"Go and Do Likewise"

Sermon on Luke 10:25-37

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS 

February 21, 2021

We’ve got Bible stories we love. Bible stories we hate. 

Bible stories we don’t understand. 

Bible stories we don’t remember ever hearing before (remember that time in Acts where Paul preached a sermon that was way too long and a young man fell asleep and tumbled out of the window he was sitting in and died and then Paul resurrected him? I digress.)

And then we’ve got Bible stories we know. Like this one. If you’ve spent much time learning about the Bible, you know the story of the Good Samaritan. (And if you don’t know it, no worries, you will soon.)

It’s the knowing that makes this story hard. Not hard because we don’t understand. Hard because we DO understand. This is a story that’s easy to understand but hard to live. We see what Jesus is trying to teach us. We know this story. But can we live it? 

Everywhere he went, Jesus ran into people with questions. Some were genuinely curious. Others wanted to trip him up. Like all good teachers, Jesus often answered these questions with other questions.

“Teacher,” the lawyer says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

It feels like an awkward way to begin a conversation. It’s not a small question. I feel like you should exchange some niceties about the weather or your favorite sports team before asking someone a question like that, but, hey, I guess if you’ve got time with Jesus you want to get right to it. 

Jesus isn’t put off by the immensity of this question. He knows the questioner is a smart guy and asks him, in return, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” In other words, “What do you see? What do you know to be true?”

And this lawyer is smart. He does know the answer. He probably first learned it as wee one. I can imagine him sitting up on the steps during the Word for Children. He knows that the right answer to any question posed there is probably “love.” 

And it’s the right answer this time, too. “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 min; and your neighbor as yourself.” 

Jesus responds, “Yep. That’s it. Do that and you’ll live.” 

“But wanting to justify himself,” the man continues on. Whoooo boy. “Wanting to justify himself.” 

There’s a whole sermon there on how we get ourselves into trouble when we won’t leave well-enough alone and “wanting to justify ourselves” just keep on going. Which is exactly what this guy does. 

He has the answer to his question. It’s an answer he already knew, in fact. But I suppose he finds the command to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves a bit too challenging, so he’s looking for a loophole. Can we honestly blame him for this? It’s a tall order, all this loving.

The man wonders, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus responds, “They’re the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street, they’re the people that you meet each day!” Just kidding. Sort of. 

Seeing that he’s unlikely to wrap up this conversation with another question, Jesus reaches into his bag for one of his other favorite rhetorical tools….and pulls out….a story. 

The story has only unnamed characters: “A priest,” “A Levite,” “A man left half dead on the side of the road,” “A Samaritan,” “An innkeeper.” The lack of details about each of these characters makes it especially easy for us to step into the story. If you’re looking for an excellent way to study the Bible, try sitting down with a story like this one and reading it several times through, putting yourself into a different character’s shoes each time. This story hits very differently if you’re the priest, the man left for dead, the Samaritan, the innkeeper, right?

Those who initially gathered around Jesus and heard this story would have quickly recognized its formula. Two characters come along and make poor decisions. They both occupy revered spaces in society. The listeners are primed and ready because they know from hearing lots of other stories that a third character is about to come along and is going to be EVEN MORE revered and is going to be the HERO. 

So when Jesus introduces the third character and it’s a Samaritan, there may have been an audible gasp in the audience. If you asked those gathered to list 100 people who might play the part of the hero in their minds, my guess is “a Samaritan” would never have made the list. And yet here he is. And, goodness, is he ever a hero. 

The first thing we should know about Our Hero is that he was paying attention. He SAW the man who had been beaten and robbed. He saw his need. This may not seem like a big deal, but we fail to see one another all the time. We rush into the dentist’s office and fail to greet the receptionist by name. We sit next to a coworker all day and don’t notice they’re on the verge of tears. We walk past the person on the street asking for money without even a glance. We do this all the time. We know better, and yet we fail to see each other time and again. 

But Our Hero doesn’t fail. He sees. And seeing the man’s need, he is moved with compassion. He draws near and takes care of his immediate physical needs, bandaging up his wounds. I assume he also offers words of comfort and care. “What’s your name? What happened to you? Can I call a family member or friend to help?”

He uses his own wine to clean his cuts and then Our Hero puts him on his own horse and takes him to a local inn and watches over him throughout the night. Didn’t this guy have somewhere else to be? Something else to do today? I’m sure he did. But he stays, regardless. 

The next morning, Our Hero stops down at the front desk and settles up his bill with the innkeeper. Jesus says he gives the innkeeper two denarii. Our little Bible footnotes tell us that’s the equivalent of two day’s wages for the average laborer. Google tells me that the average wage for a general laborer is about $15/hour, so some quick math reveals this to be $240. He didn’t give the guy loose change from his pocket. He gave him a big fistfull of cash. And then - and then! - he gives the equivalent of a blank check. “Take care of him,” Our Hero says, “And when I come back, I’ll repay any other expenses you have.” 

And as we’re sitting here with our mouths agape, marveling over the utter generosity of this nameless Samaritan, Jesus gently picks our jaws up off the floor and says, “Now which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man beaten and left half dead on the side of the road?”

It was either so quiet you could hear a pin drop OR there was a loud thump as Jesus dropped the mic and the lawyer responds, “The one who showed him mercy.” 

Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

“This is what it looks like to love God and love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus says. 

We do this when we see our neighbors, have compassion for them, care for them. We do this when we know that every other person we encounter is made in God’s image, worthy of love and care. AND we do this when we remember that it takes a neighbor to be a neighbor. We are also the neighbor when we are the beaten one laying in the ditch. We are the neighbor when we have needs and allow someone else to see our vulnerability, bandage our wounds, care for us when we are hurting. That’s being a neighbor, too. It’s the give-and-take, ebb-and-flow of living in community. And this neighborly love knows no caste or creed, no race or gender or political affiliation or anything else. It turns out Mr. Rogers was right when he said our neighbors are, quite simply, the people that we meet each day. 

What Jesus is asking here is significant. It’s no small thing. I’d like to find a way to maybe tone it down a bit, make it easier for us. But Jesus says “go and do likewise.” He doesn’t mince words.

Even with the intense demands of this teaching, though, good news abounds. Jesus draws us into community and promises neighbors to care for us along all of life’s ups and downs. Though it’s demanding to know we really are our siblings’ keepers, it’s also a relief to know that if we all actually took this to heart and lived this way, we would ALL be cared for. What a beautiful image, right? 

The simplicity of this story can be a welcome reprieve in a world where it is often challenging to wade through difficult ethical decisions. We often want to do the right thing, but we aren’t sure where to start. Jesus tell us: start with what you see in front of you. Look around. See your neighbors. Really see them. Get to know them. And then be a neighbor to them. Offer and accept hospitality. Care for one another. Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. 

It may not be hard to understand, but it can be hard to “go and do likewise.” And so we give thanks that we don’t travel this road alone. We give thanks for those who have gone before as examples. We give thanks for fellow travelers on the journey who inspire and encourage us. We give thanks for the grace and love of God that enables us to wake up each day and keep trying even when we know we sometimes fall short. We give thanks for the Spirit that sustains us when we are weary. And we give thanks for Jesus who shows us how to live. 

“Go and do likewise,” he says. 

May our response be “We will, with God’s help.”