Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle C (children)

Object: A volunteer among the children

Good morning, boys and girls. I need somebody to show me their muscle. Can somebody make a fist and draw up your arm, like this? Most of us think of a muscle as the bulge on our arm. But actually our entire body is covered with over 500 muscles. Not just a lump here and there. Muscles come in different sizes and shapes, but each has an important job. Our bones would not be able to work if muscles did not control them. We would not be able to chew our food without muscles.

Our most important muscles are those that make up our heart. These keep our hearts beating thousands of times a day. And for some people, they do that for more than 100 years.

But there are also muscles to our spiritual heart. Our spiritual heart is where love dwells, and courage and kindness and hope. And just like we need to exercise our physical muscles to keep them in good shape, we need to exercise our spiritual muscles to keep them in good working order. If we exercise love and courage and kindness and hope every day, they will be with us all our lives. Then we will be spiritually strong in the same way that Jesus was spiritually strong–and Jesus taught us that this is the most important kind of strength.

 

Props: A pair of glasses, a book or pamphlet in a foreign language, and a prescription bottle.

Lesson: Good morning! (response) There is a wonderful story in the Bible about a boy who was walking down the street and some bullies surprised him and beat him up and took his milk money away from him. And then they just left him in the street. Well, what would you know! A friend of his, a neighbor, was walking down the road and saw the boy all beaten up but he passed him right by because there was this show on TV and it was about to start and he didn’t want to miss it.Then what would you know another friend, a girl who lived down the street, was riding her bike down that road and when she saw the boy all beaten up she thought to herself, “Well, that’s a shame. That poor boy is in trouble.” She thought about it and she said to herself, “I would stop and help but I don’t have enough room on my bike to carry him.” And she passed him by.

Then a Mexican boy who spoke Spanish (You may choose to use a black boy as an example or a white boy depending on the context of your congregation)…who spoke a little bit of English…who didn’t live in the neighborhood…he didn’t even know the boy who was hurt…when he saw the boy he stopped and and asked if he was ok and helped the boy up and carried him home.

Now, here is my question for you: Which one of these was a friend to the boy who was hurt? (the Mexican boy) If they are a bit lost give the three character’s and ask the question again.

Transition: We are all very different. Hold the glasses What do I have in my hand? (response) That’s right. Some people wear glasses to help them see. If there are kids with glasses on you may ask them how important the glasses are to them. Hold up the book. Can anyone read this for me? Hand it to one of the older kids. You can’t read it can you? That’s because it’s not English; it’s Spanish. Not everyone speaks English like we do. They come from a different country and they live differently then we do. Some kids even look different. Some are red, some are yellow, some are black and some are white. Hold up the prescription bottle. Some kids get sick and they have to take medicine or they may have to live in a wheelchair. We are all very different.

The differences don’t matter do they? (response) You might have freckles or you might be black: you might where glasses are have red hair. Either way, you are still my friend and if you are ever in trouble I want to help you.

 

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle C (4)

Living the Law of Love It is not so high as the sky, that some will cry, “Who will bring it down to us?” Nor is it far across the sea, that some will call, “Who will journey and get it for us?” No, the law of God, the way of God is already in your mouths and in your hearts. You have only to carry it out. This is our first reading for this week, from the Book of Deuteronomy.

 It is said that as a young priest, Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, developed a style as a confessor and counselor that challenged people to look within themselves. They had the truth. They had to recognize it and live it. There was no hiding what choices had to be made behind some written law somewhere or other. They and we know what is right. We have to act on our consciences.

 Certainly, there is no written law detailing what to do if we come across someone in dire need of our help. There is no written law that says that we have to stop our car and see why a four year old is walking alongside a busy road, all alone. There is no written law that says that the old man in the walker should have someone help him with his garbage barrels, but we know in our hearts what we need to be doing and what we need to be avoiding.

 In what is probably the best known parable in the gospels, the Good Samaritan, we are presented with a young man who is looking to serve God. He knows that we need to love the Lord our God with our whole minds, hearts and souls, and love our neighbor as ourselves, but he wants to cover all bases and asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus presents two Temple ministers, a Levite and a priest. These people know the law, at least theoretically. They also know that if they touch someone who the law said would be defiled in any way, they could not perform their service in the Temple. They had the written law, but they did not have the law of God in their hearts.

