The One Who Showed Him Mercy

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

October 7, 2012

The One Who Showed Him Mercy

Luke 10:29-37

Jerusalem and Jericho are not that far apart:

only about 18 miles,

but the road that connected the two cities

back in Jesus’ day was a winding, twisting road,

that went through mountains.

You could walk from one city to the other in about 8 hours,

but it was a difficult walk,

up and then down more than 3,000 feet.

It was also a dangerous walk,

the road notorious for the countless places

where bandits and thieves could hide,

waiting to accost unsuspecting travelers.

It would have surprised no one to hear a story

about someone being attacked and robbed on the road.

But the attack that Jesus tells us about was particularly brutal.

The thieves didn’t just rob the man,

stealing his money and his goods;

 they savagely beat him.

And then they stripped the man of his clothes,

leaving him for dead,

battered,

bleeding,

naked,

along the side of the road.

Along comes a priest;

he sees the man lying there.

Even from a distance

the priest could see the man’s skin purple with bruises,

his chest, arms, legs smeared with blood.

The priest has traveled this road many times,

and he knows that robbers will often

have one of their gang lie along the road looking injured,

as a ruse to pull some unsuspecting stranger into a trap.

The priest knows the brutality,

the sheer viciousness of the robbers along this road.

He knows they never hesitate to kill

if it will make their job of robbing easier.

So the priest lets caution be his guide

and he walks quickly past the man.

Not long after, another traveler walks by,

this one a Levite, like the priest, a holy man,

one who assisted in the work of the Temple

back in Jerusalem.

He too is wise to the dangers along the way,

and he too is suspicious of the form lying on the road

just up ahead,

“It’s the perfect place for an ambush,”

the Levite thinks to himself.

He walks quickly, looking left and right,

alert to the sound of footsteps.

But he does take a moment

to look at the inert form lying there.

He sees that the wounds are real,

and concludes that the man is probably dead.

Hopefully that means the robbers are long gone,

having fled with their spoils.

The Levite knows that if he had stopped

and ministered to the man,

he would have been rendered ritually unclean.

The Levitical Code was very clear on that:

that touching the body of a dead person

would have rendered him unclean for a full week,

and unable to do his work at the Temple.

(Numbers 19:11)

Finally comes the Samaritan.

He is a man of commerce,

and travels the road regularly,

taking goods from Jericho to Jerusalem

to sell them in the marketplace.

Samaritans were looked upon with disdain and contempt

by the Israelites back in Jesus’ day.

Samaritans worshiped the same Lord God as the Israelites,

and they claimed to be descendants of the Twelve Tribes,

but the Israelites considered them outsiders,

brought in to settle the northern part of the country

following the Assyrian invasion

more than 700 years before.

When the Samaritan sees the wounded man,

he stops.

He kneels down,

fully aware that it might be a trap,

but the man’s injuries look real.

The Samaritan is horrified by what he sees:

 the bruises, the gashes,

dried, caked blood everywhere,

“He is moved with pity”,

and after cleansing the wounds with wine and oil,

he bandages them tenderly.

Then the Samaritan carefully lifts the man

onto the back of his donkey

and continues west.

When he arrives at Bethany,

the small village to the east of Jerusalem,

he finds an Inn and stops there

to care for the man overnight.

The next morning

the Samaritan gives the innkeeper two denarii

to care for the injured man.

Two denarii – that was two days’ wages –

surely enough to see to the injured man’s needs.

But just in case, the Samaritan tells the innkeeper,

“Take care of him,

and when I come back,

I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Three days later and the Samaritan

has finished his business in Jerusalem

and is on his way home to Jericho.

He stops at the inn in Bethany

and finds that the innkeeper has taken

good care of the injured man:

the man’s wounds are healing

and he is ready to go home.

The injured man has had plenty of time the past few days

to think of the Samaritan,

a man he doesn’t know,

a man who found him beaten unconscious,

a man who bandaged his wounds,

who brought him to the inn,

who paid the innkeeper to look after him.

The injured man has prayed that the Samaritan would return

so he could see his face,

so he could say to him,

“Thank you.”

“How can I ever repay you?”

“May God bless you forever.”

But then, on that day when they do meet,

when the injured man finally looks upon the Samaritan,

the first word out of his mouth is, “WHY?”

And then a torrent follows:

“Why did you stop and help me?

Why did you risk your life to save me?

Why did you spend almost a week’s worth of your pay,

your own wages,

to care for me,

to feed me,

even to pay for new clothing?

Who am I to you?

What am I to you?

Why were you moved with pity for me?

Why did you not leave me to die?

Why did you care for me?

Why do you care for me?”

The man looks at the Samaritan,

desperate for answers to his questions.

                 

The Samaritan is quiet for a moment,

and then with warmth in his eyes,

and gentleness in his voice,

he says,

“I helped you because it is what I knew I should do;

it is what we should all do,

for the Lord our God tells us that we are to care for the poor;

that we are to leave a part of our field unharvested

for the hungry;

that we are to look out for the widow,

the orphan,

the helpless,

the oppressed.

We are called to live with mercy and compassion,

for we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

And the Lord God teaches us that our neighbors

include the stranger and the alien,

as well as those we know.”

“You are a stranger to me,

as I am to you,

but we are one another’s neighbors,

for so says the Lord God.”

“Others may have walked by you,

may have failed to do anything for you,

but I could not do so,

for if I had failed to do anything for you,

I would have failed the Lord our God.

I showed you mercy

because God shows me mercy,

and teaches me to show mercy to all.”

“Do not praise me, my friend,

for doing what God has taught us both to do,

for living as God has taught us.

Do not praise me or honor me.”

Instead, praise God,

and glorify him as you leave this Inn and return home.”

“My friend,

my neighbor,

God has taught me to love my neighbor as myself.

Go and do likewise.”

AMEN