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Salt + Light Community is a SOMA church plant in the heart of Fort Worth, TX. Here you’ll find teaching and discussions from our gatherings on Sundays.
Speaker: Time for me to get
to be high up here to teach.
That's exciting.
Uh, my name is Bethany if we haven't met.
Um, it is really sweet
to be in church today.
I feel like we were gone almost
the whole summer on trips.
Um, Brian, is it in a good spot?
Is this okay?
Yeah.
Um, we were gone on trips, so it just,
today I just felt this Just this nearness
and this community that I've been missing,
seeing you all and worshiping with you.
I'm so happy to be here, I really am.
Uh, one of the trips that we took
this summer was early in June, and,
uh, my husband Ben and our two kids,
uh, we all went to Tokyo, which was a
really big, uh, amazing trip for us.
We'd never done anything like that.
It was a lot of firsts for our family.
It was the first time that we did a
10-day trip, so we were gone a long time.
It was the first time we did an
international trip with our kids, so
it was their first time to be, uh, in
a country where not everybody spoke
English, which was, uh, you know, a
super cool experience for them and new.
Uh, it was also the first time,
two days before we left, it was our
first broken bone in our family.
So I know, wah, wah.
So it was, uh, two days before we left,
Piper, our daughter, broke her pinky
toe, just this little teeny-tiny bone,
which means that she could not walk
the whole time that we were in Tokyo.
So Ben and I, you know, like, we're
sitting in the clinic as they're
showing us the x-ray- X-rays, and we're
like, "Order a wheelchair on Walmart.
We got this.
We're gonna go.
It's not gonna stop us.
It's gonna be great.
It's gonna be fine."
And so we went to Tokyo and it is, Tokyo's
a very modern, wheelchair-accessible
city, so it was fine for the most part.
But what we realized pretty quickly
as our biggest challenge was
elevators, um, at train stations.
Sorry, is there a reverb?
Can y'allâ¦
Is it here okay?
Okay.
For me, it feels okay.
Um, it was elevators at train stations.
So when you're in Tokyo, pretty much
all day long, we were taking trains
to different neighborhoods, going to
different spots, and at every station,
sometimes it would take us two or
three elevators to get to the right
platform because of it was sort of
retrofitted later on to add in elevators.
If you've been there, and if
you've been there, the train
station's already really confusing.
Uh, you know, there is some English,
but a lot of it's, uh, not in English.
It's huge.
The stations are huge.
So, uh, about day five, we were really
tired of hunting down elevators.
They were, like, hidden.
They were down hallways, around corners.
There were no maps.
There were no signs.
No one you could ask, and if you
could, you know, you couldn'tâ¦
They didn't speak English.
So about day five, I just remember
we got off of a train at a really
massive train station, and we're
standing on the platform, and we're
looking around, and the commuters are
just streaming past us on both sides.
Like, we're, like, gripping onto
our kids' hands, and they're just
running past us on both sides, and
we see no signs, no map, no elevator.
It's this massive platform.
And we must have just looked really
pitiful because someone, a, a Japanese
man, stepped out of the commuter line,
like, obviously dressed for work.
He stepped out and tapped my husband
Ben on the shoulder and just waved
for us to follow him, and we just
blindly followed this stranger.
We're like, "Yep, wherever you're
going, we're going that way."
So he wound down this massive platform
through columns, like, past people, and
finally at the end of this platform, we
see an elevator And, um, we get there
and we think, "Wow, that was so nice.
He, he walked us all the way down.
That was so kind.
He could have just pointed."
And he didn't stop there.
He pushed the button.
He waited with us in total
silence as the elevator came down.
He pushed the button for the
correct floor, which was also
surprisingly confusing to find
the right floor to get off.
And then, um, before we could
say anything, before we could
get on the elevator, he just gave
us this slow, deep bow, and then
just stood up and walked away.
And Ben and I, uh, crammed
into this teeny-tiny elevator.
It just fit all four of us barely,
and we looked at each other, and we
both had tears in our eyes because
it was such a moment of kindness.
