25 An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He 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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
Luke 10:25-37
29 But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The 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.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Pentecost (July 13, 2025) on Luke 10:25-37.
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In 1973, two Princeton University psychologists – John Darley and Daniel Batson – wanted to predict who would – and who wouldn’t – provide help in an unexpected situation. Prior research had shown how the foundation for our ethics – all the stuff modeled by our families, taught in schools, shaped in our faith communities, and lived out in our cultural contexts – can’t easily tell us who might intervene. These two psychologists wondered if there might be some personality traits that could be uncovered to reveal the helpers among us. What they needed, though, was a group of folks they assumed would help which is why they asked the future pastors and ministers attending Princeton Theological Seminary to participate in the experiment. These seminarians were first asked to fill-out a survey describing their personality and their beliefs. With that done, they were then asked to start mentally preparing for a short speech the psychologists wanted to record. Some of these pastors-in-training would reflect on what a good and faithful leader might look like in the world while others were invited to share a word about the reading from the gospel according to Luke we just heard. There wasn’t, however, room in the building they were currently in to share the speech so they would need to head to another building down a short alleyway. In addition to their need to walk outside, a new variable was inserted into the experiment as well. Some of the seminarians were told they were already late and they would need to rush down the alleyway. Others, however, could take their time since they’d have to wait once they got there. With their orders in hand and after being commanded to rush or slow down, the seminarians took off only to see a disheveled, sick, and coughing person huddled in a nearby doorway. The psychologists came up with a score ranging 1 to 6 to measure the amount of care they assumed every seminarian would provide. But after the experiment was over, they noticed how, “on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on their way.” The experiment wasn’t robust enough to clearly show how someone’s piety, beliefs, or upbringing influenced their willingness to help. But the psychologists did notice that when someone was told they needed to hurry, there was only a 10% chance of these so-called ministers of God actually stopping to help. Even though the experiment didn’t reveal any personality traits to predict who might spontaneously help those they find in need, I wonder if this study did hint at what Jesus was getting at in the first place. When all our attention is on “who” might help or “who” is supposed to help or “who” is even worthy of our help, we lose sight not only of who we are but also “whose” we are as well.
Now before we focus on the details of the story Jesus shared, we need to pay attention to why he shared it in the first place. An expert of the law – which, in this context, was simply a person who knew their Bible extremely well – came to Jesus with a question. The question they asked might feel like it’s primarily interested in what comes next. But when we inherit, that inheritance shapes what today is all about. Inheritance, though, is always a bit tricky since so much of it is focused on the “who.” We have entire traditions, legal documents, and professions around who gets what after someone dies. Sometimes the process of inheritance goes perfectly fine with families seeing eye-to-eye respecting their loved ones’ wishes. Other times, though, we devour each other while deciding who is worthy and who isn’t. The expert was, on one level, wondering how a holy and eternal life might shape the living they were already doing. They were also curious, though, who is worthy of any such kind of life at all. Jesus, though, knows that our life with God is always big enough to hold the living we’ve done as well as the living we’re going to do too. That’s why, I think, Jesus invited the expert to remember the words he heard and studied throughout the years of his life. The expert, however, can’t seem to shake the “who.” And so they followed up their initial words to Jesus with a question about “who” they should support and love. It’s this kind of question – and our focus on the who – which can consume so much of our time and resources. We’ll refuse to feed the person waiting for food at the food pantry because they look like someone “who” is able-bodied enough to get a job. We’ll spend way too much time writing concerned posts on social media when the “who” we didn’t expect bought the house down the street from us. And while we debate who should be trusted, who should be included, who should have access to what should only belong to us, the only support we have to give to those in need is simply a memo sharing with them our thoughts and our prayers. When we act as if we’re the ones who get to determine who experiences the kingdom of God, that’s always when Jesus steps in to push us towards something more.
In Jesus’ days, a story outline that was very popular for many parables and teachings involved a Levite and a Priest. They would end up in a situation, fail to express who God calls them to be, and then require an average Jewish person to show everyone how it’s done. As a person focused on the “who,” the expert assumed that this regular person would appear once the Levite and the Priest walked by. But when Jesus got to that point of the story, the “who” wasn’t the “who” anyone expected. The Jewish community and the Samaritans were, at the time, neighbors in the sense that Samaritans mostly lived in the northern part of Israel and Syria in areas that once were known as the Northern Kingdom. Yet after the destruction of that kingdom by the Assyrians, the religious and cultural split among these followers of God made it easier for them to be enemies than friends. Yet, in Jesus’ story, it was the One who everyone expected to keep walking by who embodied what the kingdom of God is all about. When we put all our attention and focus on “who” is worthy of care and love, we end up acting as if the limits we put on our love are the same as God’s. God, though, is less interested in who we define to be our neighbors and wonders if we’d be a love and live as a neighbor to everyone instead. And while this might feel like something we can’t do since we’re all too busy, too distracted, and too human to earn that consistent score of six out of six whenever we run into a huddled person sitting in an alleyway; the Jesus who is and has always been your neighbor trusts that His body of Christ can do the same. Jesus was, after all, born into a family and community who didn’t always get along with those around them. Jesus was regularly told that those he spoke to, those he visited, and those he ate with weren’t worthy of any kind of care and love. Jesus, whose disciples tried to keep the young, the sick, and strangers from experiencing what happens when the kingdom of God comes near, refused to let us stop what his love would do. And when we placed Jesus on a Cross rather than celebrate his compassion and mercy, God wouldn’t let us limit what God would choose to do. It would, I think, be so much easier if we could find the personality traits, knowledge, training, and life experiences to push us into becoming the kind of helpers we think we’re supposed to be. But since all we have is us – as well as the grace that comes from the One who, in baptism and faith, has already claimed us as His own – the least we can do in our current life is to live, care, love, and serve, while trusting that our eternal life – through Christ – has already begun.
Amen.