The Good Samaritan - Sermon for the 13th Sunday after Trinity

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity                     
August 25^th, Year of Our + Lord 2024
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
The Good Samaritan

 Sermon Audio is available HERE

     My Good Samaritan. 

     Have you ever been rescued by a Good Samaritan?  Have you ever been in a real jam, with no way to help yourself, and someone, some passerby, someone you didn’t even know, steps in to rescue you? 

      A couple weeks ago I was visiting Jerret Gramling, one of our shut-in members, and we used today’s Gospel for our Scripture reading.  These visits are always fun, because Jerret asks a lot of questions about whatever Bible passage we use.  We got to talking about Good Samaritans.  Jerret remembered a Good Samaritan hospital in the place he grew up, where the nuns were super nice to him and his friends.  As we talked about the various ways we use the term “Good Samaritan,” it occurred to me that I have quite a number of “Good Samaritan” stories.  I’m not sure what this says about my ability to take care of myself.  But I have a lot of rescue stories.    

      Like on a late summer Saturday, back in 1996, I think it was.  I was driving from
Carlisle, PA to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, to meet Shelee and the kids, who were 5 and 2 years-old at the time.  They had flown out to Idaho to see Shelee’s family.  I was cruising through the Maryland countryside in our Volkswagen Jetta, the A/C cranked to beat the heat and humidity.  All of a sudden, thick, white, sickly-sweet smoke started pouring out of the vents.  I pulled off into the town I was passing, and happily saw a maintenance shop just up the street.  I reached the service counter at about 4:30 p.m., and I knew I was in trouble.  The mechanics who got stuck working that Saturday were bringing in their paperwork and cleaning their hands with GoJo.  The service writer was checking out several customers.  Fixing broken cars was their calling, but nobody was interested in some stranger’s new problem at the end of a long day, heading into a day off.  I finally got the service writer’s attention, but he told me they couldn’t even look at my car until sometime Monday morning. 

 “But, my wife and kids are landing at BWI in half an hour.”      

         “Sorry, nothing I can do…”

 “Can you tell me if there is a rental car place here in town?”

         “Sure, down the road about a quarter mile.  But you better hurry, I’m not sure when they close…”

      I felt completely helpless, and I was getting very stressed.  Neither Shelee nor I had cell phones, and I had no idea what number to call at the airport to try to tell her I was running late.  I was wondering whether I should risk driving my car to the rental place, or if I should just take off running.  I was about to leave, when the guy next to me at the counter said, “Wait just a minute, and I’ll take care of you.”  I turned to see a middle-aged guy, paying for the tires the shop had just installed on his car.  I tried to be patient as he finished paying his bill.  Finally, putting his check book back in his pocket, he turned to me and said, “I live just across the road.  Follow me over there with your car; I’m sure I can help you out.” 

      My Good Samaritan knew, from my description, that my heater core had burst open.  The heater core is a little radiator, up in your dash.  Hot engine coolant runs through it, from your main radiator, and when you turn on the heat, a fan pushes air across it, to warm the inside of your car.  The heater core sits right next to the A/C condenser, which does the reverse, to blow cool air into your car.  When the heater core burst, it sprayed hot coolant onto the cold condenser, making the white smoke that filled my car. 

      In about ten minutes in his garage, my hero disconnected the inlet and outlet lines of the heater core, and connected them together with a U-shaped hose that he just happened to have lying around.  The broken heater core was now isolated, no more hot radiator fluid to blow into my cabin, and no more risk of emptying my radiator and overheating the engine.  We topped off the radiator, and I was ready to go pick up Shelee and the kids.

      I was so thankful.  I offered to pay him all the cash I had in my wallet, which wasn’t that much, although as an hourly rate would have been pretty good for his quarter hour of work.  But he wouldn’t take a dime.  “Go pick up your family,” he said. 

