You know, sometimes it’s hard to hear something not because it’s new to you but because it’s old.  You have a hard time hearing what’s being said because you’ve heard it almost too often; you’re almost too familiar with it.  Like a child hearing a bedtime story for the umpteenth time, you know so well how things are supposed to go that you really can’t hear the story in any kind of new or fresh way.  It’s like proofreading your own work – I’ve run into this again and again – you know what you’ve written is supposed to say and so that’s what it ends up saying, not on paper but in your mind.  You can’t see your own mistakes because somehow, in your mind, the mistakes get corrected.  Sometimes it’s hard to hear something not because it’s new but because it’s old.

           I think that the biblical story of the Good Samaritan is like that; we think that we know what it means and so we don’t think about it at all very much anymore.  We’ve heard it so often from our Sunday School years to preachers preaching on it every so often to even using those words – Good Samaritan – to describe just about anything nice that one person might do for another person that the story almost fails to register with us anymore.  I mean, the words Good Samaritan are almost synonymous with doing a good deed or helping somebody out.  There are actually Good Samaritan laws protecting those who stop to offer assistance to somebody in need.  There used to be – I don’t know, maybe there still is – a Good Sam camping club, I guess you could call it, a society of people who stay at various Good Samaritan campgrounds and, I don’t know, I guess, are nice to each other.  There are Good Samaritan hospitals scattered around the country.  In our own area, there is The Good Samaritan Society, a Good Samaritan Nursing Home down in Maplewood close to where I used to live and, down in Edina, a Good Samaritan United Methodist Church.  One of my favorite old movies is Good Neighbor Sam starring Jack Lemmon.  Anytime, anywhere, anyone tries to do something nice for somebody else, that person or that institution is described as a Good Samaritan.  We’ve heard those words so often, you know, that they almost fail to register anymore.  We think that we know what it’s all about and so we don’t think about it at all anymore.

           Friends, there’s a lot in this story – the story of the Good Samaritan – a lot more than just one person being a nice guy, and we need to hear it in a new and fresh way.  I want to introduce you this morning, if you haven’t already become acquainted with him, to Clarence Jordan, a Christian scholar and a master storyteller.  You know, he gave people the impression that he was just a good old boy from down south who could spin yarns, tell stories.  He spoke and he wrote in a very folksy and unpretentious way that made it seem like he was a man of, well, just average intelligence at best.  He’s dead now but, fact is, he held a B.S. degree in agriculture, a Th.M. (a Masters of Theology) and a Ph.D. in New Testament Greek.  But he was perhaps most famous as the founder of Koinonia Farm, a pioneering interracial farming community in Americus, Georgia just a couple of miles down the road from Plains, Georgia where, you may remember, President Jimmy Carter is from.  Clarence Jordan, in fact, was the uncle of Hamilton Jordan, one of the key people in the Jimmy Carter presidency.  But Dr. Jordan is also famous for his books and then the plays based on his books called The Cotton Patch Gospels.  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them before but they are a kind of a “down home” version of the gospels that tells the story of Jesus in a new and fresh way, a way that those of us who have heard it again and again can perhaps hear it say something new to us.  Jordan intentionally uses local southern geography and language to “get through” to people to have heard the story so often that they can’t hear it anymore.  But remember now, he’s a scholar in Greek and everything that he says is true to the original intent of scripture.  I want you to hear the story of the Good Samaritan according to Clarence Jordan as he tells it in The Cotton Patch Version of Luke and Acts.  Listen.

One day a teacher of an adult Bible class got up and tested [Jesus] with this question:  “Doctor, what does one do to be saved?” 

Jesus replied, “What does the Bible say?  How do you interpret it?”

The teacher answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your physical strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

“That is correct,” answered Jesus.  “Make a habit of this and you’ll be saved.”

But the Sunday school teacher, trying to save face, asked, “But…er…but…just who is my neighbor?”

Then Jesus laid into him and said, “A man was going from Atlanta to Albany and some gangsters held him up.  When they had robbed him of his wallet and brand-new suit, they beat him up and drove off in his car, leaving him unconscious on the shoulder of the highway.

