FIX OUR EYES ON JESUS

This past weekend I preached on the story of the Good Samaritan. If you haven’t read it yet, check out Luke 10:25-37.   

First, we call this the story of the “Good” Samaritan, but Jesus’ listeners would not have considered Samaritans good. They were considered impure, unclean, foreign person marrying, foreign god worshiping, dirt bag sinners who are unredeemable.   

At this time the rule of three applied to stories. The third character of a story would have been the hero. We often read ourselves into stories as the hero so the lawyer would have been expecting the hero (the third person walking by the injured man) to be himself or at least another expert in the law or at least a Jewish person (not from Samaria). To lift up a Samaritan as the hero was super offensive and its no wonder (spoiler alert) they started making plans to kill Jesus.   

But in Jesus’ telling of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan walks by and has compassion (Luke 10:33) on the man whose been beaten. That same Greek word for compassion (splagchnizomai) is used in Luke 7:13 and it is JESUS who has compassion. The Jesus figure in this story is the Samaritan. Further, when asked who was a neighbor to the injured man, the lawyer says “the one who showed mercy.” He hates Samaritans so much he can’t even say “the Samaritan”. But the same Greek word for mercy (eleos) is used in Luke chapter 1 verses 50, 54, 58, 72, and 74 and guess whose mercy it’s talking about? GOD’s mercy. So the one in the story who shows God’s mercy is the Samaritan. 

What’s the point, Pr. Brandon? Well, what if the point of this story isn’t just to be like the good Samaritan and help someone in need? What if Luke’s gospel wants us to start seeing Jesus, to start seeing God, in the people we absolutely despise?   

We have an unfortunate tendency to divide ourselves into camps—Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, patriots and foreigners, tree huggers and coal lovers, and the list goes on. We are quick to despise those we consider wrong or outsiders and even argue for the sake of arguing (shame on us).   

The fallout from the Texas winter weather and power grid failure quickly turned to legislators blaming the other side while millions of people went without needed basics like warmth, clean water, and food. Fix the blame, not the problem, and the other side is always to blame. But what if instead of fixing the blame we fixed our eyes on Jesus?   

What if we took the story of the Good Samaritan seriously and tried to see Jesus in those whom we  most despise, most disagree with, and most believe unworthy of God’s grace and mercy? The narrow way, the way of discipleship, means fixing our eyes on Jesus and seeing Jesus in our neighbors (even those we despise).