 So they walked pass the injured man on the side of the road. The Good Samaritan did not base his actions on the written law. He based his actions on the Law within his heart, the Law of Love. The Samaritan’s were a mixed people, part Jewish and part pagan. The Jews called them half breeds and looked down on them for selling out to the pagans. But here, this member of a renegade people, knew the Law better than the so-called servants of the Law, the Temple priest and Levite. The Samaritan did what a person who loves God would naturally do: care for someone who was hurting

 Love God with your who mind, heart and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. Love. Our society speaks so much about love that the Christian concept of love can be lost in psycho-babble. Way back, fifty-five years ago, there was a movie called Love Story that claimed: “Love is never having to say you are sorry.” What hogwash. Is there any married person here who agrees with that? Are there any married peoplein the world who agree with that? Love is always saying you are sorry. Married people are always forgiving and accepting the other’s forgiveness. We love God, but we are continually going to confession. We are always saying to Him that we are sorry. We seek and receive forgiveness because we know that we are loved.

 Obviously, love is far deeper than the natural draw of two people towards each other. When we were young, infatuation was the basis of so many relationships and the end of the relationship when infatuation moved to another person. Some adults still live as adolescents, limiting their concept of love to feelings.

 Nor is love lust. We are not animals. We can control our physical desires. What a horrible indictment of our young people when parents feel they need to put their daughters on birth control because neither they nor their boyfriends will be able to control themselves. This is really degrading to both kids. It also does not show a whole lot of faith in their own parenting.

 Let’s go back to St. John Paul the Great. The pope wrote: “Love is not fulfilling oneself through the use of another. Love is giving oneself to another, for the good of the other, and receiving the other as a gift.”

 That is an extremely powerful statement. “Love is not fulfilling oneself through the use of another. Love is giving oneself to another, for the good of the other, and receiving the other as a gift.” Often a person will say to another, “I need you to complete me. I need you to fulfill me.” Some people throw this into their wedding ceremony. Perhaps a husband and wife may say this to each other. Here’s a shocker: this is not correct. We need each other to draw closer to God, but it is God, not the other person who completes our being, who fulfills our purpose for living. That is the reason why we do not need to marry to grow in love. The object of all real love is God. Some people are not called to marriage. Some are called to the single life. But all are called to love God.

 The law of God is written in our hearts. We do not need written rules to govern every aspect of our lives. We do not need a law that says that as Christians we cannot pass by injured travelers. In the parable even a Samaritan knew that. We reach out to others because through them we are reaching out to God.

 The lawyer’s question may not have been sincere. He may have been more concerned with testing Jesus then with finding a true answer. But we are genuine when we ask his question: What is it that we need to do to inherit eternal life? Or, more directly, how can we love God? Jesus gives us the answer: we need to look within ourselves and reach out to God’s Presence wherever our hearts find Him.  

Fr Joseph Pelligrono

 

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle C (3)

Peter Godwin was a bit of an oddity in the African village where he grew up. Though a British citizen, Peter and his family had moved to Rhodesia when he was just a child. His mother, a missionary doctor, was assigned to start a vaccination program. Under her supervision thousands of people were inoculated against tuberculosis, smallpox, and other diseases. For some diseases, a shot was needed, but for others the vaccination was much more pleasant. It only involved putting a small dose of medicine on a sugar cube and feeding the cube to the patient. Little Peter was often enlisted to carry the tray of sugar cubes and to inspect children’s mouths to make sure they had fully swallowed the cube.

In the 1970s, civil war in Rhodesia forced the Godwin family to return to England, where a now-grown Peter found work as a journalist. The London Sunday Times sent Peter back to South Africa in 1986 to cover the clash between the Marxist government and armed rebels. While there, Peter had a great urge to slip into Mozambique, an area officially closed to foreign journalists. He managed to make it to Mozambique, but he was captured by a band of heavily armed rebels. The rebels forced Peter to return with them to their base camp. It was a two-day hike, during which Peter was often kicked or hit by his captors. When they arrived at the camp, Peter was hauled before the base commander. By chance, he heard the commander address his manservant in a dialect he recognized from his childhood in Rhodesia. Peter began speaking this language to the astonished commander, who demanded to know where Peter had learned the language. Peter explained a little about his childhood in Africa. When Peter mentioned his family name was Godwin, the commander’s whole manner changed. The big man rolled up his shirt sleeve to expose a scar, the same kind of scar that vaccination shots usually leave. Peter’s mother had vaccinated this man when he was just a child. And the commander had received a medicine-coated sugar cube from Peter’s own hand. Only moments before, Peter Godwin had been treated like an enemy by the rebels; now he was a welcome guest among them. They returned him safely to the area where he had been captured, and even posed for a picture with Peter before they left. (1) It’s nice, isn’t it? when good works are rewarded.

