Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

July 15, 2007

Deuteronomy 30:9–14
Psalm 25:1–10
Colossians 1:1–14
Luke 10:25-37
Lectionary 15
Proper 10
Year C
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)


Can you sense Jesus pushing the envelope?
Can you feel Jesus taking you out of your comfort zone?
Have you ever felt like instead of standing firmly on two feet, you instead were made to flip and stand on your head?

Everybody knows the story of the Good Samaritan. Everybody knows that the moral of the story, punctuated by Jesus’ closing admonition, “Go and do likewise,” means that we should pay attention to those in need. This is not a particularly brazen statement. It is, in fact, a bread and butter issue for the church, something we pray about each week, something we practice in our own acts of compassion. We send bereavement cards, we participate in Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters, we support the ELCA World Hunger Appeal, and yet, it would seem by Jesus in his repartee with the lawyer and his story that by now everybody knows, Jesus would suggest that we are missing something.

Do me a favor; see if you can erase the word “good” from Samaritan. “Good” is mentioned nowhere in the story. If this were told in melodrama fashion, as I have demonstrated before, we would be cheering for the priest and Levite and booing the Samaritan.

Think about the Samaritan as if he were standing in front of you. Think of the most rancorous epithets you can. Substitute for Samaritan the bully who gave you nightmares as a kid. Substitute for Samaritan any one that is so out of your experience or vile, something that just hearing the word makes your blood boil or gives you sweaty palms:

For example,
Terrorist
Sexual Predator
Right-winger
Left-winger
Paris Hilton

Do you have your image, or a sense of what I’m asking?

Now, think about the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. “Down” is an operative word, because even though you travel in a northeasterly direction, when you travel the 12 miles from Jerusalem to Jericho you descend quickly from 2577 above sea level to 825 below sea level. And the place in between the two cities is to this day fairly desolate.

Imagine that in place of the man trudging through Palestine, that it is you going from where you live, from where you are, surrounded by the familiar, from creature comforts to a dangerous location, a hostile environment, or the part of you that psychologist Carl Jung calls the “shadow side.” There you are assaulted, attacked, besieged, incapacitated, and finally left alone, as the gospel says, “half dead.” Do you have a sense of this uncomfortable place? What does it feel like? What do you need?

Now into that place of nearly being dead, come two people, whom you are so happy to see. It could be a pastor. It could be a doctor. It could be your good friend, neighbor, or a most trusted CtK member. All of them, when they see you in dire straits, give you wide berth. What does that feel like?

Finally, another person comes. It is the one I asked you earlier to imagine, who makes your blood boil or gives you sweaty palms. That one does not walk away but, in the words of the gospel comes near and

Is moved with pity
Comes and bandages your wounds
Pours salves of oil and wine
Puts you into his own means of transportation
Takes you to a safe place, and takes care of you
Gives the proprietor money in advance and promises to square the bill upon returning

How does that feel?

To me, that feels like pure grace. To me, that shows the face of Christ. That “Samaritan” (or whatever you insert) comes into my place of death and abandonment, and against all prejudice, in the face of judgment, rather than doing what we assumed or expected he would do, shows me mercy and loving kindness.

It would seem that by now, inserting myself into the story, I have been successfully flipped and am standing on my head. How about you?

It would seem that what we might quickly demonize, Jesus calls us to humanize.

It would seem that what we might dismiss as unworthy of redemption, Jesus invites us to consider as one deserving of mercy and another look.

It would seem as if we might be moved out of our experience of pure grace and the face of Christ, to consider and reconsider how we might be “neighborly.”

Can you sense Jesus pushing the envelope?
Can you feel Jesus taking you out of your comfort zone?

Can you find him with you in that place, and other neighbors?

Isn’t he here, with strangers who become friends, people from all walks and all stripes who come to have their inner wounds assuaged with stuff like oil and wine, who strive to live by the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor, but who in the end, are amazed while flipped over on their heads, by grace?

I.N.I.

The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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