And I think it says a
lot about where we were.
Just, we were exhausted, we were
confused, we were frustrated.
But in that moment, he showed
us this kindness that, uh, we
were the intruders in his life.
We were the lost, loud Americans
that didn't know where to go, that
were standing on the platform, and he
interrupted his commute to show this,
just this gracious act of kindness.
And it ended up being one of our
favorite memories of our whole trip.
It took something that was really hard
and really made it this sweet memory, and
we refer to him as the Angel of Tokyo.
And we talk about him
a lot, this stranger.
And as a segue into the, what we're
talking about today, you could
also call him a Good Samaritan.
And for us in that moment, it
very much felt that, that way.
So the Good Samaritan story is what
we're looking at today, and It's a
little bit prickly for me to teach on
because many of us, if you grew up,
uh, in church or reading the Bible,
you've heard this story many times.
We hear it referenced a lot.
There's organizations, uh, named
after it and laws named after it.
Um, we've also heard it misapplied
and misinterpreted probably as
many times as we've heard it read.
So in preparing for it, I really
wondered and kind of struggled with
what else is there to say about it.
Like, is there something ⦠Do
I need to bring something fresh?
Is there something that, you
know, no one's said before?
And I'm just gonna say right off that, no,
there's not from reading the commentaries.
So what I want to do instead is to do a
close reading of the text, which means
kind of going through line by line,
and focus on how it would have been
understood and received by listeners
at the time that Jesus told it.
Who was he saying it to
right in front of him?
How would the Jewish listeners
at the time, um, understand
or receive this story?
And the other reason this story is prickly
for me, uh, is because it ends with
Jesus telling us to go and do something.
Um, a lot of parables that Jesus tells are
kind of ambiguous, like how to interpret
it, how to apply it to your life.
Uh, but this one is pretty clear.
He ends it with a lesson.
He ends it by saying,
"Go and do likewise."
So there's a command at the end.
So, um, that's also a little prickly for
me, is how do we, what do we do with that?
How do we apply that?
What does that mean?
So I'm gonna go through this story, uh,
again, kind of line by line to better
understand what he's telling us and
then trust that the Spirit is going
to work on our heart, in our hearts
on how that applies to our life today.
So it starts at, um, the top.
If you want to read through
it, you can, or you can read
through here, uh, on the screen.
Uh, you can read on your
Bible or on the screen.
It says, "On one occasion, an expert
in the law stood up to test Jesus.
'Teacher,' he asked, 'what must
I do to inherit eternal life?'"
So right off the top, um, teacher,
uh, of the law, expert of the law is
different than lawyer at our time.
He is a expert of the law of God, the
Torah, the Old Testament, the laws
that God gave, um, Jewish people.
So he's asking Jesus
kind of an odd question.
He says, how does he inherit eternal life?
The word inherit was used in every
translation that I looked at,
but it's a strange word to use.
It would make more sense to say, how do I
earn eternal life, or what are the things
that I need to do to gain eternal life?
But he uses the word inherit.
Um, but you don't really do
something to inherit, right?
Inherit is something that
someone gives to you.
You inherit from someone, or if
you're a family member, when someone
passes down something to you.
You get an inheritance.
So it's kind of a strange
way of wording the question.
And Jesus replies to him
with another question.
He says, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
Knowing he's talking to
an expert in the law.
So the expert 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."
So these are two separate
commandments that come from the
Old Testament, from Leviticus.
They're called the two love commands,
and they're the heart of Jewish belief.
They come from different parts, but they
were traditionally linked like this.
Love your God, love your neighbor.
Sort of you could rattle
them off together.
So this was an easy question for this
expert of the law, and it's kind of
the token answer at this time for
how do you live a righteous life?
Love God, love people.
Love your neighbor.
"You have answered correctly," Jesus said.
"Do this and you will live."
But the, uh, expert doesn't stop there.
It says that he wanted to
justify himself, so he asked
Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
We know from the first sentence that
the law expert is here to test Jesus.
That is his intention.
But his first question about, um,
eternal life isn't an unusual question.
