Grace Thoughts

Announcer: Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelley. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching a clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelley.

Tim Kelley: And so this man gets mugged, his belongings are taken, he's beaten up pretty bad and he's left for dead. The first one to travel by was a priest. This priest, which was very common in those days, probably lived in Jericho. They had shifts in Jerusalem where they took care of the temple, they did the temple stuff that they had to do. So they would go to Jericho, go to Jerusalem for their week on, whatever exactly the shift was, and then they'd travel back to Jericho and go back to their homes until they were up. They rotated in, there's a rotation in and out of the temple.

But he's coming down the road, probably going home after a shift. He was wealthy as most priests were, they were a little like politicians today, they all have inside access to information, they knew the stock market, whatever. But they were wealthy. We can assume that he was riding because most people owned a mule or a donkey and it's most likely the priest did too because he could have afforded one.

So going by this man, seeing this sick man, throwing him on his donkey and getting him to Jericho really wouldn't have been an issue. There were no logistical issues that we can see in the story that would have hindered the man from doing this. But by the time I'm done with this, you're going to have compassion on this priest. You're going to realize he was really the victim here. He had a lot of things he had to deal with.

First thing he had to deal with: if this man was a law-abiding Jew, he would have to help him. He was mandated by their laws to help him. So if this man was a law-abiding Jew, I have to help this man. With that in mind, now that poses a problem. If he was dead, if this man was dead, he would become unclean by the Jewish laws.

So that means if I go by this guy or I touch this guy, I'm going to be unclean. So I have to take the guy bring him all the way to Jericho, then I have to go home and then I go in my house and I tell my wife I'm unclean and she says, "Oy vey!" That means we're all unclean. That's a Hebrew word, yes, that's my resident tribe of Judah over here. And so "Oy vey!" and that means we're all unclean, so the whole family needs to go to Jerusalem, get purified, and come back home. It's a whole week-long process if he touches this dead body.

So it would disturb his ministry, it would disturb his family life, they all would become unclean. If he wasn't a Jew, this guy on the side of the road, then no problems. I can leave him as long as I don't touch him. But if I did touch him, then he died, this is their own laws, I'd have to rip my clothes. Then I'd be violating the law of destruction of my property.

I'm painting a picture here of the muddled confusion of their own laws. And so the best thing this guy could do, this priest, is take his donkey, steer it on the other side of the road, and just sort of take a glance going by. Guy's not moving, if I touch him I'm in trouble, if I don't touch him I'm in trouble, this is just something I really don't want to get involved with. So he just kept riding by. Smartest thing to do.

And probably because he was spiritual, he said probably as he went by, "Dear God from heaven, please bless him," and kept on driving. Had to throw up a prayer for him by the way, right? He was a priest, had to at least throw a prayer up for him. So the next one that goes by is a Levite. Now, we can surmise a few things here. The Levite was a temple assistant to the priest and likely he could have seen this could have been the priest because they're both going to Jericho that he actually served in the temple maybe, maybe not.

Well, the priest didn't do anything and he certainly knows a lot more than I do, the Levite could surmise. If the priest who left before me didn't stop and help this man and he's a student of the law, I'm just a Levite and he's my boss in a sense, then there must be a reason for this and I should probably just go on the other side of the road also. Here's a problem the Levite had. If I do stop and help him and bring him into the city, then aren't I showing up my boss a little bit? This wouldn't be good for my career. I'd be sort of snubbing my nose at my boss, the priest, and just saying I helped this guy but you didn't.

So the Levite travels on the other side of the road. Now, this scene of the story from the Lord explodes in the face of those hearing it right now because a Samaritan, not a Jew, stops to help this man who is a Jew. Now, the Samaritan was a half-tribe, Jewish half-tribe. They were hated within Jerusalem. The Samaritans had their section of the countryside and the Jews had their section of the countryside. They did not comingle, they did not like one another, they were socially opposites.

There's this disgusting bigotry between the two tribes of people. The Samaritans didn't like the Jews and the Jews didn't like the Samaritans. Now here's a Samaritan coming down the road, sees a man, doesn't know yet if he is a Jew or whoever he is, and we believe that he was a Jew because of the context of everything here. He knows this: that if this is a Jew and he helps him, that this Jew calls his people dogs, that this Jew probably wouldn't lift a finger to help him, that this Jew repels him and his people and thinks that they're disgusting.

