LK 10: 25-37 

Laterally Luke…Pentecost + 5…Revised 2019

If Jesus were telling this story today might He couch it in terms of us being ‘Good Samaritans’ to others along life’s way? Accepting others when they are being ‘Good Samaritans’ to us, rather than rejecting their would-be help? Accepting YHWH God as being the ‘Best Samaritan of all’ to us? Irrespective of nationality, race, religion, or anything else? Illustrating how to be Good Neighbours by loving even Unlikely People? By loving even Unlovely People? By loving even Unloveable People?

I take today’s passage & our preaching it to centre on v.33 where LK uses the word ‘Com-Passion’ - meaning ‘moved in our bowels’. It may be more confronting, still, to say ‘moved in your gut’, if we’re game to be even more confronting. As confronting as Jesus is when He deliberately sets out to confront His hearers! If He wanted to spare over-sensitive ears, He might have used ‘pity’ as some translations do. To settle for ‘pity’, though, takes out the bite Jesus has deliberately put into His yarn. I wonder if ‘pitying’ someone can become an excuse for doing nothing about their situation? 

Pity may lead to us giving ‘Vic’, one of today’s victims 50c., or even a small note, when that kind of giving does little or nothing to deal with the real issues they’re facing. So, are we going to play to the ‘sensitivities’ of our congregation? Or, instead, risk shocking them into the reality of what Jesus is on about here? What He expects of us? As He shocks His fellow Jews by comparing the responses of the ‘religious’ - in this case, professionals - hurrying by to get to church in time for the next service?

How many victims, felled by all sorts of violence - at a personal level, or on much larger scales - are lying by many kinds of ‘roadsides’ today. Are we in the habit of consciously passing them by? Of consciously not noticing them, as we hurry on to our ‘temples’ - religious or otherwise?

             

 Note, too, how ‘Sam’s so moved in his gut by ‘Vic’s plight that his Com-Passion continues to flow; going on to make arrangements for the victim’s care - & paying for it! - at the next motel they come too. To be ‘moved in our gut’ will inevitably lead to it costing us more than the occasional Band-aid!        

Churches today are reeling from snowballing claims of abuse of one kind or another. ‘Vic’ after ‘Vic’ is still coming forward. How do we feel about church leaders & members who seem keener on saving their ‘Temple’ than being Com-Passionate towards them? And, what are we doing - or going to do - about that?

Brian           

Afterthought: Com-Passion, by definition, has to come, not from our heads, nor from our pockets, but from inside us. From our gut! From my gut & yours!