A lot of people asked Jesus
versions of that question.
Eternal life, how do you
gain righteousness, what
are the commandments of God?
Um, but this follow-up
question, "Who is my neighbor?"
Which it says he asked to justify
himself, this is more clearly a test
or a trap for Jesus specifically.
So why does he ask him
that, "Who is my neighbor?"
A neighbor, uh, at this time in Israel
would be a member of the Jewish community.
So that excludes, uh, anyone who's an
irredeemable sinner, someone who is
unclean, or someone who is an outsider or
a foreigner, not part of the Jewish faith.
And the expert's asking Jesus this
knowing that Jesus spent time with
sinners, he touched and healed people
who were considered unclean, and
he taught both Jews and Gentiles.
So this may be sort of the trap
that the expert is setting.
He's kind of setting Jesus up for
how are you gonna answer this,
knowing your history and knowing how
you've been interacting with people.
And it's a big question.
Who is my neighbor?
And instead of answering him, instead
of answering the expert with the
list of people who don't qualify,
like all the ones we just mentioned,
unclean, foreigners, sinners, Jesus
responds by telling him a story.
So Jesus, uh ⦠the story goes like this:
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, excuse
me, leaving him half dead.
It's good to remember Jerusalem
is the home of the temple of God.
It's an important place.
And the road from Jerusalem to Jericho
was, uh, known to be very rough.
The landscape even was rocky and barren.
There wasn't a lot of, uh,
businesses there, so it was kind
of empty, which left it vulnerable
for a lot of crime and robbery.
And, um, the, the road was kind of
the main road to get to Jerusalem, so
it's an important road, and priests
especially had to take it a lot because
priests annually had to visit the temple.
So seeing a priest on this road
is not unusual or unexpected.
It's an important detail that
Jesus mentions here that the
robbers stripped the man of his
clothes, because clothes were what
identified people and their status.
Excuse me.
So we get no description of this man
from Jesus, unlike the other characters.
He's just described as a
man, the man who was beaten.
And because the man has no clothing,
the other characters who come later
can't identify him either, so they
can't know if he's important, if he's
rich, if he's poor, if he's a foreigner.
They can know nothing about him.
Scholars assume that because there's
no description, he was likely
just sort of an average Israelite.
That's kind of the default assumption,
um, but we don't know that for sure.
That's just kind of what we're basing
it off of based on other stories
at this time in Jewish history.
So the next part of the story Jesus says
is that a priest happened to be going
down the same road, and when he saw the
man, he passed by on the other side.
So a note about priests.
Priests were the highest
position in religious society.
It doesn't mean that they were
wealthy necessarily, some were,
some were not, but they were very
respected and very influential.
They know the law thoroughly.
And the law expert hearing this, when
he hears the situation this priest
is in, there are a few, a few laws
that would come to mind that kind
of apply to this priest's situation
coming upon this injured man.
Um, the first is that as a priest,
they're not allowed to touch a
dead body or even get close to one.
If they did, it would lead to a
long purification process before
they could enter the temple.
Um, so in general, they're
not supposed to do that.
However, they also know that there is
a higher law that's above that law that
says if they come across a dead body and
no family member claims it, it's their
responsibility to take ownership of it, to
bury it, to give it, um, a proper burial.
But there's an even higher law than those
two that, uh, overrides all the other
laws, that it is their role to intervene
when someone's life is in danger.
So this law goes all the way back to the
beginning of Genesis, the Imago Dei that
says that we are created in the image of
God, and every life is precious to God.
This protection of a life overrides
all other laws for the priest related
to purification or Sabbath practices.
This overrides all the other ones.
So Jesus is talking ⦠Oh, thank you.
Jesus is talking to an expert of the law,
and he knows the expert knows these laws.
He knows that these things are
playing through his mind as
he's telling him this story.
So the big question for the priest
is, did the priest pass by on the
other side to avoid being near to
a dead body but then break the law
about needing to bury the body?
Or does he see and recognize
that the man is half dead but
still chooses not to help him?
So whatever the priest reasons, the
Levite who comes next will make the
same choice, which is interesting
and something to just note.