He despises him and this Jew despises him, this Jew ridicules him, and this Jew would do nothing to help him, the Samaritan. So what does he do? He takes his own resources, oil and the wine, pours them on the mugged, injured Jew to bind up his wounds. Then he puts the Jew on his donkey, goes to Jericho, finishes the trip. Think with me, this was a Jewish city, Jericho. Samaritans didn't just walk in the city without any sort of announcement. They weren't welcome in the city.

They bring this wounded man into Jericho, understanding that the kids in the streets are probably throwing insults at him because that's what they do when they saw a Samaritan. This is where the historical stuff brings it to life. So he's walking the rest of the way when he could have been riding with this wounded Jew. The kids are mocking him and throwing dust at him and stuff like that because he's a Jew. Then he goes into the inn and takes this Jewish man that he doesn't know, gives him to the care of the innkeeper and says, "Look, here's some money and then I'll come back," meaning, "I'll come back all the way to Jericho again."

It's not a city I want to hang out in, it's not a friendly place to be, but I'll make my way back to this city again and pay you whatever it is that I owe you. Now understand this: this Jewish inn owner—inn owners were known to be a little bit corrupt back in that era—and if he came back and the inn owner saw him and said, "You owe me this much money," and the Samaritan said, "I don't have that much money," then the inn owner would have a legal claim against him and that Samaritan could become his slave and the inn owner could put him to work or sell him off as a slave.

They all knew these things. These were not surprises. They knew the culture, they knew how it worked, they knew the system. So when this Samaritan went to help this Jew and paid for his medical care and paid for his lodging, he's basically putting his own life on the line, saying, "I'm willing to become a slave for this guy. I'm willing to be sold into slavery if I can't pay this back. I will risk my own well-being for this man that hates me when the man's own people wouldn't do it."

The story begins to explode a little bit now, doesn't it? And of course, it's just a parable. So he asks the question, this guy, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus says, "You really want to know? I'll tell you who my neighbor is." Now let me see if I can read that last verse again. It's interesting, I thought, last two verses. "Which of these three do you think," Jesus says, "proved to be a neighbor of the man who fell amongst the robbers?" He said, "The one that showed mercy," the lawyer answers him.

Notice he didn't say the Samaritan. He didn't want to say that. That was too far of a leap for him to take. He says, "No, the one who showed mercy." And he was right, got the answer right, but he couldn't say Samaritan. So what do we take away from this as we sort of last six, seven minutes we have here? This lawyer was challenged beyond his rational senses. So were all the listeners of this parable, whoever was there hearing him. In a sense, God is saying something like this: "I'm like the Samaritan."

No matter who you are, no matter how beat up you are, even if you have rejected me, I will always stop. I will always comfort. I am for you despite the fact that life has mugged you. There's a lot of pain out there. There's a lot of people lying on the side of the road, pretty beat up. Life will do that to you. Losing people that you love, seeing relationships end, bad doctor's reports, saying goodbye to people sort of beats you up, mugs you, and lays you on the side of the road.

We have no strength sometimes to get up ourselves. We need somebody to pick us up, somebody to help us. Jesus in this parable is saying that's who God the Father is. I don't know why the guy was mugged. I don't know why evil fell upon him and not someone else. We just know from this story that Jesus identifies with our human pain and that Jesus identifies with our human grief and Jesus identifies with our human suffering, as bad as it is.

He says, "I will lay down my life for those who despise me. I am a go-the-extra-mile God. I am extravagant in my love and extravagant in my mercy and extravagant in my grace." I don't care why you're laying on the side of the road. It could be your own decisions that put you there—sin. Could be pain. Could be bad decisions. Can be spiritual confusion. Could be a wayward lifestyle. Could be heartache so deep you can't breathe.

But Jesus is saying this: "I will always stop. I will always stop. I'm not bound by race, culture, by offense. I'm not bound by your consistency, how religious you are or how non-religious you are. My nature is to love, my nature is to accept, my nature is to affirm. It always has been, it always will be. I'm a God that will always stop. Don't know why the guy got mugged. Don't know why evil fell upon him, why he had to be picked out of the crowd and he had to go through this and he had to lose everything. Don't know why that guy was there."

But Jesus is that Samaritan. He says, "I can't promise you anything in life, but I promise I'll stop. And I'll pick you up and I'll take care of you until you can take care of yourself again."