Once there was a 14-year-old girl in Cleveland, Ohio who got so angry with her parents that she ran away to New York City. Cold, hungry and friendless, she was shivering on a street corner when a cab pulled up. As some partygoers got out, a man in the group noticed the girl and, asking if she needed help, insisted that she join them for dinner in a nearby restaurant.

After hearing her story, the man took the teenager to the train station and bought her a ticket back to Cleveland. “Whatever your desire,” he told her, “if you want it enough, you can make it happen.” Then he gave her $20 and his address and telephone number. If she ever needed anything, she was to call him. The teenager returned to her family. Although she often thought of the man, she could not find the paper with his name and telephone number.

After high school this teenager attended college and medical school, and became a surgeon. She married another doctor. Together they had two children.

Soon her own daughter was 14 and asking for some vintage clothes and props for a school program. As mother and daughter searched trunks of old school things, the lost paper fell out of a diary. It took months of inquiries but the mother finally located her benefactor.

Twenty-five years after the two first met a kindly man named Ralph Burke received a letter and a check for $300. The woman asked that he accept it with the love and spirit in which it was sent. The idea, she said, wasn’t to repay a “kindness that has no price”; rather, she hoped he would come meet her family. Accepting the invitation, Burke was welcomed like a long-lost uncle. Today he insists that one should perform those “simple acts of kindness” whenever one can. “Sometime, some way,” Burke says, “they always come back to you.” (2)

YES, IT’S NICE WHEN GOOD WORKS ARE REWARDED. IT’S EVEN NICER WHEN NO REWARD IS ANTICIPATED. A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and left him for dead.

You know the story as well as I. It was a seventeen-mile journey between Jerusalem and Jericho and muggings were not unknown. And thus, an unfortunate man lay beside the road in desperate straits. A priest passed by and a Levite. The fact that they were Jewish religious leaders is incidental. Jesus could just have easily said a Protestant pastor and a Roman Catholic priest passed by. Insensitivity knows no race or creed. Regardless of the religious affiliation, they should have known better. That they were leaders in their faith makes the story even more disturbing.

That the hero of the story was a Samaritan was even more shocking to Jesus’ listeners. Relations between the Jews and the Samaritans were so strained that not only was it surprising that the Samaritan would offer assistance, it was equally as surprising that the Jewish man in the ditch WOULD ACCEPT the help. There was a saying in those days, “The Jew who accepts help from a Samaritan delays the coming of the kingdom.” (3)

Even more surprising is the role of the innkeeper. Innkeepers obviously played a different role in Jesus’ day than they do in ours. Can you imagine someone bringing a beaten up man to the local Holiday Inn and saying to the manager, “This poor fellow is going to need some looking after. You take care of it and I’ll reimburse you when I return”? In fact, maybe we should call this parable “the parable of the kindly innkeeper” rather than the parable of the Good Samaritan.

I read of a woman named Marjorie who resents jokes about the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side. They remind her of the times, because of under-staffing at the hospital where she worked, when she ignored one patient in order to tend to another. Marjorie feels that honoring the compassion of the Samaritan does not require attacking the priest and the Levite.

Marjorie says she wants to focus on the Innkeeper. The victim of the mugging would need several weeks to recover, for the text describes him as half dead. “It is one thing to deliver emergency care,” says Marjorie, “but it’s another to provide long-term care the tedium of lifting a spoon to someone else’s lips, the drudgery of emptying the bed pan, the burden of turning the body and changing the dressings, the exhaustion of waking in the night to the moaning of the victim who relives the violence in a nightmare.” All this is what the innkeeper did. And he did it in trust that the Samaritan would return and pay him. (4) In fact, there is a level of trust and humanity throughout this story that is rarer today than it was back then. The Good Samaritan. The kindly innkeeper.

THIS STORY CALLS US TO RENEW OUR SENSITIVITY TO THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE WE ENCOUNTER. This story is a call to well-doing. This is the kind of story we use to wash out our brain. It reminds us that kindness and decency are possible in the world.