“Now it just so happened that a white preacher was going down that same highway.  When he saw the fellow, he stepped on the gas and went scooting by.”

Jordan has a footnote at that point.  His footnote says that

[the preacher’s] homiletical mind probably made the following outline:  1. I do not know this man.  2.  I do not wish to get involved in any court proceedings.  3.  I don’t want to get blood on my new upholstering.  4. The man’s lack of proper clothing would embarrass me upon my arrival in town.  5.  And finally, brethren, a minister must never be late for worship services.

Jordan then continues the story. 

“Shortly afterwards,” said Jesus, “a white Gospel song leader came down the road, and when he saw what had happened, he too stepped on the gas.”

Jordan has another footnote at this point.

What his thoughts were we’ll never know, but as he whizzed past, he may have been whistling, “Brighten the corner, where you are.”

Jordan continues the story.

“Then,” said Jesus, “a black man traveling that way came upon the fellow, and what he saw moved him to tears.  He stopped and bound up his wounds as best he could, drew some water from his water-jug to wipe away the blood and then laid him on the back seat.”

One more footnote. 

All the while, says Jordan, his thoughts may have been along this line:  “Somebody’s robbed you; yeah, I know about that, I been robbed, too.  And they done beat you up bad; I know, I been beat up, too.  And everybody just go right on by and leave you laying here hurting.  Yeah, I know.  They pass me by, too.”

Jordan then finishes the story. 

“[So the black man, said Jesus, then] drove on into Albany and took him to the hospital and said to the nurse, ‘You all take good care of this white man I found on the highway.  Here’s the only two dollars I got, but you all keep account of what he owes, and if he can’t pay it, I’ll settle up with you when I make a pay-day.’ 

“Now” [said Jesus to the teacher of the adult Bible class] “if you had been the man held up by the gangsters, which of these three – the white preacher, the white song leader, or the black man – would you consider to have been your neighbor?”

The teacher of the adult Bible class said, “Why, of course, the nig – I mean, er…well, er…the one who treated me kindly.”

Jesus said, “Well, then, you get going and start living like that!”

Friends, the bottom line of what I want to suggest to you this morning is that one of the ways – one of the best ways – that we can share Christ with the world is by serving those who are in need.  As the Christian missionary from Sri Lanka, D. T. Niles, used to say – I’ve quoted him before – “The gospel comes to a hungry person sometimes in the form of bread.”  In other words, the people of this world who have been beat up and left for dead, beat up and forgotten, those who have found themselves on the fringes of society because of their race or their gender or their age or their religion or their language or their customs or their appearance or their past or their disabilities or any one of a variety of other factors – those people may never be able to even see Jesus Christ unless somebody is first there to bind up their wounds.  And I want to go a step further than that this morning.  I don’t know, this may seem a little radical to you, but I would suggest that the primary reason that we are to serve those who are in need is so that, if they don’t know Jesus Christ already, they may through those actions of love and service come to see Him face to face.  In other words, we have a higher purpose, you and I, than just to help people out in their difficult circumstances.  Nothing wrong with that.  In fact, there’s something very, very good about that.  We should do what we can to help people out in difficult circumstances.  But let me tell you something.  The Red Cross is there to help people out in difficult circumstances.  CARE is there to help people out in difficult circumstances.  The United Way is there to help people out in difficult circumstances.  A thousand excellent organizations are there to help people out in their difficult circumstances.  And I say, “Thank God for the Red Cross and thank God for CARE and that God for The United Way and thank God for every one of those excellent organizations.”  Those are all good and worthy charitable organizations.  But, friends, our job, our primary mission in life as Christians, is to share Jesus Christ so that all people might come to know Him and to confess their faith in Him and, in so doing, receive the gift of eternal life.  Our job is to make disciples and sometimes we need to do that by serving others so that, when they see us serving them, they will really see Christ in us serving them.  One of the best ways that we can share Christ with the world is by serving those who are in need.

It seems to me that a person serves Christ and makes disciples by doing at least six things.  You can follow along on the screen this morning if you would find that helpful.

