Sam's Club

Dear friends in Christ, grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I’d like to ask you to imagine this scene; it’s three o’clock in the morning. You’ve been driving all night from your cabin in northern Minnesota, to your home in southern Minnesota, and you spot something red on the side of the road. It could be a person; maybe not, but could be. And yet, you’re tired and crabby. Do you stop? Or do you push forward to the cozy bed that awaits you at home? This isn’t a fictional scenario, in fact, you probably read about it. This past Tuesday at 3:00 in morning, a Minnesota couple stopped and discovered that the "something red" they spotted on the side of the road was a three year old boy, wearing only a red T-shirt and nothing else. While the husband called 9-1-1, the wife scooped up the little boy and brought him back to the car where he quickly fell asleep in her arms. Apparently, the little tyke got up in the night, reached the garage door opener, and wandered nearly a mile from home in the darkness. This story has a happy ending: the parents will soon get their child back, the heroic couple feels great about their willingness to stop to help, and the little boy...well, the little boy is alive.

But the one question I don’t hear anybody asking in this story is this: what if the couple who stopped was Muslim? Or what if the car held skinheads? Or what if the coupe was drunk, or gay, or Packer fans? The point being…the point being, when you are desperate, it matters not the social strata of the one who helps you; what matters is that they help you.
In the bible, Jesus tells 30 parables; at least that’s how many are recorded. Two of them are familiar to almost everyone…the Parable of the Prodigal Son…and the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Ironically, both of these parables include a person with a desperate need. In the case of the Prodigal Son, the son is starving and no one would give him anything to eat. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a man is beaten and robbed, and no one would give him care. The Prodigal went to the person most likely to care for him; his father. In the parable of the man beaten and robbed, all the likely people passed him by, and it was the least likely person who saved his life.

I have told you before about the German theologian, Helmut Thielicke, who suggests that we cannot understand the parables Jesus told until we have recognized ourselves in them. That’s why during the season of Lent in 2009, as we focused on the Parable of the Progidal Son, we portrayed the characters on stage. You saw yourselves as the younger son, or the older brother, or the waiting father. And once you recognized yourself, you came to a deep understanding of what Jesus was saying in the story that he told.

Likewise in this parable today we are asked to do the same. In which character do you see yourself? Are you the Levite; are you the proud, pompous religious one who wears his righteousness on his sleeve, but lacks compassion? The one for whom rules are more important than people? Or perhaps you are the priest; the more humble religious person, who serves in the temple by doing the grunt work, washing windows, pruning the shrubs, cleaning up messes, but wears blinders when it comes to seeing the needs of people. Or maybe you’re the Samaritan; the outsider, the minority, who was disdained by the religious people of the day, and yet, was the only one willing to help a stranger in need. And he did more than just help; he went the second mile, paying for the stranger’s care, and following up on the man at a later date. Is that you? Are you the Samaritan?

But the character we avoid identifying with in the parable is the victim; the man who was powerless, unable to help himself to safety. Nobody wants to be that guy! Nobody wants to admit, or even remember being the one who was in desperate need of help. But I am going to ask you to do just that this morning; to recall a time when you were desperate. Would you cooperate with me in this? Would you close your eyes and let me guide your memory to a time of desperatio

Was it a time when you were you in college, out of money, out of food, and out of hope?
Or perhaps it was a time before cell phones, when you had a flat tire on a freeway or in a dangerous neighborhood.
Maybe there a time when you lost your job and you were so dejected, you didn’t know which way to turn?
Were you in an abusive relationship? A relationship that was killing you but you didn’t have the courage to escape on your own.
Or was one of your children sick or injured and you were desperately afraid?
Or were you abandoned, as a child or as an adult? Left by your marriage partner, or disowned by your children, or dismissed by your friends, or ignored by the very people that were supposed to love you, and feeling very much like the victim in the parable of the Good Samaritan?

Think about it for a moment, because I want you to feel that feeling of desperation all over again. And before you open your eyes, let me ask this one last question, this one important question: who finally helped you? (Pause). You can open your eyes now.

In the parable that Jesus told, the least likely roadside assistance save the man’s life. A half-breed Samaritan, despised by Jews, was the only one who cared enough to reach out and touch the stricken man. When Jesus told the story, all the self-righteous Jews gasped! First aid from a filthy pig! As if from a skinhead, or a Muslim, or a homosexual? But when you’re dying, it doesn’t really matter, does it? And that’s why this story is called "The Good Samaritan." Because like all categorized people, there are some good Samaritans, and some bad; some good homosexuals and some bad, some good illegal immigrants and some bad, some good Democrats and some bad. But if you’re dying, it really doesn’t matter who helps you. And if you’re healthy, and you see someone who is in desperation, their pedigree doesn’t really matter. We are called to help them. That’s the message Jesus is telling us today.

Don Carlson was a friend of mine, and a long time member of this church; perhaps a friend of yours as well. Before he died, he had to spend some time in a nursing home and the only bed available at the time was at the Good Samaritan facility on Greeley St. Don called it "Sam’s Club." I loved that! Sam’s Club. I hadn’t really ever noticed the logo and the motto of Good Samaritan until just recently. The logo is a simplistic drawing of two people: one standing upright, holding a limp body in his arms. The Good Samaritan caring for a desperate person. The motto is this: "In Christ’s Love, Everyone is Someone."

If we believe that, then we are a member of Sam’s Club. And we have heard the words with which Jesus concludes his parable today: "Go and do likewise." Over all these years, the expectation has never changed. Go and do likewise. Thanks be to God. Amen.

©2010 Steven Molin