of the road.
REPUTATION -- But
for example, what about just speaking up to say what's right in a situation
where you might be the only one, to speak up and say what's right or to defend
somebody's reputation when everybody else is tearing the other person down?
It's so much easier to leave that person by the side of the road, it's hard to
be the Good Samaritan in conversation to protect someone's reputation.
[_04.02_] SANCTITY OF LIFE -- Or what
about speaking about the sanctity of all human life, the truthfulness to
protect all human life from conception to natural death. We live in a time of
many laws and enforcement of laws in our own state of New Jersey that do not
respect the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. These laws
suggest that the choice to end a pregnancy is one of autonomous rights. It is
true that there are women expecting children in oppressive and terrible
circumstances who may be abandoned by a partner, by a spouse by a boyfriend by
a family. What is the Good Samaritan response in such a situation, I testify
the Good Samaritan responses to recognize that there are two persons by the
side of the road in such a situation. It's both the mother and the child in
need of assistance.
Moreover, protection of life also includes
protection of children in many circumstances, in foster care, in our own homes,
schools.
This is a call to us, even if all of the
other cars are by speeding by
The Good Samaritan parable is told to remind
us of the law, the law of love. So that's the law part.
[_05_] 2nd.
LOCATION
The Good Samaritan parable is also told us to
remind us of a location, the location Jesus told this parable to those who are
well aware of the dramatic element and the dramatic change of location between
Jerusalem and Jericho, and also the dramatic cultural change between the Jewish
and the Samaritan people.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is both a
geographic and a demographic message, which suggests division and divide the
city of Jericho.
In fact, at 258 m or 846 feet below sea
level, located adjacent to the Dead Sea is today the city with the lowest point
it's the city at the lowest point below sea level of any other city in the
world, lower than any other city, any other inhabited city in the world. (Jericho is not only lower than Death Valley,
California….but also has people living there. No one lives in Death Valley).
So…
the geography – the low point – is part of the message here. If you were
on your way from the hight point of Jerusalem to low point of Jericho, that is
a journey from light to darkness you were going from the top to the bottom, you
were going from safety to danger.
Jesus Himself, as the Incarnation of God,
also comes to us at our lowest point, first being born a child and also at the
lowest by suffering and dying for our sins. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. You
and I are person at the side of the road, par
excellence.
The parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us
of Jesus's love for us and our call to recognize that helping a neighbor might
involve helping someone who will ask us to leave our own comfort zone. But
doing so will help us to build a new community. Based on the final question
between the scholar of the law and our Savior, the final question, who the
final question about of the three the priests, the Levite and the Samaritan who
was neighbor to the robbers victim and the Levite and the scholar says the one
who treated him with mercy. And Jesus says to the scholar and to you, the
scholars of the law, as well go and do likewise.
[_fin_]
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