So next Jesus says, "So, too, a Levite,
when he came to the place and saw
him, passed by on the other side."
Levites were from the tribe of Levi, and
their role was to maintain the temple.
So they, uh, weren't as high in ranks
as the priests, but they were close,
kind of like assistant priests.
Also had influence, and they were also
experts in the law, and I've read a lot
that said they were probably similar,
uh, in line to the, to the person asking
Jesus these questions, like a law expert.
They were sort of in
that same, um, status.
So the Levite makes the same
choice as the priest, to pass
by without helping the man.
Even though the priest and the Levite
both knew the laws, the laws said they
had a responsibility to intervene and
help him, but they both chose not to.
So, um, sort of similar, similar,
similar characters, similar actions.
And there's one more character in the
story, but before we get to him, I
want to pause and just talk a little
bit about storytelling in general.
So in storytelling, whether that's in
comedy or literature or even in jokes,
uh, there's something called the rule of
three, and the idea of the rule of three
is that you have to have at least three
things to form a pattern, and that can
be three characters or three actions.
So that could be, think of
all the stories that have the
three fill-in-the-blank, right?
Or if someone's trying to break
a curse, they get three tries.
So there are a lot of stories
that have the rule of three.
If you think about the three little
pigs, three pigs, three same characters.
The first one builds a house
of straw, a wolf blows it down.
The second builds a house out of
sticks, the wolf blows it down.
The third builds a house out of
bricks, the wolf can't blow it down.
Same characters, same action,
same action, different action,
so there's a pattern there.
So Jewish listeners, when they are hearing
Jesus tell this story, what they would
expect to hear is a priest, a Levite,
and a regular Israelite Jew, based on
their traditional stories and texts.
That would be the hierarchy
that would make sense to them.
The highest in righteousness, priest;
Levite; Israelite, the lowest in
righteousness, but they're still
connected by their beliefs and community.
There's a ⦠It makes sense, right?
There's a pattern there that
makes sense, highest to lowest.
Similarly, for a more modern story,
Goldilocks and the three bears wouldn't
make sense if you said there was a papa
bear, a mama bear, and a buffalo, right?
Would not make sense.
Baby bear makes sense because there's
a hierarchy, biggest to smallest.
You've created a pattern.
So Jesus makes a very unexpected choice
when he says, "But a Samaritan, as he
traveled, came to where the man was, and
when he saw him, he took pity on him."
You can imagine, but a Samaritan,
you can just imagine sort of a gasp.
What is he doing?
In storytelling, since the priest and
Levite, again, were similar in class
and similar in their response to the
man, you would expect another similar
person to make a different choice.
That would be the pattern
that would make sense.
Um, usually that's how the
thr- the rule of three works.
One element, just one element in the
story is gonna break the pattern.
But Jesus throws this curveball where
it's a distinctly different character
and a different choice, which feels
like he's drawing our attention to
both parts of the story, not just the
action, what he does, but who does it.
Both of these are kind of
shockingly different and unexpected.
So a little bit about
Samaritans at this time.
Samaritans and Jews didn't
get along, which is, you know,
kind of an understatement.
There were centuries of hostility,
and some of that hostility is based
on disagreements in how they interpret
the Torah, the Old Testament teachings.
Samaritans didn't believe that
the temple should be in Jerusalem.
They built a different
temple at another location.
Um, this, as well as other
things, led to a major rift
between Samaritans and Israelites.
There are also differences
ethnically and racially, and because
of those differences, Jews were
not allowed to marry Samaritans.
Samaritans were considered in every
way heretics and foreigners, and
they were discriminated against
within Israel, but they were allowed
to conduct some business there and
travel through like this one is doing.
So we know, um, from the chapter before,
this is in Luke 9, we know that this rift
is still very much present, and it goes
both ways because we see in Luke 9 that
Jesus is planning to travel through a city
in Samaria, but before he can do that,
the Samaritans in that city reject him.
They won't let him come through
because he's headed to Jerusalem.
