Sermons 2025

Text: Luke 10:25-37

Theme: A proven neighbor
    
    Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

    My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke chapter ten verses twenty-five to thirty-seven.

    If children there: Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. How do you help mom and dad at home? Maybe you help by cleaning your room, putting away the clean dishes, taking out the trash. You help out friends and family when they are hurt and sad. You help your teachers by learning and doing your homework. In our text for today, we hear about someone else being helpful. Someone called a Samaratin who would be the least likely person to help a Jew. What does this parable teach us about ourselves and how Jesus helps us? Ponder these questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

If no children: Our text for today is probably the most well-known parable in all of Jesus’ teachings. Both Christians and non-Christians alike make multiple references to it in their daily lives.  This parable has become an idiom for unusual sacrificial kindness.  We call people good Samaritans who find people in need and help them in unusual ways.  We even make Laws called Good Samaritan Laws to protect them if someone gets hurt as they are helping. Sometimes our familiarity with this parable may cause us to think we know what the parable is really is about and what it was intended to convey, when in fact we don't. Many people think that is simply a parable on how to be kind to one another. The reality is that this parable is more than simply an ethical and moral story. Rather, it shows us how deep our sinful condition goes, the extent of God’s love for us, and how we reflect God’s love towards others in this world.

Jesus starts His parable thusly, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.” A man was walking a very dangerous and treacherous road. Jerusalem is approximately 3,000 feet above sea level. Jericho is 900 to 1,000 feet below sea level.  It's a 4,000-foot drop in altitude in only seventeen miles, it is a severe and steep road. To those who were familiar with it, they called it the road of blood. It is a road with many twists and turns with 3000-to-400-foot drops clear off of the edge. This road is a favored place of thieves and robbers to wait for unsuspecting travelers, such as this poor man. The robbers do not treat this man well. Rather than merely taking his money or his clothing, they inflict physical harm upon him. This man is beaten repeatedly, stripped naked, and left in critical condition half dead upon a road rarely traveled. Who knows when someone will come along next? Who knows if that person will even help him?
This is an example of our sinful condition. We are bested and bruised by our own actions as well as by the actions of others. We lie, we cheat, we gossip. We put our wants and desires before the needs of the people around us. Rather than being merciful and kind to others, we focus upon how we can improve our own status and wealth. We try to save ourselves and improve ourselves but we just end up inflicting more harm upon ourselves and are left battered, bruised, bleeding, and dead on the roadside.

    There is a glimmer of hope! A priest passes by, surely, he will help! After all, he knows the law. It is the priests job to fulfill the Law through their actions. The majority of the Law can be summed up by helping animals as well as people. The Law demands helping your neighbor’s donkey if it falls into a pit. How much more should you help the neighbor himself! The priest is trained in the words of Micah to love mercy and kindness. Yet, what does the priest do? He sees the poor man. Rather than stopping to help, he decides to go across on the other side of the road. He does not even stop to help the man! Next, a Levite, a temple helper of the priests. Surely he will help! They were used to helping others. Levits helped the priests every day in the temple. They too know the law as scholars and teachers. The Levite sees the man in need. He stares intently at the man to make sure that he is still alive. After all, he does not want to become unclean by touching a dead body. Just like the priest, the Levite still passes by on the other side. Those who were supposed to help did not help at all!
  

  How deeply does this show how selfish our sinful nature can be! We see someone in need on a daily basis. Whether it be someone in need physically, mentally, or financially, how often do we simply pass on by? Our sinful nature loves it when we put blinders upon ourselves and state, “It is not my problem. I am just going to stay out of it. Help? I cannot afford to at this present moment in time. Maybe next time, maybe later.” Yet, alas, later never comes. Our sinful nature often makes us just like this priest or Levite, focused on ourselves. We know that we should help, but we do not act upon it. Our sins of commission and omission show how deeply dead we really are.

Our Lord’s parable graciously continues… “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.” Finally help arrives! It arrives from a very unexpected and most unlikely source. Help arrives in the form of a man that the half dead man would least expect to help. Jews and Samaritans had a deep hated for one another stemming back hundreds of years because the Jews kept the bloodline and Law pure. The Samaritans mixed their blood with pagan spouses and mixed the Law with other traditions. We might think of the famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. That feud pales in comparison to the one between the Jews and Samaritans. 

Yet, this Samaritan stops to help the poor man. He goes above and beyond what is required of him. “34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’” He bound up the man’s wounds, put him on his own animal and took him to an inn. Inns were not the best of places. They were corrupt places normally.  They were places of prostitution, theft, and, robbery.  You really didn't want to be in one of those places unless you had no choice.  Yet, it was a place with a bed and a roof. The Samaritan watched over him all night and made sure that he was on the mend. Afterwards, he gives the innkeeper, possibly someone who could rip him off, enough money for a stay lasting between a month to two months. Then he leaves a blank check for the man by stating, “Anything extra I will repay when I come back!” Would any of us do that? Pay for 2 months’ worth of room and board for someone that you had never met? You simply found them lying, naked and injured on the side of the road? I doubt it! Yet, our Lord does greater for you and me.

    Remember, a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. The meaning of this one is clear, our Father’s love for us is so great that He goes above and beyond what is needed for our salvation. As we lie on the side of the road, beaten and abused by our sins, by our flesh, by the world, the devil and death. They beat us and leave us bleeding and dying in our own good works. Help comes to us from the most unlikely of sources. God Himself, our hated enemy, comes along in Christ. God takes upon Himself our flesh. Not because we deserve it but due to His great compassion for us, He binds up our wounds, taking them upon His holy Flesh and covering them with His precious blood through His death and resurrection. Jesus pours the precious oil of faith upon us in Word and Sacrament. Safe in the ark of His holy Church, Jesus cares for us and heals us, sparing no expense, out of His great love and compassion for His sinful creatures, that we might be restored and given newness of life.
    

This wonderful deep compassion and love is the same that we show to others. As Jesus tells the lawyer at the end of the parable, “Who was a neighbor? The one who showed him mercy, “Go and do likewise.” We show mercy and compassion to those around us. Giving them whatever they might need, whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual support. We show unrelenting kindness to others. We do this, purely because of the great compassion our Lord has shown to us. Love shown in simple actions, when we take out the trash for others, when we clean up someone’s house for them, when we help someone in need with fixing a tire or caring for an infant, we show mercy to them, reflecting the great love and mercy our God has shown to us through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

    May our gracious Lord continue to show us mercy and grace, strengthening us through the work of the Holy Spirit that as we live out our lives we may always show the love of Christ to those around us.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts, and minds, in Christ Jesus. Amen.