Thomas J Parlette
“In Sync with the Heart of God”
Luke 10: 25-37
7/10/22
First off, let me say that I have no intention of preaching about the boy band, Nsync, this morning, in case all you children of the 90’s might be waiting for a shout out to Justin Timberlake or Lance Bass. You can just say “Bye, Bye, Bye” to that notion.
But I do have a bit of a riddle for you today: What is something essential for human life that is highly contagious, and yet most of us take it for granted? The answer – Kindness. You might think, “Alright, kindness is nice and all – but is it essential for human life, and is it really contagious?” Well I think maybe “yes” – on both counts.
Consider that a student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a society. What separates an uncivilized collection of people from a true civilization? Mead could have mentioned the first sign of tools, like grinding stones or clay pots for holding food and water. She could have mentioned art, like cave paintings or carved statues. Instead, Mead said the first sign of civilization in her opinion was when an ancient skeleton was found with a healed thigh bone. Why is that a sign of civilization?
It was Mead’s estimation that in a competitive, primitive culture where people had to hunt and escape predators in order to survive each day, the fact that someone set aside their own work in order to care for another’s injury was a sign of civilization.
As Mead said, “A broken femur that is healed is evidence that someone had taken time to stay with the one who fell, had bound up the wound, had carried the person to safety and had tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.” (1)
I like that. “Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.” In other words – Kindness. That’s a great thought to hold onto as we revisit one of Jesus’ most famous stories – the story of the Good Samaritan.
Last year, the BBC teamed up with researchers from the University of Sussex in the UK to study the topic of kindness. They published an online questionnaire called The Kindness Test, and asked people all over the world to share their attitudes and experiences on the topic of kindness.
Research on kindness shows that when we experience or witness acts of kindness, we are much more likely to offer kindness to others – that’s why we could say that kindness is contagious. When we perform an act of kindness, the reward system in our brain lights up, which gives us pleasure, which causes us to look for more opportunities to be kind. A neuroscientist working on The Kindness Project said, “Kindness can cost us, yet we experience a sense of reward in parts of our brain when we are kind to others, just as we do when we eat tasty food or have a pleasant surprise. These parts of the brain become active and motivate us to do them again and again.(2)
“Kindness can cost us” – that’s a good point to consider, too, as we look at this morning’s story from Luke 10.
The story begins, “Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher’, he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the law? What do you read there?” answered Jesus.
Have you ever noticed how many times in the Bible Jesus answers a question with a question? Martin Copenhaver has written a book titled Jesus Is the Question – kind of a different take on the bumper stickers and billboards you often see that say “Jesus is the Answer.” In his book, Copenhaver shares a fascinating insight: “In the gospels,” he writes, “Jesus asks more questions than he answers. To be precise, Jesus asks 307 questions. He is asked 183 questions, of which he only answers 3.”(3)
Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, had all the answers in life, yet he asked far more questions than he answered. “Why? Maybe because an answer provides certainty, but a question promotes growth. Which was more important to Jesus? Questions that promote growth, I think. Sometimes we get frustrated or disillusioned when we read the Bible or pray or come to church and we’re not finding answers to our questions. We feel like we’re spiritual failures or that we’ve been let down somehow. We might wonder, what am doing wrong here? But notice how often Jesus, who could have easily given us all the answers, asked questions instead. Wrestling with your questions does not make you a spiritual failure and it doesn’t mean that God or the church has let you down. It may be God’s greatest tool for forming us into the people, into the church that God wants us to be.
So, let’s get back to our friend, the lawyer. He asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked a follow up – “What is written in the Law? What do you read there?”
The lawyer answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.”
Good answer. “You have given the right answer, said Jesus. Do this, and you will live.” Don’t just know the answer, do the answer.
So, the first question this story raises is, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be right with God? Would you rather have all the answers, or would you rather have a relationship with God – even if that relationship doesn’t answer all your questions?”
The story continues, “But wanting to justify himself,” the lawyer asked, “And who is my neighbor.”