      I obeyed my Good Samaritan, only pausing to write down his address from his mailbox, before I headed back down the road.  I know I sent him a thank you card.  I don’t remember if I stuck any cash in it.  But I really couldn’t repay the magnitude of his kindness to me. 

      My Good Samaritan changed me.  He went out of his way to help me, and reversed what was about to become a very bad situation.  I still ended up late to the airport, and Shelee did get pretty worried.  We hadn’t lived long in PA.  We had no family there, and not many friends yet.  She didn’t have anyone obvious to call.  I found her at a bank of payphones, calling in to where I worked, to see if anyone there might know where I was.  She was very relieved to see me, and I was even more thankful to my rescuer.

     I don’t think I was a heartless person before that day.  But afterward, and really ever since, I have been more alert to people in need, and more willing to risk helping.  Gratitude has the power to make us better. 

      As Jarret Gramling and I discussed the Good Samaritan and my experience, we realized that my story matches up quite well with the teaching Jesus gave to the Jewish lawyer.  You remember him, that student of the Hebrew Scripture, and an expert in God’s Law, who tried to limit the definition of the neighbor the LORD calls us to love just like we love ourselves.  Wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 

      There is plenty of teaching about good works in this parable.  Samaritans and Jews were geographic neighbors and distant cousins.  Jews despised Samaritans, for being interbred with pagan peoples, and for changing things in the Law of Moses concerning how and where to worship the LORD.  In both of these actions, the Samaritans were wrong.  And yet, Jesus chooses to extol the neighborliness of a Samaritan, as opposed to the heartlessness of the Jewish Priest and Levite.  Our Lord makes it clear that religion without love for the neighbor is not the religion God gave us through Moses.  As Paul wrote: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” 

      I try in my mind to cut some slack for the service writer and mechanics who did not want to help me with my broken car.  My situation was not life or death.  Still, like the Priest and the Levite had a calling to be God’s agents to help people in their lives, those guys in Maryland had a calling to help people with broken cars.  They chose not to go out of their way to help me.  Which is pretty typical. 

      But my neighbor at the checkout counter did go out of his way to help me.  In this, he exemplifies the life of love that God calls His children to live.  I did not actually find out whether my Good Samaritan was a Christian.  Regardless, God used him to rescue me and my family in a tight spot.  And he did it simply because he came upon me, stranded and helpless on the side of the road, and he had compassion.  He recognized that our neighbors are the people that the LORD brings into our lives.  Now, we have closer neighbors and more distant neighbors.  Husbands and fathers, for example, should make sure they are taking care of their own wife and children before going out to look for other needy people.  But when God brings us into contact with needy people, we have a calling to do what we can.  Which might be just a little.  Or it might be a lot.

      Even as I speak this last thought, I feel butterflies in my gut.  Helping people can be very rewarding, and the gratitude of being rescued by a Good Samaritan can be life changing.  But we also know we will get worn down, and that some people will abuse us if we try to help.  We know we will fail to do all the good we can.  I have sinned by what I have done, and by what I have left undone.  The Way of the Good Samaritan is good and right, but I cannot walk that Way to the end.  How about you? 

      The life of good works, of loving our neighbors, is wonderful, but it cannot be our fount of blessing.  Our love for others cannot be our assurance.  And so it is also wise and wonderful to remember that Jesus told this parable to an expert in God’s law, who wanted to justify himself.  If we are determined to earn our place in God’s kingdom, to make ourselves righteous and so enter into eternal glory on our own merits, Jesus says, “O.k., go ahead.  Here’s the standard: Be the Good Samaritan, every time, and you will achieve your self-righteous goal.” 

      Brothers and sisters, what can we do?  Can we meet this standard?  Can we love, selflessly, perfectly, every time?  No. 

      Thanks be to God, there is a greater love, a prior love, that we must have, before we can even try to love our neighbor.  And this love, this divine charity, to use an old word, is the greatest thing, the one thing necessary, from which every other good thing flows.  