When Edgar Guest, the American poet and writer, was a young man, his first child died. Writes Guest: “There came a tragic night when our first baby was taken from us. I was lonely and defeated. There didn’t seem to be anything in life ahead of me that mattered very much. I had to go to my neighbor’s drugstore the next morning for something, and he motioned for me to step behind the counter with him. I followed him into his little office at the back of the store. He put both hands on my shoulders and said, ˜Eddie, I can’t really express what I want to say, the sympathy I have in my heart for you. All I can say is that I’m sorry, and I want you to know that if you need anything at all, come to me. What is mine is yours.'”

Years later Edgar Guest reminisced upon that incident. He said, “Just a neighbor across the way a passing acquaintance. Jim Potter [the druggist] may long since have forgotten that moment when he gave me his hand and his sympathy, but I shall never forget it never in all my life. To me it stands out like the silhouette of a lonely tree against a crimson sunset.” (5)

KINDNESS AND DECENCY ARE POSSIBLE IN OUR WORLD. That is a truth of which we need to be reminded. IN FACT, THEY ARE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS IN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A FOLLOWER OF JESUS. Why is this so? Consider.

There was a classic experiment performed years ago. An unsuspecting person was walking by an alley when from the darkness someone yelled for help a woman who said she was being raped. Nearby were two other people who were part of the experiment. As instructed, they ignored the woman’s cries for help and kept walking.

The unsuspecting passerby didn’t know whether to respond to the pleas or not, but when he saw the other two people act as if nothing was wrong, he decided that the cries for help were insignificant, and he ignored them also.

This study was repeated many times with generally the same result. These studies led psychologists to conclude that our response to another person’s plight is often determined by how other people respond. This is our cue about whether the situation merits our involvement. In other words, THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN ANY SITUATION IN WHICH COMPASSION AND COURAGE IS INVOLVED IS THE FIRST PERSON TO ACT. After one person acts, then others are prone to respond as well but someone needs to step out from the crowd and go first. (6) This is what Jesus meant when he referred to us as a light set on a candlestick. God has planted us in the world to set an example of both kindness and decency. After people see our willingness to get involved, then they will get involved too. Not only do we respond to human need out of our neighborly concern, but also as our way of witnessing to God in the world. There is a man on a cross who says to us, “What I did for you, you are to do for others.” This is what following Jesus is all about.

Our text for the day comes in response to the question of a lawyer, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What does the law say?” Jesus asks. The lawyer replied, “You must 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 you must love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself.”

The priest and Levite loved God. We don’t doubt that. They were probably returning from doing their religious duties at the temple in Jerusalem. Doing your religious duties is not enough. Our faith is about loving God, but it is also about loving our neighbor. It is about doing good with no expectation of a reward. It is about following the example of a Good Samaritan and a kindly innkeeper. It is about acting with kindness and decency. You know that, of course. And I know that, but we need to be reminded. We need to renew our sensitivity to the needs of the people we encounter. We need to be reminded that kindness and decency are possible in our world. In fact, they are an essential ingredient in what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

1. Peter Godwin, “A Good Deed Comes Round,” from Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa. Cited in Reader’s Digest, January 1998, p. 135-138.

2. Dorothy Willman, “A Kindness Beyond Price,” Claremore, Oklahoma, Daily Program. Cited in “Heroes for Today,” Reader’s Digest, April 1996, pp. 183-184.

3. Eugene L. Lowry, How to Preach a Parable (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990).

4. Elaine M. Ward, Once Upon a Parable… (Educational Ministries, Inc., 1994), p.

5. Jack R. Van Ens. Arvada, Colorado. Leadership, Vol. 8, #4.

6. Dr. Robert Cialdini, Influence (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1984).                                                    King Duncan

 

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle C (2)

I have an important question for you this morning: what is something that is essential for human life, is highly contagious, yet most of us take it for granted? Any ideas? It’s kindness. You might think I’m exaggerating when I say it’s essential for human life and highly contagious, but I believe I can back that up.

A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a society. What separates an uncivilized collection of people from a true civilization? Mead could have mentioned the first signs of tools, like grinding stones or clay pots for holding food and water. She could have mentioned art, like cave paintings or carved statues. Instead, Mead said the first sign of civilization in her opinion was when an ancient skeleton was found with a healed thighbone. Why is that a sign of civilization?

It was Mead’s estimation that in a competitive, primitive culture where people had to hunt and escape predators in order to survive each day, the fact that someone set aside their own work in order to care for another’s injury was a sign of civilization.

As Mead said, “A broken femur that is healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.”

