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I read with you now the gospel according to Luke the 10th chapter. I begin at the verse number 25. "And behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, 'What is written in the law? How do you read?' And he answered, 'You shall love the Lord your

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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.' And Jesus said to him, 'You have answered right. Do this and you will live.' But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' Jesus replied, 'A man was going down from

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Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as

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he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care

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of him, and whatever more you spend I will repay you when I come back.' Which of these three do you think proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?' He said, 'The one who showed mercy on him.' And Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.' And may God bless this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name

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of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. We're talking about ancient roads for modern feet. We spoke first of the Damascus Road, the conversion experience, then of the Wilderness Road, how to deal with that temptation which comes into our lives as Christians, of the Gaza Road,

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how we bear witness to Jesus Christ, and tonight we talk about Christian service, what it is to be a neighbor, the Jericho Road. But we get to this road by a rather strange detour. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people who talk a lot about religion actually have very little to do with it. I learned, for

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example, on the campus that the professors who were most anxious to debate with me the matters of faith generally had very little interest in the principles of faith itself. I think they just wrestled with religion because they thought it was somehow incumbent upon them. They always reminded me of my

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grandmother. My grandmother Thielman was an ardent Republican, but she always listened to the Democrat conventions on the radio. And I asked her one year, "Why do you listen to the Democrat convention when you are Republican?" She said, "I do it just to keep my disgust fresh." Well, I think sometimes that these people talk

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about religion just in order to keep their disgust fresh. Or, in some instances, it's because they are troubled by their lack of faith. They have been somehow winged by the Holy Spirit. Something is nibbling away at the corner of their consciousness. And so they can't just leave this subject of religion alone.

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They have to keep worrying it. Now, I think that's what we see in the lawyer in this story tonight. Something about Jesus attracted him. Maybe he approached Jesus only to reconfirm his own doubts. Maybe there was a movement of the Spirit in him which compelled him to ask his question. But whatever it was, he came to

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Jesus and he said, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Now, that's a very good discussion question, isn't it? I mean, that's one of the profound questions of the ages. This last weekend I've been down at Bethany College speaking to 700 high school students. It was the annual convention of the Disciples of Christ at

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the state of Ohio. And Bethany is a Disciples College, and so they were all down there. And I was staying in one of the fraternity houses, and on the wall in the fraternity house there was a list of questions supposedly asked by one of the professors in the college. And one of the questions was, "On the desk beside you is

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a red telephone. Pick it up, start World War III, and discuss the implications." Well, there are questions which are just as big and profound as that one. And certainly one of those questions is, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answers him in a very tough manner. He says, "What is written in the law?" Now,

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mind you, he was talking to a scribe who was an expert in the law. Further, in those days, scribes wore about their wrists, or sometimes about their foreheads, little leather boxes called phylacteries. And on those phylacteries, and within them, they would carry verses of Scripture. And one of the things

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always carried was the principal religious obligation of any Jew. So what Jesus really says to this man is, "Look. Look at your own wrist. Look at your own forehead. Look what you've got hanging all over you. What does it say?" And of course the man replies, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with

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all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy body, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Now, he was made to look a bit ridiculous here, you see. He comes up with this question, and Jesus says, "You're the expert of the law, and you've got it hanging all over you. You mean you can't answer your own question?"

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And so, and the Scriptures make this clear, attempting to justify himself, not wanting to look bad in the eyes of those who were watching, this man returns the volley to Jesus with this question, "But who is my neighbor?" Now, that was a tough question. You see, Jews did not count Gentiles as neighbors. Greeks in that day

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did not count anyone but a Greek as a neighbor. In other words, the question, no matter how Jesus answered it, could create difficulties for Jesus with those who were listening. Jesus responds with this perfect parable, the parable of the Good Samaritan. And in a sense, what it is, is a philosophical triptych. Now, a triptych,

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as you know, is a painting or a work of art that is done in three sections, three panels. And what we see in this parable is a three-panel or triptychal response. Panel one shows a descending road. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho descends over 3,000 feet. It's a very narrow road. Even today, it's lined with limestone

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caves, many sharp curves. There were lots of places where robbers could hide. And they fell on this fellow, beat him up, took everything he had, and left him by the side of the road. These are the principal characters in panel number one. And their philosophy of life is this, beat them up. Now, this is still the

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philosophy of some people. There are still some people whose first and only concern is for themselves, first, last, and always. These people are committed to the concept of the survival of the fittest, but they don't really understand that. For the concept of the survival of the fittest has to do with those who are

