{"id":25294,"date":"2025-07-08T11:12:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T09:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=25294"},"modified":"2025-07-19T11:13:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T09:13:58","slug":"luke-1025-37-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/luke-1025-37-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 10:25-37"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 5th<\/sup> Sunday after Pentecost, July 13, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Sermon on St. Luke 10:25-37 by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills<\/p>\n

25<\/sup>Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. \u201cTeacher,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat must I do to inherit eternal life?\u201d\u00a026<\/sup>He said to him, \u201cWhat is written in the law? What do you read there?\u201d\u00a027<\/sup>He answered, \u201cYou 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.\u201d\u00a028<\/sup>And he said to him, \u201cYou have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.\u201d
\n29<\/sup>But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, \u201cAnd who is my neighbor?\u201d\u00a030<\/sup>Jesus replied, \u201cA 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.\u00a031<\/sup>Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.\u00a032<\/sup>So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.\u00a033<\/sup>But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.\u00a034<\/sup>He 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.\u00a035<\/sup>The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, \u2018Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.\u2019\u00a036<\/sup>Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?\u201d\u00a037<\/sup>He said, \u201cThe one who showed him mercy.\u201d Jesus said to him, \u201cGo and do likewise.\u201d (Luke 10:25-37, NRSV).<\/p>\n

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Well every time you drive up and down I-95 or I- 91 you see it\u2014a 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\u2019s parable, perhaps Jesus\u2019 most famous parable ever, the Parable of the Good Samaritan.\u00a0 Everybody knows this parable, because it seems so straightforward.\u00a0 Somebody\u2019s in trouble on the side of the road, go help them.\u00a0 And most of the time we don\u2019t.\u00a0 For good reasons!\u00a0 We think we know what the parable says, and we don\u2019t do what it says, so we feel anxious, and guilty.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But what if this parable isn\u2019t first and foremost about you?\u00a0 What if you and what you\u2019re going to do is not the star of the story?\u00a0 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, \u201cTo love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself,\u201d it\u2019s 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, \u201cWho, then, is my neighbor?\u201d\u00a0 Who should I love, what is the limit of how far I have to go?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And so Jesus tells this parable, the story of who Jesus loves, the parable of Jesus\u2019 own life, his own autobiography, of how far he will go, in one little story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even today the Jericho road is windy, steep, abandoned, you can\u2019t see around the next bend, there are dunes on either side in which anyone could be hiding.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you want it to be all about you, maybe that\u2019s you this morning, maybe that\u2019s us, robbed, and beaten, and left half dead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haven\u2019t you been robbed of your dignity as a child of God, haven\u2019t you been robbed of the right relationship with God you were made for, haven\u2019t you been robbed by sin and death and devil this week?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And haven\u2019t you been beaten up?\u00a0 Haven’t you been beaten up?\u00a0 Beaten up by failure?\u00a0 Beaten up by what we thought were successes?\u00a0 Beaten up by those who were supposed to love you?\u00a0 Beaten up by broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes?\u00a0 Beaten up by the weight of things done and left undone?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And haven\u2019t we all been left for dead?\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Quite the stars of this story aren\u2019t we?\u00a0 Our part seems over before it\u2019s begun, but the worst part is that all we thought would help don\u2019t.\u00a0 All the religious folks, the folks we would pray with and share our faith with and expect to help don\u2019t, they walk on by and don\u2019t look us in the eye.\u00a0 All the leaders and officials and politicians, walk on by, and don\u2019t do a thing.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And we are left alone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One winter when I was growing up in Minnesota, my car broke down in the middle of a blizzard.\u00a0My mighty 3-cylinder Geo Metro could not power through the snow, was stuck spinning it’s wheels, frozen.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Everyone has something more important to do when you really need help.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She turned on the heat for me to thaw my hands while the baby slept, and dropped me off at the next gas station.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The person who stops to help the man attacked, beaten, robbed, and left for dead is just as surprising.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Today we’d say that it was a Good Scientologist who stopped, or a Good die-hard atheist, someone not like us.\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As Jesus tells us in this autobiography, it’s not all about you, or what you and I have to do.\u00a0 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\u2019re in the ditch.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Imagine the innkeeper today, all of a sudden a rich stranger comes with a half-dead robbery victim in tow, and the Samaritan\u2019s instructions are clear: here\u2019s what you need in cash up front, take care of him, when I return I\u2019ll pay back whatever more you spend.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u2019s entrusted to us when he comes again in glory.\u00a0 And since we\u2019ve all been in the ditch at some point, we all know how sweet the comfort and forgiveness and new life of Christ is.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

See this story is not about you, but about Him, and what he has done to rescue you, and the whole world.\u00a0 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\u2019ll see Christ in all who stop and help you this week in any little way, maybe where you didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve been raised up this morning, by him coming down with compassion into your ditch.\u00a0 You\u2019ve been healed this morning, by him being wounded.\u00a0 You\u2019ve been brought home on his shoulders this morning, by him going forth on a dangerous road.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks be to God it\u2019s not all about you, but about your Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ our Lord.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills<\/p>\n

New Haven, Connecticut<\/p>\n

Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org<\/p>\n

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