That’s good, isn’t it? “Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.” That’s a great thought for this morning as we study one of Jesus’ most famous stories, the story of the Good Samaritan.

Last year, the British Broadcasting Corp., or the BBC, teamed up with researchers from the University of Sussex in the UK to study the topic of kindness. They published an online questionnaire called the Kindness Test, and asked people all over the world to share their attitudes and experiences on the topic of kindness.

Research on kindness shows that when we experience or witness acts of kindness, we are much more likely to offer kindness to others. This is the contagious aspect of kindness. And when we perform an act of kindness, the reward system in our brain lights up, which gives us pleasure, which causes us to look for more opportunities to be kind. A neuroscientist working on the Kindness Project said, “Kindness can cost us, yet we experience a sense of reward in parts of our brain when we are kind to others, just as we do when we eat yummy food or have a pleasant surprise. These parts of the brain become active and motivate us to do them again and again.” (1)

“Kindness can cost us”—that’s a good point to consider, too, as we look at this morning’s lesson from Luke 10, the story of the Good Samaritan.

Our story begins, “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”

“What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?”

Have you ever noticed how many times in the Bible Jesus answers a question with a question? Martin Copenhaver has written a book titled Jesus Is the Question. And in this book, he shares the most fascinating fact: “In the Gospels,” he writes, “Jesus asks many more questions than he answers. To be precise, Jesus asks 307 questions. He is asked 183 [questions] of which he only answers 3.” (2)

Jesus, who was the Way, the Truth and the Life, had all the answers in life, yet he  asked far more questions than he answered. Why? Maybe because an answer provides certainty, but a question prompts growth. Which was more important to Jesus? I think we know the answer. Sometimes we get frustrated or disillusioned when we read the Bible or pray or come to church and we’re not finding answers to our questions. We feel like spiritual failures. What am I doing wrong here, Lord? But notice how often Jesus, who could have easily given us all the answers, asked questions instead. Wrestling with your questions does not make you a spiritual failure. It may be God’s greatest tool for forming you into the man or woman God wants you to be.

So let’s get back to our expert in the law. He asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, in turn, asked him, “What is written in the Law?” “How do you read it?”

The expert in the Law answered, “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 “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

So the expert in the law asked a question, and he got an answer. But that’s not the end of the conversation. Maybe the expert in the law wanted to expose Jesus. Or maybe the expert’s next question exposed his own soul-deep need. Because a person can have all the right answers about God and still not know God. So the first question this Bible story raises is, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be right with God?” This is a common expression, but it’s not a question we ask ourselves enough. Would you rather have all the answers, or would you rather have a relationship with the living God—even if that relationship doesn’t answer all your questions? The expert in the law may have been right, but I think he knew he wasn’t right with God.

Our next verse reads, “But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”

Neuroscientists from the Paris Brain Institute conducted a fascinating study in which they hooked up volunteers to an electrocardiogram machine and measured their heartbeats as they listened to a story being read aloud. And they found that as volunteers listened to the story, their heartbeats synchronized with one another. Even when the volunteers were physically in separate places, their heartbeats eventually synced up with the heartbeats of the others who were listening to the same story. (3)

I mention this study because Jesus is about to answer this man’s question with a story, one of the most famous stories in the Bible. The expert in the law set out to test Jesus. With this story, Jesus is testing him—and us. With this story, Jesus is trying to synchronize our heartbeats with the heart of God. Because the more you love God, the more your life will be in sync with God’s heart. What does it look like to love God with everything you’ve got, and to love your neighbor as yourself?

Jesus said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.”

Dan Dailey, writing in the New York Daily News, tells about overhearing a woman in New York discussing her neighborhood. New Yorkers often divide Manhattan based on the location of Houston Street. If you live south of Houston Street, you live in SoHo; if you live north of Houston Street, you live in NoHo. But this woman lived in a troublesome neighborhood somewhere in between that she called “Uh-Oh.”

Jesus’ listeners would have understood that the road between Jerusalem and Jericho was an “Uh-Oh” kind of neighborhood. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho stretches about 18 miles through desert terrain—hot, dry, rocky and rough. In Jesus’ day, it was common for thieves to hide among the rocks along this road and attack travelers passing through. (4)

This man was caught in a bad neighborhood. Most of us use this information to justify what happened next. But not Jesus. Jesus continued, “A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.”

