PARABLES OF CHRIST
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
DR. JIM DIXON
LUKE 10:25-37
MAY 24, 1998
Twenty-six years ago in Juneau, Alaska, an elderly woman came out of the grocery store carrying a bag of groceries. It was in the midst of a severe winter storm, blizzard conditions. As this elderly woman stepped into the street, she fell, and the groceries scattered everywhere. This woman was 85 years old. She tried to get up. She could not. There was no one there and she died of hypothermia right there in the streets of Juneau. The days immediately following, the police tried to reconstruct what had happened. They found a man who had witnessed the entire thing. They asked him why he had done nothing. Incredibly he said, “I did not know her, and I didn’t think it was any of my business.”
Who is my neighbor? That’s the question that a lawyer put to the Son of God 2,000 years ago. Who is my neighbor? Jesus responded by telling the parable of The Good Samaritan. From this parable we have two teachings and the first is this. Your neighbor is anyone in need of compassion. You see, this first teaching concerns the subject of compassion. Your neighbor is anyone in need of compassion.
In the year 1892, 106 years ago, at the newly founded Leland Stanford University, two students decided they wanted to make a little bit of money to pay for the upcoming year’s tuition, so they decided to put on a concert. They planned to pay all the expenses of the concert, pay the performer and then make a nice profit to pay for the tuition in the year to come. They knew they would need to invite somebody famous to perform so they invited the most famous pianist in the world. They invited Ignace Jan Paderewski, the pianist from Poland. They offered him $2,000, a lot of money in 1892, and he agreed to come. Things didn’t work out the way the students planned. They only sold $1,600 worth of tickets but they were honest young men, and they knew what they had to do, so they went to Paderewski, and they gave him the full $1,600 and they also gave him a promissory note for $400, that they might honor their commitment to him. They knew it would take them months and perhaps years to pay off that $400 and they knew that their schooling was in jeopardy.
Paderewski, as he took the $1,600 and looked at the promissory note, he was moved with compassion. He took the promissory note, and he just ripped it up. He took the $1,600 and gave it back to these two young men. He said, “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to pay for all the expenses of the concert. Then I want you to take 10% each and take it for yourselves as a reward for the hard work that you’ve put in. If you have anything left over, you can give it to me.”
Well, these two young men were very grateful. Paderewski returned to his native Poland. The years passed, the decades passed, the great war came and went. In the year 1925 in the aftermath of the war, Eastern Europe was starving. Paderewski, in 1925, was 65 years old. He was more than a pianist. He was a composer. He was a statesman. He had become the Premiere of the Republic of Poland. He appealed to the United States government for help, asking for food and supplies. The United States government responded with millions of dollars’ worth of food and clothing and medical supplies. The year was 1929 and Paderewski was 69 years old when he came back to the United States to thank the United States government.
He stood before Herbert Hoover who was President of the United States. He had been in charge of food distribution in Eastern Europe. Paderewski said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Herbert Hoover, with tears in his eyes, said, “I would have done anything for you because, you see, more than 35 years ago, you had compassion on me and another student at Stanford University.”
It’s a beautiful thing when a nation reaches out in compassion to the needs of another nation. It’s a beautiful thing when a person reaches out in compassion to the needs of another person. We who are gathered here this morning in this place take the name of Christ. Certainly, most of us have asked Jesus Christ to be our Lord and to be our Savior. Through this parable, Christ wants us to understand that of all people in this world, we are the people who are supremely called to manifest compassion. We are called to be people of compassion.
In the 1960s, in the year 1965, late in the evening in the state of Georgia, a man named Richard James was driving his car. It was a driving rain. It was 11:30 PM. He saw a car stranded on the side of the highway and an African American woman standing outside of it. She was drenched in the rain, and she looked panicked. Richard James was white. In the 1960s in the south, tragically white people and black people did not always help each other. But Richard James pulled his car over to the side of the road and he helped this woman. He took her to safety. He helped her get a taxi. She was in a great hurry, and she was very anxious. She asked Mr. James for his address, and he thought that strange, but he gave it to her.
It was seven days later when there was a knock at his door. Mr. James went to the door. There was a brand-new color television set and a console stereo record player and a note. The note read, “Dear Mr. James, thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes but my spirits. Then you came along and because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband’s bedside just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others. Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole.”
It’s a rare thing when, in compassion, you’re able to help someone reach their dying spouse. Certainly, it’s a rare thing when, for compassion, you receive a television and a stereo, but compassion has its own reward and it never goes unnoticed by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to reach out to another person.
