The 5^th Sunday after Pentecost, July 13, 2025

A Sermon on St. Luke 10:25-37 by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills

²⁵Just 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.” (Luke 10:25-37, NRSV).

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

         Well every time you drive up and down I-95 or I- 91 you see it—a car pulled over on the side of the road, flashers on, a tire off, passengers standing in the grass, the hood up, and every time as I drive on by without stopping I think about today’s parable, perhaps Jesus’ most famous parable ever, the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Everybody knows this parable, because it seems so straightforward.  Somebody’s in trouble on the side of the road, go help them.  And most of the time we don’t.  For good reasons!  We think we know what the parable says, and we don’t do what it says, so we feel anxious, and guilty.

         But what if this parable isn’t first and foremost about you?  What if you and what you’re going to do is not the star of the story?  The man who asks Jesus the question today that begins this parable, he thinks it is all about him, he wants to know what he should do to inherit eternal life, and when he tells Jesus the right answer, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself,” it’s not enough, the man want to justify himself further, he wants it to be all about him and what he can do, and so he asks Jesus, “Who, then, is my neighbor?”  Who should I love, what is the limit of how far I have to go?

         And so Jesus tells this parable, the story of who Jesus loves, the parable of Jesus’ own life, his own autobiography, of how far he will go, in one little story.

         A man was walking on the Jericho road, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and left him half dead.

         Even today the Jericho road is windy, steep, abandoned, you can’t see around the next bend, there are dunes on either side in which anyone could be hiding.  A man was walking down a dark alley, on the wrong side of the tracks, late at night, we might say, and a gang of thugs robbed him, and beat, him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

         If you want it to be all about you, maybe that’s you this morning, maybe that’s us, robbed, and beaten, and left half dead.

         Haven’t you been robbed of your dignity as a child of God, haven’t you been robbed of the right relationship with God you were made for, haven’t you been robbed by sin and death and devil this week?

         And haven’t you been beaten up?  Haven’t you been beaten up?  Beaten up by failure?  Beaten up by what we thought were successes?  Beaten up by those who were supposed to love you?  Beaten up by broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes?  Beaten up by the weight of things done and left undone?

         And haven’t we all been left for dead?  When our last breath comes, as it will for all of us, who will be there on the side of the road of life to help?

         Quite the stars of this story aren’t we?  Our part seems over before it’s begun, but the worst part is that all we thought would help don’t.  All the religious folks, the folks we would pray with and share our faith with and expect to help don’t, they walk on by and don’t look us in the eye.  All the leaders and officials and politicians, walk on by, and don’t do a thing.  People who are our people, people who are like us, people we grew up with, people in our neighborhoods, people in our families even, people we know and who should have our backs turn they backs and walk by on the other side.  And we are left alone.

       One winter when I was growing up in Minnesota, my car broke down in the middle of a blizzard. My mighty 3-cylinder Geo Metro could not power through the snow, was stuck spinning it’s wheels, frozen.  There were three feet of snow on the ground, six feet in the drifts, I had no hat, no gloves, no cell phone in those days to call for help, so I trudged alongside the highway, and the SUVs and the Pickups and even the highway patrol and the towtrucks passed right on by.  Everyone has something more important to do when you really need help.

         And then, out of nowhere, an old beater Chevy Caprice pulled over, all rusted out, barely running, and out jumped a single young mom, on her way to night school with a baby in the back seat and one on the way.  She turned on the heat for me to thaw my hands while the baby slept, and dropped me off at the next gas station.

          The person who stops to help the man attacked, beaten, robbed, and left for dead is just as surprising.  A Samaritan, someone who everyone knew was weird and bad, people who were half-Jews, who worshipped with a different Bible and in a different Temple.  Today we’d say that it was a Good Scientologist who stopped, or a Good die-hard atheist, someone not like us.  Imagine the last person would you expect, or the last person you would like to stop and help you, so who would be the Samaritan in your life?

          As Jesus tells us in this autobiography, it’s not all about you, or what you and I have to do.  But it’s about Him, the one True Good Samaritan, the Son of God, so different from us and yet so close at hand, his deep compassion and pity for us in the ditch, the one who pours out his own precious oil and sheds his own wine upon our wounds, who takes on our own heavy burdens onto his humble shoulders, who himself was beaten and robbed and stripped and left for dead on the Cross, and who is found in and among all those beaten, robbed, and stripped in this life, in and with all innocent victims Christ himself is there. So this story is about how far down into the ditch of our life our God is willing to go to help us, including to be right there with us when we’re in the ditch.  It’s not about how far you and I have to go, but about how far God has gone for you, and how far he will go.  But part of the way God reaches this world that needs him, this world left half-dead without him, is through his innkeepers, through his hospital, through us, his church.

       Imagine the innkeeper today, all of a sudden a rich stranger comes with a half-dead robbery victim in tow, and the Samaritan’s instructions are clear: here’s what you need in cash up front, take care of him, when I return I’ll pay back whatever more you spend.  So there we are, you and I who by our baptism into Christ, by his precious body and blood poured out on us, we take care of the hotel, the hospital, as the old saying goes the church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners.  Every person here is a guest of Christ, who has paid the bill with his own blood, carried the sins of the world on his own back, and will pay back whatever we run up as we care for those he’s entrusted to us when he comes again in glory.  And since we’ve all been in the ditch at some point, we all know how sweet the comfort and forgiveness and new life of Christ is.  Once more this morning he pours out his own oil and wine on our wounds in the Communion, and bandages you up with his grace, and bears your own burden on his own back, bringing you safely to this hospital, this inn, where we can both heal and care for all those Christ brings into our lives.

See this story is not about you, but about Him, and what he has done to rescue you, and the whole world.  He is the one who has acted like a neighbor, and so you will find him not only here in the healing of your wounds, but in all those who are a neighbor to you this week, you’ll see Christ in all who stop and help you this week in any little way, maybe where you didn’t expect help to come from at all, and you will find him in all who need you this week, not for you to be a hero, but rather a host, an innkeeper, one who can continue in the healing that the one true Good Samaritan has already given.

So you’ve been raised up this morning, by him coming down with compassion into your ditch.  You’ve been healed this morning, by him being wounded.  You’ve been brought home on his shoulders this morning, by him going forth on a dangerous road.  And you will be used this morning and this week, as an innkeeper, by the one for whom there was no room in the inn.

          Thanks be to God it’s not all about you, but about your Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ our Lord.

       And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.

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The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills

New Haven, Connecticut

Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org