Lawrence Richards, in his Devotional Commentary, makes a revealing point here. He notes that the priest and the Levite were going away from Jerusalem. This implies that they had just left from serving their religious duties in the temple. If they were going toward Jerusalem, they could claim that their duties to God were more important than their duties to man. Can’t be late to church! But they had no excuse. They represented the first half of Jesus’ teaching: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” But they failed to do the second. And their failure demonstrates their ignorance of the heart of God. Their hearts were out of sync with the heart of God. If they had loved God more, they would have loved the injured man the way God did. (5)

Jesus finishes the story: “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.” Let’s stop right there for a moment. The particular word used here for “took pity on him” refers to a heartfelt compassion, a compassion that you feel deep in your gut. Bible scholar A.T. Roberson notes that this word is only used twelve times in the New Testament, and eight of those times refer to Jesus’ sense of compassion for others. (6)

And considering how Jews in Jesus’ day had such contempt for Samaritans, this sense of compassion on the part of the Samaritan seems extraordinary. So let’s continue the story: “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’”

And then Jesus asked the expert in the law, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

 Rear Admiral Thornton Miller  a former chief of chaplains many years ago when he spoke to Army Chaplains. After the his speech, Rear Admiral Miller spent some time chatting with the students and answering questions. They all wanted to ask him about his experiences serving in World War II, especially on D-Day in Normandy. Rear Admiral Miller described the firefight that day in vivid terms. As a military chaplain, he had gone up and down the beach, dodging bombs and gunfire while praying with injured soldiers, doing anything he could to help.

A student asked him why he had risked his own life on the beach that day, and Miller simply replied, “I’m a minister.”

So the student tried to re-word his question. He said, “But didn’t you ask if they were Catholic or Protestant or Jew? Did you just . . . I mean, if you’re a minister. . .”

Rear Admiral Miller interrupted him. He said, “If you’re a minister, the only question you ask is, ‘Can I help you?’” (7)It is the same philosophy here in the VA

Did you hear that? “If you’re a minister, the only question you ask is, ‘Can I help you?’” The priest, the Levite, the expert in the law—they all failed to ask the most important question: “Can I help you?” And this failure reveals their lack of love for God.

Because Jesus makes it clear, in this Bible story and in his own life, that the heart of God is a heart of mercy. Jesus doesn’t commend anyone for their religious credentials or their knowledge of the law. He commends the one who puts love for a stranger into action. He commends the one who risks himself on behalf of an enemy. What do John 3: 16-17, the central verses of the New Testament, say? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

In 1992, a man named John Jordan saw a news report on the war between Serbs and Croats in Bosnia. Firefighters in Bosnia had almost no protective equipment, yet they were called upon to fight continuous fires caused by the bombings in their city. Jordan is an ex-Marine and firefighter from Rhode Island, and he felt such compassion for these brave firefighters halfway around the world. So he gathered up donations of equipment and protective gear and moved to Sarajevo to begin a firefighters training program there. He has also recruited experienced firefighters from the U.S. to come to Sarajevo and work in the training program.

It takes a tremendous amount of work and energy to set up this training program, train the firefighters, work alongside them in dangerous conditions, and solicit donations to keep these programs going. Why would he put himself in this situation? John Jordan says, “I was at home watching the news about how these guys in T-shirts and jeans with no protection were fighting fires in the middle of sniper and mortar attacks. It’s like coming on a car accident. You either stop and help or you drive by. I stopped.” (8)

What was Jesus’ final question in our Bible story today? “And then Jesus asked the expert in the law, ‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’

The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’

“Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’” “Go and do likewise.”

When you stand before God someday, will God care more about your correct theology or your acts of mercy? Look at the life of Jesus and decide which one is more in sync with God’s heart. Then go and do likewise.

1. “What we do and don’t know about kindness” by Claudia Hammond BBC.com, September 21, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210921-what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-kindness.

2. Martin Copenhaver, Jesus Is the Question (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 2014).

3. “People’s Heartbeats Synchronize When They’re Captivated by The Same Story” by Tessa Koumoundouros, September 15, 2021, ScienceAlert.com, https://www.sciencealert.com/our-heartbeats-synchronize-when-we-re-captivated-by-the-same-story.

4. “Road to Jericho” http://faith.nd.edu/s/1210/faith/interior.aspx?sid=1210&gid=609&pgid=33100.

5. Lawrence O. Richards, The 365 Day Devotional Commentary (Colorado Springs, Colo.: ChariotVictor Publishing, 1990), p. 730.

6. A. T. Robertson https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-10-commentary.

7. Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001).