      Jesus is the Master Teacher.  He is absolutely teaching this Jewish lawyer, and us, just how perfect God’s expectations for our behavior truly are.  And, at the same time, He is teaching us about Himself, and His limitless love for mankind. 

      You and me, we are the man, lying half-dead on the side of the road, not bloody and beaten by robbers, but guilty and broken by sin.  We are not merely at risk of physical death, but eternal death, of being justly cut off from God and every good thing, forever.  We cannot help ourselves. 

      The Priest and the Levite give a bad example, by not even trying to help the wounded man.  But there is a deeper truth in Jesus’ parable.  The God-given religious callings of the Priest and Levite were important, worthy, and good.  They are agents of God’s good and perfect Law.  But they cannot help the man, or us, with our deeper problem.  A better rescuer is needed.  An all-powerful, truly loving Savior is what we need.  Someone undaunted by human misery, who’s capable of overcoming our problem with God’s Law, that’s who we need.  And that is who Jesus is: the very love of God, made flesh, the Son of God, become also a human being, to rescue humanity, from ourselves. 

    In selfless love, Jesus has come to you and to me, kneeling down and lifting us out of the ditch alongside the Way.  His medicine to us is not merely wine and oil to wash our wounds and bandages to stop the bleeding.  His medicine heals not just body, but also soul, by washing away our sin and shame, and healing our guilty consciences.  Have you failed to love and care for someone who needed you?  Have you been neglected, hurt, shamed?  Do you feel dirty, unworthy, guilty, because of things you’ve done, or left undone, or because of things you’ve suffered?  Jesus has come to rescue you and me from all of these things.  He has washed us and adopted us as children of His Father, through the waters of Holy Baptism.  He calms our fears with His Word of forgiveness.  He has carried us to the Inn, to His House, the Church, a temple built of living stones, a congregation of other rescued sinners, which He calls His Beloved. 

      In this Inn He provides for us, as He has promised, until that Day when He returns to take us home.  Here He feeds us with forgiveness, in His own Body and Blood.  Here He teaches us to live more wisely, and to love one another.  He teaches us to stick together on life’s Way, so diabolic bandits don’t rob us and beat us and leave us for dead.  Here He even creates new hearts in us, hearts that overflow with gratitude, hearts filled with His undeserved love.  Jesus rejoices to give us joy and peace, and love to spare, which we can share with other undeserving souls.  

     My Good Samaritan.  Your Good Samaritan.  How can we be sure that Jesus will really take care of us, really hold on to us, really come back for us?  For assurance, we look to the End of His Way.  His medicine, His treatments for sin-broken people, His Words of forgiveness, love and promise, these are not merely kind dispositions of God’s heart.  Just as sin, and injury, suffering, disease, betrayal and guilt are real and historical, day to day realities in our lives, Jesus’ final resolution is also real, concrete.  His solution is historical, and it is delivered to us, day after day.  The wise Teacher who told of the Good Samaritan did more than teach.  He stepped into the role of the dying man.  He was lifted onto the Cross, and died the death we deserve, suffering all the torments of sin, death and hell, in our place. 

      His death and His glorious resurrection empower His Word of forgiveness.  His Body and Blood are the medicine of immortality, because Jesus has defeated sin and death, in His own body, forever.  For the Jewish lawyer, Jesus hid the image of the truly good neighbor under the hated identity of a Samaritan.  So also, for the whole world, the Lord has hidden love and forgiveness and life under the ugliness and terror of the Cross.  There all your sins were forgiven and there all your suffering was redeemed.  And now, since Christ is risen from the dead, never to suffer or die again, we are made alive, in Him.  And so, we can rejoice in our blessings, and we can face struggle and suffering without fear.  We can even dare to love our neighbors, because we know our Good Samaritan will never leave us.  And this is the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, and will keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus, our Lord, unto life everlasting, Amen.