I read some time ago about a woman named Nancy Biedebach. One day she was walking on the beach in Laguna, California at Emerald Bay. It was wintertime and she was all alone. She was in a lot of inward turmoil and suffering greatly. She felt such a sense of loss that she knelt down in the sand. With her finger she wrote the words, “Jesus, please help me.” She was a Christian. She was hurting. She sat there. She prayed a little bit. She didn’t know how much time had passed by but suddenly she saw a shadow there in the sand before her. She looked up and there were three little boys there in the sand before her walking on the beach. One little boy stepped forward to read what she had written in the sand, and she felt kind of embarrassed. This little boy had a stick in his hand. He reached out and drew a cross in the sand right above the name Jesus. He looked at her and he smiled, and he said, “I’m a Christian too.” Then, with his friends, he just went on down the beach.
Nancy said that it just was a turning moment in her life simple as it was. Suddenly she felt the presence of Christ. Suddenly she felt the love of the Lord again.
You think about what that little boy had done, and it wasn’t much. He just drew a cross in the sand. He just paused, took a little time out of his journey to notice another person and he responded in accordance with the measure of maturity that was in him. I think Christ expects no more from us and no less, that we would respond in accordance with the measure of maturity that is in us, be sensitive to the people that are around us, that we would stop in the midst of our busyness in life and notice another person. The rewards are great because we please Christ.
Some of you have heard the story of Walter and Arthur. They were friends many years ago. Walter and Arthur were riding in the car. Walter was driving. Walter wanted to show Arthur something. They were driving along a country road a long way from anywhere. Walter turned off the country road onto a dirt road, drove through an orange grove out into a vast expanse of land. Walter said, “Arthur, this is where my dream is going to come true. It’s going to cost all the money I’ve got but it’s going to be great. People are going to come from all over the world just to be part of this dream and to enjoy it.”
Walter said to Arthur, “I want you to be part of this. It’s going to be a great opportunity for you, Arthur. I want you to buy all the land around my project. There’s going to be hotels, convention centers and restaurants. I want you to buy this land and get in on the ground level.” Arthur thought to himself, “This is dumb. I mean this is 25 miles from anywhere. This is in the midst of nowhere. Who is going to go driving all the way out here?” He said something about money being tight. Walter said, “Arthur, don’t let this opportunity pass. It’s just going to be a few years and the value of that land is going to increase one hundredfold.
Well, so it was that Art Linkletter lost the opportunity to buy all the land surrounding Disneyland in California even though Walt Disney, his good friend, had invited him to be part of that project. In his autobiography, Art Linkletter states that this was the greatest lost opportunity of his life.
Well, I’m certain that many of you have had lost opportunities and some of you have had lost opportunities in the world of business and you could tell us a few stories. But, you see, in the sight of God that really wasn’t a very big deal. In the sight of God those lost opportunities in the world of business really aren’t that important. What’s important in the sight of God are all those lost opportunities in the world of ministry. What’s important to Christ are all those lost opportunities when we could have ministered to another person’s need with an expression of compassion. That’s what’s important to Christ and He reminds us of that this morning.
As we take a further look at this parable, there is a second point. The second point is that our neighbor is not only anyone in need of compassion but the second message of this parable of Jesus is our neighbor is anyone of any race in need of compassion. The second message has not simply to do with compassion, but the second message has to do with racism. Who is my neighbor? Your neighbor is anyone of any race who is in need of compassion.
You know, I read recently about a couple. They were getting married. They had asked a pastry shop to prepare the wedding cake. It was a Christian couple, so they wanted a scripture verse placed on the wedding cake. The scripture verse was 1 John, chapter 4, verse 18 which reads “There is no fear in love for perfect love casts out all fear.” Not a bad verse for a couple getting married. But the people at the pastry shop had misunderstood and instead of putting 1 John 4:18, they put John 4:18. Instead of taking John’s epistle, they took John’s gospel. John 4:18 quotes the words of Jesus, “For you have had five husbands and the man with whom you are now living is not your husband.” Not a particularly good verse for a wedding cake!
Well, if you go back and you look at John 4:18, you see that Jesus spoke those words to a woman at Jacob’s well near Shechem. This was early in the ministry of Christ. The disciples had gone into town to buy supplies. When they came back, they saw Jesus talking to this woman by the well. Jesus had led her to faith. Jesus had led her to salvation. The disciples were stunned because first of all He was talking to a woman and in the Hebraic culture, rabbis did not speak publicly to women. That was said to be “casting pearls before swine” in that chauvinistic patriarchal culture. But Jesus loved to overturn those improper social boundaries. The disciples were also stunned because this woman was a Samaritan. As the Bible tell us, the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. No dealings with the Samaritans. But Jesus loved to challenge the prejudice, the racism of His time.
