Helper or Helpless?

From “Who is my neighbor?” to “Am I a neighbor?”

A Sermon Preached at

Zephyr United Methodist Church

Early First United Methodist Church

July 8, 2007

by Rev. Eddie Smart

Luke 10:25-37 (NRSV)

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" ²⁶He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" ²⁷He answered, "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 mind; and your neighbor as yourself." ²⁸And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" ³⁰Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' ³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" ³⁷He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Come with me to a third-grade classroom. There is a 9 year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants is wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives. The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, “Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.”

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy’s lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, “Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!”

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else — Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. “You’ve done enough, you klutz!”

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Susie whispers back, “I wet my pants once, too.”

Who was a neighbor to this boy? Talk about loving your neighbor as yourself!

The lawyer is going to test Jesus. Have we ever tried to test Jesus? The lawyer asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That is a familiar sounding question. In the 18^th chapter of Luke’s gospel, the same question is asked by a certain ruler. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

That time Jesus simply answered the question. Usually the question results in a question from Jesus, but this time he answered. “You know the commandments.”

The young man assures Jesus that he has followed every one.

“Well then there is one more thing. Sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and come and follow me.”

You remember what happened. This ruler could not do it. He walked away.

But that was later in Luke’s gospel. Here the question is asked and Jesus answers with a question. “What is written in the law?” Well this lawyer was no dummy. He was able to sum up all the laws into just two.

"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 mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

That too sounds familiar. It is in Matthew’s gospel we find another lawyer asking Jesus which of all the commandments is the greatest.

Jesus responds, “'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:37-40 (NRSV)

This lawyer is smart. He gives the same answer that Jesus will give in another time and at another place. Simply love God with all you are and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus says, “What’s your problem! Just do it! You want eternal life? Love God and love your neighbor.

But then the lawyer starts spinning the web that will trap himself. He asks, trying to justify himself, “Who is my neighbor.”

And then Jesus tells a parable that we have heard numerous times. But now listen to a more current version.

Hear this story from a different time and a different place–one year ago, on the upper slopes of Mount Everest last year. On the morning of May 26, less than 1,000 feet from the summit, American guide Daniel Mazur abandoned his own climb toward the top of the world to save another climber who had been left for dead by his own team. Despite the fact that Mazur’s decision to aid the fallen mountaineer meant that none of his group, which included two paying clients ($60,000 each), would make it to the summit, Mazur’s action acknowledged who his neighbor was.

The fallen climber was Australian Lincoln Hall, who had succumbed to the oxygen-poor altitude the previous night and become desperately ill. The two guides with him tried to help, but they eventually had to leave to save themselves.

Hall was declared dead, but when Mazur and his team found him the next morning, he was sitting up, though disoriented. Mazur’s team gave him emergency assistance and set to work to bring him down the mountain. They also radioed for help, but by the time others arrived to take over the rescue, Mazur’s group had expended too much energy at that life-sapping altitude to complete their own summit bid.

While Mazur’s team was helping Hall, two Italian climbers passed by en route to the top, and Mazur asked them to assist. The pair claimed not to understand English and kept moving. Later, their claim was discovered not to be true.

Hall has recovered from his near death on the mountain.

Following Jesus’ parable which included a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan, he asked the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

The lawyer answered, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Jesus might ask us, “Who was a neighbor to Lincoln Hall?”

Jesus does a typical Jesus thing to do. The lawyer asks a simply question, “Who is my neighbor?” By the time Jesus tells the story of the man who is rescued by the Good Samaritan, he has us asking a different question. Rather than asking, “Who is my neighbor?” we find ourselves asking, “Am I a neighbor?” We move from “love your neighbor” to “be a loving neighbor.” Are we a loving neighbor? It is not always an easy thing to be like that Samaritan.

The priest and the Levite did not stop to help. You have heard how they had religious responsibilities, and they could not chance becoming ritually unclean by touching a dead body. I’m sure they thought their reason for moving on was a good one.

Jesus chose to use a priest and a Levite for his parable, not because they were bad men, but just the opposite, because they were very good men. Good men and women choose not to love their neighbor every day. We have all done it.

Steven Hoyer and Patrice McDaniel in the Journal of Psychology and Theology make the observation that “being good in the traditional legalistic sense was not at all the same thing as loving God or loving one’s neighbor, things the lawyer himself has just said were necessary for salvation.” It is possible for us to do good without loving God or loving our neighbor. Do we love God? How do we show it? What do we do with our time, our talent and our money? Do we love our neighbor as ourselves?

Just 10 days before Hall was rescued, another climber froze to death near the summit of Mount Everest while 40 other mountaineers passed by without attempting to save him. In the world of high-altitude climbing, such behavior is often accepted, especially when the fallen person is judged to be too far gone. And there’s always the possibility that others might die in those harsh conditions attempting to help the victim. Still nothing in the Bible suggests that the “love your neighbor as yourself” command is a sea-level commandment, or in any other way altitude-specific.

Some folks even make the argument that the priest and the Levite were right in walking away-around the badly beaten man. After all he did not deserve help. That road from Jerusalem to Jericho was rugged and steep. Robbers were always waiting to jump someone. Everyone knew that you never made that journey alone. The man was foolish for traveling that route alone. He was undeserving of help.

Sound like a feeble argument? Have we ever said this or that person does not deserve the help of our church because they waste what they have, they send their money on drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes, or they have come for help too often. Do we ever say they don’t deserve help.

We can never forget that Christianity is all about helping those that don’t deserve it. Loving those that don’t deserve it. Remember the words of Paul to the church in Roman,