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able to adjust to circumstances. These individuals don't seek to do that. They seek to master, to dominate, to force circumstances. You see this in every walk of life. We all know that there have been times when business, for example, has tried to master labor. We know there have been times when labor has tried to put

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it to business. We've seen nations seek to work their will on other nations. The Soviet Union does it in Afghanistan. The United States of America does it in Nicaragua. Whenever you encounter people who try to use power to gain their own will, you're looking at beat-them-up people. I think it's very interesting

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that in a nation like ours, where 80% of the people claim to be Christians, and 57% of them claim to be born again, that we still have major banks laundering money for criminal organizations, and we have billions lost by individuals who cheat on their income tax, and we have defense contractors who delight in

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ripping off their own country. And this ambiance of power and the misuse of it, this beat-em-up attitude, "get what you can, however you can get it," it's affecting our kids. I heard about a little boy who wanted a bicycle. So he knelt beside his bed one night and he prayed, "Dear Jesus, bring me a bicycle."

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Then he went to bed. He got to thinking about it, thought that wasn't enough, so he got up and he lighted two candles and he prayed again, "Dear Jesus, bring me a bicycle." And then he went to bed. And he still thought that's not enough. So he got up and under cover of darkness he went down to a nearby Roman Catholic

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Church and stole the image of Mary there. He brought it back, hid it under his bed, and then kneeling beside his bed said, "Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again, then bring me a bicycle." Well, it's sad to say that attitude of getting what you want in whatever way you can get it is very common today

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amongst even young people. We have rampant cheating in our schools, from elementary grades on up. And that's just another form of beat them up. Do whatever you have to do to get what you want. And that's the first panel in this philosophical triptych. Now the second panel shows two individuals. The first is

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a priest, and he is on his way to carry out some religious function of his, and he sees this fellow who's been hurt and he's sorry about it, but he also understands himself to be too busy to become involved, and besides the man is not really his concern, he makes up his mind that he will send a check to the

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relief organization for those wounded on the Jericho Road on Monday. And he passes by on the other side. That's an important detail in the story, on the other side. Now next there comes a Levite, even more religious than the priest, and Jesus says he studies the scene. There's no casualness here. He carefully surveys

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what has happened there, and he is smart enough to know that bandits in those days commonly laid out decoys. He thinks to himself, "If I go over there and help this fellow, they might be waiting for me on the other side of those rocks, and one must practice safety first, and anyway he's probably already dead and there's

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very little I could do." So he passes by on the other side. If the first panel is "beat them up," the second panel is "pass them up." This is those who pass by on the other side. Now you see, it's important that they pass by on the other side, because they want to be able to say that they didn't really see the problem. The

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Holy Spirit often gets hold of us through our eyes. Remember in Matthew 25 when Jesus said, "You didn't visit me when I was in prison, you did not clothe me when I was naked, you did not give me food when I was hungry." How did the people answer? They said, "Lord, when did we see you?" This is the reason you see we

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build prisons out where nobody can see them. This is the reason we don't want a halfway house erected in our neighborhood. We don't want to see it. I remember when I was in my first pastorate and was trying to get my church organized to fight the rampant crime and corruption that was common in

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that community. It was amazing to me how many people were utterly unaware of what was going on in town. Even when we had three bombings in one week, somehow they were not able to connect that. I drove to see the things. They never went near. I think the deepest hurt in the heart of any minister is that which comes from

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trying to get people to see the problem. See, if you can get them to see it, they will often be moved enough to become involved. But as long as they can say that they're not really aware of the thing, as long as they can plead ignorance as an excuse, as long as they say, "Well, I didn't really understand," then

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they feel justified. It's passing by on the other side. This is one of the reasons I admire so greatly the Salvation Army. You know, one of the greatest things that ever happened in this church was the night decades ago when Evangeline Booth, the daughter of William Booth, who founded the Salvation

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Army, preached from this pulpit. That pulpit wasn't here then, but that great lady of faith preached from this very desk. My favorite story about the Salvation Army is an incident that happened in Europe when there was an area that was undergoing considerable hunger, and they finally got some food

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shipment to the town, and they decided to divide it in terms of churches. So when it came time to distribute the food, they said, "All of the Methodists go over there, and all the Presbyterians go over there, and all the Lutherans go over there, and all of you people that nobody else wants, you come with the Salvation