The year was 722 BC when the Assyrian Empire under Sargon II conquered Samaria and the northern kingdom of Israel. The Bible tells us in the book of 2 Kings that 27,290 Jews were exported. They were taken into exile. But many Jews, particularly of the poorer classes, remained in the region of Samaria and they, in the subsequent years, intermarried with Babylonians and with Assyrians, producing offspring of mixed blood, producing offspring of mixed race. The pure-blooded Jews hated them. The world called them Samaritans, but the Jews called them dogs. The Jews viewed them as half-breeds, tainted, and they had no dealings with the Samaritans.
I promise you it is no coincidence that Jesus made the hero of this parable a Samaritan. I mean the priest passed on by. The Levite passed on by. The priest was the priest of Israel. They were the overseers of the temple, the dwelling place of God. They were the overseers of the Torah, the Pentateuch, the law. They were the overseers of the Jewish purification rites. They administered the absolutions to the people. They were the overseers of the sacrificial system. It was the priests of Israel who gave the morning and evening sacrifices. It was the priest of Israel that the people brought their animal and grain offerings to. It was the priest of Israel who blessed the people and who represented the needs of the people before God. But the irony was many of these priests didn’t even care about the people, didn’t care about the needs of the people.
The Levites were those who collected tithes from the people. It was Martin Luther who first suggested that perhaps this Levite passed by because he could see that the wounded man had already been robbed. But, of course, the Levites took tithes from the people by the will of God. And like the priests, they were descended from Levi though not through the line of Aaron and therefore they could not attain the priestly office. They could not venture into the inner courts of the temple. They could not approach the altar. They could not touch the sacred vessels, but they served God in the outer courts of the temple. They led the people in liturgy. They led the people in worship but for all of their liturgy, for all of their religion, for all of their religiosity, many of the Levites just simply didn’t love people.
The Bible says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I’m a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” The Bible says, “If I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have 11ot love, I am nothing.” In the sight of the people of Israel, the priest and the Levite were great but in the sight of God they were nothing because they had not love and compassion. So, who is the hero? The half-breed, the dog (in the eyes of the Jews). a Samaritan. Jesus makes him the hero and he even makes this Jewish lawyer confess that it was the Samaritan who proved to be neighbor to the one who had fallen amongst the thieves.
You see, there is no room for racism in the body of Christ and your neighbor is anyone of any race who is in need of compassion. In the 1920s, there lived a Jewish man whose name was Mike Gold. He was an American Communist. His writings were prolific, and they were widely read. Then when Communism fell into ill repute in this nation, the writings of Mike Gold passed into oblivion. If you’d ever read any of his work, you would probably think “rightly so!” But he wrote one book that was meaningful, has meaning for all of us. It was a book called “Jew Without Knowing It.” It describes his life growing up in a New York City Jewish ghetto.
As a little boy, Mike Gold’s parents had always told him never to venture outside of his Jewish neighborhood. There were four roads that provided boundaries to his ghetto. He was never to go beyond those four roads. But one day, in a curious mood, this little guy decided to walk beyond his ghetto, beyond those streets. He came in contact with some other kids who were older than him. They looked at him and said, “Are you a k***?” He said, “I don’t know.” He didn’t know. He had never heard the word before. They said, “Well, are you a Christ killer? We’re Christians. We hate Christ killers.” They jumped on him, and they pounded him, and they beat him up. Blood was pouring from his face when he staggered back into his ghetto. He knocked on the door. His mother saw him and asked him what had happened. He didn’t say anything at first because he didn’t understand what had happened. A little while later he was sitting on his mother’s lap and he said, “Mommy, who is Christ?”
In 1962, Mike Gold died at a Catholic charity house. Dorothy Day who was the nun who ran that Catholic charity said that Mike Gold ate at the table of Christ day after day but never became a Christian. He never accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This nun said he couldn’t accept Christ because of the circumstances in which he first heard the name of Christ.
You know, prejudice kills ministry. It kills evangelism, grieves the Spirit of God. In this nation most Jewish people have now found a viable niche in this culture. That is not true of many Hispanics, not true of many African Americans. There are many people in the inner cities of this nation who are in great need of compassion, regardless of race, because. you see. God loves us all equally. The inner city is like the wounded man on the roadside and the suburbs cannot afford to just walk on by. That is why constantly we encourage you to be part of Manna Ministry. That is why constantly we encourage you to be part of our Whiz Kids Program in the inner city. That is why as a church we support Save Our Youth and invite you to take part in that ministry. That is why we support compassion ministries all over the world and invite you to be part of that support.
I hope and pray this morning that you won’t just leave here and forget what Christ has said to you through this well-known parable, “Who is my neighbor?” Our neighbor is anyone in need of compassion, anyone of any race in need of compassion. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.