So we know that history is very
present and very personal for the
people in Israel and even for Jesus.
So this particular Samaritan is
traveling in the story probably
on business is what we assume,
probably going home from Jerusalem.
When you compare the wording between
these three characters, the priest, the
Levite, and the Samaritan, we see that the
priest is described as being on the road.
The Levite was in the place where
the man was in the vicinity, and the
Samaritan goes directly to the man.
We see this kind of closing in, uh,
on the man in the words of the story.
So again, Jesus is highlighting how
distinctly the Samaritan is breaking the
pattern of the story in every way Jesus
says next, "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 ex- expense you may have.'"
I really like that this description of
what he does shows both this extreme
generosity but also his practicality.
He immediately treats his wounds, he
transfers him to the inn, he stays the
night to care for him, and then he pays
for his room and board until he recovers.
And, um, just as a note, two denarii pays
for about two weeks of room and board
at an inn, so this is very generous.
He also tells the innkeeper that he
will return and reimburse him for any
unpaid expense, and this isn't just, um,
honorable to the innkeeper, it's an added
protection over the injured man because
if money was owed to the innkeeper past
a certain period of time, the innkeeper
would be in his rights to sell the
injured man into slavery to pay the debt.
So the Samaritan leaves the next day,
but there is insurance that the man
will get the care he needs and he'll
be protected even after he's left.
So I mentioned earlier that the
Samaritan breaks the story pattern,
but that's really an understatement
for what Jesus is doing here.
When the Samaritan comes in, um, it
just smashes the pattern altogether.
So look at the imbalance of
the descriptions in the story.
I'm gonna read it through just quickly
from the priest to the Samaritan.
I want you to, like, listen to how
the pacing in the story changes,
even in this English translation.
So first, a priest happened to be going
down the same road, and when he saw
the man he passed by on the other side.
Two, so too a Levite, when he
came to the place and saw him,
passed by on the other side.
Three, but a Samaritan, as he
traveled, came where the man was,
and when he saw him he took pity on
him He went to him and bandaged his
wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
Then he put the man on his 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."
The description of the priest and
Levite are very sparse, right?
Just one sentence each.
The Samaritan enters the story, and we get
all of these details, almost unnecessary
details, of what he does, and when he
sees the man, what he does immediately,
the medical treatment he provides, which
kind of sounds like, um, salad dressing
to me, um, how he even gets to the inn.
And then we get this, like, added
epilogue of the next day, him paying
the bill and talking to the innkeeper.
We get this really long
description of what he does.
So again, we're meant to take
notice of this Samaritan and
the depths of his actions.
So that is the end of Jesus' story, but
it's not the end of his conversation
with the law expert, who has to realize
at this point that it can't be a
coincidence that two of the three main
characters were also experts of the law
like him, and Jesus is making a specific
point with these storytelling choices.
He has to be kind of thinking,
"I see what you're doing here."
So Jesus then asks the law expert,
"Which of these three do you think
was a neighbor to the man who
fell into the hands of robbers?"
So instead of the original question
the expert asked, "Who is my neighbor?"
Jesus rewords it and asks it back
to the expert, "Which of these three
was a neighbor to the man in need?"
And the expert in the law replied,
"The one who had mercy on him."
He doesn't or possibly can't bring
himself to say the Samaritan, but
he does say the one who had mercy.
I, I think in this moment he understands
exactly what Jesus is saying.
He understand the point he making.
He understands what he's
drawing his attention to.
So it's interesting who Jesus chooses
for the characters of the story.
The priest and the Levite, who are
similar, both come, uh, from the temple.
We can expect that they're coming
from the temple from Jerusalem.
Their identity is rooted in
keeping the laws and commands of
God, but both choose not to act.
The Samaritan, by contrast,
is not coming from the temple.
His temple is not in Jerusalem.
He is considered a heretic who
incorrectly interprets God's laws.
He is an outsider.
He is hated in this country.
He has the most to lose from stopping
to help this man in this unsafe part
of Israel, but he stops and helps him.
So when the law expert asks
Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"
what he's really asking is, "Who do I
not have to love according to the law?"