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Army." The Salvation Army sees things that much of organized Christianity refuses to see, and that is the reason they are blessed of God. The first panel is of the ruthless. Beat them up. The second panel is of the religious. Pass them up. Don't see it. Now the third panel is of the righteous, and this one, of

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course, shows the Samaritan. And you know what he does. He sees the fellow in a ditch, and he doesn't see him as an object. He sees him as a person. He doesn't pigeonhole him. He doesn't identify him by his ethnic group or his economic class or his particular social need. He sees him as an individual, and he

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helps him. He does what has to be done. The philosophy of the third panel, of course, is help them up. Not beat them up or pass them up, but help them up. And he does it personally. I would be the first one to acknowledge that we must have organizations that are involved in the meeting of the needs of the society. We

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all know that. I mean, unchanneled needs will simply dissipate and become nothing but a wasteful swamp. But nothing ever happens within an organization till some individual begins to express enough of the sympathy of the spirit in his life to enable it to happen. I was very much touched when I learned the other day of

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something that has happened in Attica, New York. You know that is the large state penitentiary in New York. And many of the prisoners there come from New York City, which is quite a distance away. Attica is a small town. Now, when folks come to visit members of their family who are inmates, they have to come by bus,

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most of them, all the way from New York City. And the prison has absolutely no facilities in which they can refresh themselves. No place for them to clean up. I mean, there's a place where you meet the inmate, and then you go, and that's it. So a group of citizens who come from New York on these buses appealed to some of

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the churches in Attica to ask if they would be willing to open their door so that on the afternoons of these weekends, these people could come in and use the restrooms and perhaps take a brief nap and freshen themselves up before going to meet their loved one. The churches said no. Who knows what

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infections they might bring into the toilets? Who knows what abuse they might put about in the buildings? We don't know these people. Most of them are a different ethnic group than our own, racial group than our own. So the churches said no. But a group of citizens in Attica got together and organized a caring

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fellowship and opened their homes so that when those buses come, the Attica families go to the buses and pick them up, take them to their homes. They've become friends. It's not at all uncommon now for people who come from New York City to bring a cake that they baked just for the people that they stay with

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on the weekends. Here, you see, is something that begins with... This is the "help them up" philosophy, and of such is the kingdom of heaven. I will admit that this is hard to do, but it is what we are called to do by the one who was crucified. Well, the little philosophical debate ends when Jesus says to this

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scribe, "Now which of these three proved to be the neighbor?" And you notice how sly Jesus is here? The question which the scribe asked was this, "Who is my neighbor?" But the question that Jesus puts back to him after he's told the story is, "To whom are you to be a neighbor?" The whole frame of reference is

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reversed. Jesus does not ask for him to designate those who will be neighbors to him, but rather, "To whom will you be a neighbor?" In other words, the question is no longer philosophical. It's now eminently practical. Who proved to be the neighbor? The scribe, of course, has to answer that it is the Samaritan, thus

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confirming all that Jesus has sought to say. As I think of the Jericho Road and Jesus, I think of the cross. For when Jesus was hanging upon the cross, he was hanging at the side of the world's dark roadway. He was dying there by the side of the highway for all those who were beat up and passed up upon it. And those

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who minister in his name do so because the power of his sacrifice on the cross moves them in their hearts. You see, in the end, this is not a philosophical matter. It's a matter of discipleship. It's interesting. The person who helps them up in the Spirit of Jesus, well, this is the person that has the answer to the

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question which the scribe asked in the first place. Do you remember what his first question was? "Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And here's the answer. To inherit eternal life, you must have Christ and his cross in your heart. That's what leads you to the service of others, and that's what leads you, in the

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end, to the side of God. There is a legend that in paradise somewhere, there is a gray pool into which all the weeping of the world goes. It is fed by the tears of every eye that is wet with sorrow. And it is said that some in heaven go to that pool and stoop and touch their eyes with the liquid from that pool, those million

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million tears. They do this to heal themselves of too great joy. And it is also said that the songs that these people sing are the sweetest songs that are heard in heaven. They're the people who help others up. They bathe their eyes in gray waters, in tears, and their singing spirits is what eternal life is

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all about. Pray with me. Father, we know that as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to walk the Jericho Road. Grant that there might be enough of your Son in us and enough of your Spirit guiding us that we might never beat anybody up or pass anybody up, but sensitive to the world's tears, help others up in the name

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and Spirit of the Jesus who said that this is what it is to be a neighbor and to have eternal life. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit the Comforter, be with you both now and forevermore. Amen.

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