First, a person serves Christ and makes disciples by being willing, ready and able to put truth into action.  Listen, friends.  The Christian faith is not just for the head.  It’s for the heart and for the hands and for the feet, too.  If your faith is all up here, something you believe but not something that in any way controls your feelings or your actions, then your faith needs to take a little journey.  It needs to travel the eighteen inches from your head to your heart so that what you think affects how you feel.  And then it needs to travel to your extremities – toward your hands and toward your feet – so that what you feel influences what you do and where you go.  Luke tells us about a man who was “an expert in the law.”  In other words, he knew what to do.  But that didn’t necessarily move him to do what he knew that he should do.  When Jesus asked him about how he understood the Law, the expert had the right answer.  “You have answered correctly,” said Jesus.  Now, “do this and you will live.”  How many of us know what to do up here but don’t let what we know affect how we feel and how we feel affect what we do?  The person who shares Christ with the world is willing and ready and able to put truth into action.

           Second – and this goes back to last Sunday a little bit – the person who would share Christ with the world needs to take some risks.  The problem in this story, in the way that Clarence Jordan tells it, is that the white preacher and the white Gospel song leader weren’t willing to risk themselves or their reputations in order to help somebody who needed help.  They were respected men – respected for their position in society – but they weren’t willing to set aside that respect so that they could offer some much-needed assistance to somebody.  I wonder if maybe they thought that they were a little too respected to get themselves dirty or bloody.  You see, they were willing to serve in general, in principle, but not in specific.  I’ll be honest with you.  I don’t like this part of the story because it’s the professional religionists – the priest and the Levite, the white preacher and the white Gospel song leader – who are too busy to stop and help somebody who has been injured and who’s been left on the side of the road.  I confess to you that it’s very easy for me to lock myself up in my study and to tell myself how good I am and how important I must be to speak for God week after week after week but then not be around when somebody is struggling or suffering.  I rejoice when I know that there are people within this congregation who, without the title and without the position that I have, are willing to bend down and bind up the wounds of those who are struggling or suffering but I need to do more of that myself.  You see, here’s the deal.  Knowing that there are other people who do good things doesn’t leave you off the hook for doing good things yourself.  You know who Samaritans were; they were outcasts.  They were the ones you wanted to avoid.  They weren’t the ones that you expected back then to come to your assistance.  And yet, as Jesus tells the story, it’s the Samaritan – the less educated, the less esteemed, the less accepted, the lesser titled, the least expected – who stopped to help the injured man that day.  He was willing to take the risk.  A person who serves Christ needs to take some risks.

           Third, a person who shares Christ is compassionate and takes pity on others.  Luke quotes Jesus, saying, “And when he [the Samaritan] saw him, he took pity on him.”  Tell me, when was the last time, instead of judging somebody because of that person’s appearance or that person’s behavior, you just truly cared about that person, when you didn’t get angry at that person or judgmental toward that person but you just had pity on that person?  When did you last not criticize somebody for the way they looked or for the things that they did and, instead, you simply were compassionate; you took pity?  You know, I don’t think that Jesus ever wanted us to be unconcerned with right and wrong or that He ever wanted us to just look the other way in the face of evil.  But I do think that He also never, ever wanted us to stop caring about people no matter who they were or what they did.  Listen.  I’m one of those people who happens to believe that most of the behaviors that lead to a person getting AIDS – having sex with somebody, anybody, other than your husband or your wife or putting illegal drugs into your system with needles – is wrong, always wrong, dead wrong.  But not having compassion upon those who end up getting AIDS and doing what we can do as a society to care for them is just as wrong.  Listen.  If our sense of right and wrong ever gets in the way of acknowledging that somebody else, too, is a child of God, somebody for whom Jesus also died and rose again, somebody who was created to be one of our brothers or sisters, then friends we have it all mixed up.  Nothing should ever get in the way of our caring about others.  A person who shares Christ is compassionate and takes pity on others, period.