He, like the priest and the Levite
in the story, are so fixated on their
human interpretations of the law that
they don't understand the heart of
God's command, love your neighbor.
They don't understand the heart of God.
Jesus answers the expert by removing
any of those lines altogether.
He chose a Samaritan for the story,
not just to shock the expert, but
to make another point, that there
is no one who is not your neighbor.
You are even called to love your enemies,
the most unlovable people you can imagine.
Jesus is answering his original
question of who is my neighbor,
but also bonus, he's defining what
loving your neighbor looks like.
Your neighbor is not defined
with boundaries or differences.
Your neighbor is the person in front of
you who needs help, who needs mercy The
last thing that Jesus says is, "Go and
do likewise," that he says to the expert.
Um, as I said earlier, this
is a story with a clear lesson
for the law expert and for us.
Jesus tells the story, and doesn't say,
"The end," he says, "Go and do likewise."
He gives a command at the
end, a call to action.
And I would personally prefer to end
this by talking about how we just need
to be like the Samaritan, how we just
need to be kinder, uh, in general.
But Jesus is clearly telling
us that in the face of
suffering, we are called to act.
We're called to act on behalf of people
who are suffering in our community,
who are different, who have been
abandoned by the systems and authorities
that are supposed to protect them.
So what do we do with that today
as we apply or interpret that, uh,
this lesson in our lives today?
And, um, I can't tell you that.
Obviously, that's the Spirit
working in your heart.
But I do want to acknowledge that we are
all in different seasons, and we have
different stories and responsibilities.
Some of the people here I know are
actively serving people in need, and
volunteering or caring for someone
in your family or in your community.
This summer, our church served
with refugees and asylum
seekers and at the food bank.
And, um, I, I just want to acknowledge
a- as well that there are families
living in Fort Worth right now.
Um, I work with refugees, and
they live three exits from off
of I-35 from where our church is.
They are living in Fort Worth,
and they are desperate, and they
are in very hopeless situations.
And whether they are in our path
or not, they are our neighbors.
They are our Fort Worth neighbors.
They are our, our family here.
So and if the idea of serving someone
new right now sounds impossible and
exhausting, I really understand that.
If you feel overwhelmed by reading "go
and do likewise" and what that's supposed
to mean for you, I get that, too.
And when I feel overwhelmed by
this, which is I regularly do, I
remember just a couple of things.
First, that we have the Holy Spirit
dwelling inside of us, guiding us.
When we feel the Spirit-led push towards
someone, we're not stepping in that alone.
It's not just in our own, uh,
effort, it's our own strength.
We're also part of this community,
and my prayer for us when I've been
thinking about this teaching for us
individually and as a church, is that
we open our eyes wider, that as a
church we're not afraid to face the
inconvenience of caring for others because
it is hard, and it is inconvenient.
Um, I've been praying that God will
use our gifts and our time and our
resources to love our neighbors well.
The Good Samaritan story is a clear lesson
in loving our neighbor, but the Good
Samaritan is a fictional character, right?
He's not real.
This isn't a story about a real person.
This is a parable.
The story is good, but
the storyteller is better.
When you look and read through that
long descri- description of how the
Samaritan cares for the man, from
taking him to the inn all the way
through protecting him even after he
leaves, it's just this tiny picture of
what our relationship with Jesus is.
I mentioned before that Jesus
was rejected by the Samaritans
just the chapter before this.
The Samaritans chose to be his
enemy, but he chooses to honor them.
He chooses to make them
the hero of this parable.
Jesus came to reclaim the story as
God originally intended it to be.
God made us in his image.
We today are his precious children, but
we are not able to follow every law.
We cannot earn our righteousness.
We are in need of a savior, and when
we are hopeless and suffering, he
lavishes his love and mercy on us.
He is ridiculously generous in his
attention to us, even when we fail him.
There's always this, this unbalance, just
This imbalance, just
like in, um, the story.
He stoops to help us in each of
our small and big needs every day.
We did nothing and can never
do enough to earn his grace.
Jesus is so good to us.