           Fourth, the person who shares Christ is never too busy.  Listen.  If you’re too busy making a living to help a brother or a sister in need, then you, friend, are just plain too busy.  If you’re too busy enjoying your well-deserved and well-earned retirement to stop and help somebody else, then you, friend, are just plain too busy.  If you’re still in school and too busy to put down your books once in a while to reach down and to offer to take care of somebody else, then you, friend, are just plain too busy.  If you’re too busy attending church meetings that deal with how we can be a better and a more faithful church and then you can’t find time to stop along the way and offer some assistance to those who are wounded along life’s highway, then you, friend, are just plain way too busy.  If I’m too busy preparing sermons about how you can and should love God or too busy working on a Bible study that I’m going to lead after the worship service and I can’t take the time to cross the street to where a brother or a sister has fallen, then I am just plain too busy.  Those interruptions in life – listen – those things that happen in life are not distractions from our purpose in life, but opportunities to fulfill our purpose in life.  The person who shares Christ is never too busy.

           Fifth, the person who shares Christ is willing to give attention, time and money.  Friends, this is where the rubber hits the road.  This is brass tacks Christianity.  If you’re not willing to give your attention, your time and your money, then you are just not willing to give yourself.  Fact is, there is no way to really share Christ, no way to really care about others, without giving your attention, your time and your money.  I happen to believe, by the way, that that’s not a multiple choice question, that you get to choose A or B or C.  The right answer is “all of the above.”  To the extent that God has blessed you, you give out of all of those blessings.  Listen.  The way Jesus tells this story, the Good Samaritan put himself on the line.  He took at least a day out of his busy schedule – we’re all busy, you know; he was on his way someplace – and he stayed at the side of the injured man.  He spent the night with the man at the inn at his own expense.  Then, he gave the innkeeper “two silver coins.”  The coins he gave the innkeeper were Greek denarii.  A denarius was equal to a day’s wage for most people, probably more than a day’s wage to an outcast like the Samaritan.  He committed himself, the Samaritan, who knows, maybe to several days wages worth of caring for the man who was injured.  He didn’t throw a buck or two toward somebody to assuage his conscience; he spent a lot of money in order to restore somebody to health.  Let me say it bluntly, friends.  Following Christ is not cheap.  Grace is free but following Christ is going to cost you.  It’s going to cost you in terms of your efforts and your time and your money.  The person who shares Christ is willing to give attention and time and money.

           And then finally, sixth, the person who shares Christ truly loves Christ by loving and caring for others.  You can’t get off the hook by just loving Jesus in general.  Jesus demands, as the hymn puts it, “my soul, my life, my all.”  If somehow you think that you can love Jesus, that you can be a devout and caring follower of Christ, without loving those whom Christ loved and caring for those for whom He cared and even, if the situation demands it, putting your life on the line for those for whom He put His own life on the line, then somewhere along the line you have misunderstood what this thing called Christianity is all about.  When you say that you love Jesus Christ and are willing to give your life to Him, you are literally signing your life away.  You are saying that your primary and only real purpose in life is to exist for the sake of God and for the sake of God’s people.  Neighbors are not those who live next door.  Neighbors are those who have mercy on each other.  The person who shares Christ truly loves Christ by loving and caring for others.

           I read a while ago about a missionary who had the opportunity to spend a few days with Mother Teresa in India.  What impressed this missionary most was the extent to which Mother Teresa and her sisters cared for others.  Together, they found a man dying in a street in Calcutta.  They helped him as best they could on the street and then picked him up and brought him to their hospital where he was bathed and put into a clean bed.  They were too late, though, and the missionary and Mother Teresa both knew it.  They knew that the man wouldn’t live but they were rewarded by what he said.  “I’ve lived in the streets of Calcutta like an animal,” he said, “but,” he said, looking around at his clean room and his clean bed, “I’m going to die here like an angel.”  Mother Teresa then quoted the words of another Teresa, St. Teresa of Avila, with words that she chose to live her life by:  “Christ has no body on earth now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which to look out at Christ’s compassion to the world.  Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.” 

           Friends, if you are going to share Christ, you need to go and you need to serve.  You think about that this week.  Amen!