Neuroscientists from the Paris Brain Institute conducted a fascinating study in which they hooked up volunteers to an electrocardiogram machine and measured their heartbeats as they listened to a story being read aloud. And they found that as volunteers listened to the story, their heartbeats synchronized with one another. Even when the volunteers were physically in separate places, their heartbeats eventually synced up with the heartbeats of the others who were listening to the same story.(4)
In this famous story, Jesus is trying to synchronize our heartbeats with the heart of God. The more you love God, the more your life will be in sync with God’s heart. What does it look like to love God with everything you’ve got, and to love your neighbor as yourself? “Well, let me tell you a story,” says Jesus.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half-dead.
Dan Dailey, writing in the New York Daily News, tells about overhearing a woman in New York discussing her neighborhood. New Yorkers often divide Manhattan based on the location of Houston Street. If you live south of Houston Street, you live in SoHo; if you live north of Houston Street, you live in NoHo. But this woman lived in a troublesome neighborhood somewhere in between that she referred to as Uh-Oh.(5)
Jesus’ listeners would have understood that the road between Jerusalem and Jericho was an “Uh-Oh” kind of neighborhood. That road stretched for 18 miles through desert terrain – hot, dry, rocky and rough. In Jesus’ day, it was common for thieves to hide among the rocks along that road and attack travelers passing through. So they would not have been surprised about the man’s fate – they may have even blamed him a bit for getting caught in this “Uh-Oh” kind of neighborhood.
Jesus continued, “A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So, too, a Levite, when he came to the place, passed him by on the other side.”
Lawrence Richards, in his Devotional Commentary, makes an interesting point that the priest and the Levite were both going away from Jerusalem. This implies that they had just left from serving their religious duties in the Temple. If they were going up to Jerusalem, they could claim that their duties to God were more important than their duty to the injured man. But they had no excuse. In essence, they represented the first half of Jesus’ teaching: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, all your strength and all your mind.” But they failed to do the second part. Their hearts were out of sync with the heart of God. If they had loved God more, they would have loved the injured man the way God does.(6)
Jesus continues: “But a Samaritan, while traveling came near him, and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.” The particular word used here for “moved with pity” refers to a deep sense of compassion, a compassion that you feel deep in your gut. Biblical scholar A.T. Roberson notes that this word is only used 12 times in the New Testament, and 8 of those times refer to Jesus’ sense of compassion for others, and one of those is right here.(7)
And considering how Jews in Jesus’ day had such contempt for Samaritans, this sense of compassion on the part of the Samaritan would have seemed extraordinary. They would have been amazed that “The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, poured on oil and wine. He put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day, he took out 2 denaraii and gave them to the Innkeeper, saying ‘take care of him, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any further expense.’”
Jesus let the story hang in the air for a moment – and then asked the lawyer, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man fell into the hands of robbers?”
The lawyer has no choice – the answer is obvious. “The one who had mercy on him.”
And Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Fred Craddock tells of meeting Rear Admiral Thornton Miller many years ago when he was the chapel speaker at Johnson Bible College. After the chapel service, Rear Admiral Miller spent some time chatting with the students and answering questions. They all wanted to ask him about his experiences serving in World War II, especially on D-Day in Normandy. Rear Admiral Miller described the firefight that day in vivid terms. As a military chaplain, he had gone up and down the beach, dodging bombs and gunfire while praying with injured soldiers, doing anything he could to help.
A student asked him why he had risked his own life on the beach that day, and Miller simply replied, “I’m a minister.”
So the student tried to re-phrase his question. “But didn’t you ask if they were Catholic or Protestant or Jewish? Did you just… if you’re a minister…”
And Miller interrupted him – “If you’re a minister, the only question you ask is, ‘Can I help you?’”(8)
The priest, the Levite and the lawyer all failed to ask the most important question: “Can I help you?” And this failure reveals that they are out of sync with God.
Because Jesus makes it clear, in this story and in his own life, that the heart of God is a heart of mercy. Jesus doesn’t commend anyone for their religious credentials or their knowledge of polity and the law. Jesus commends the one who puts love for a stranger into action. He commends the one who risks himself on behalf of an enemy.
In 1992, a man named John Jordan saw a news report on the war going on in Bosnia. Firefighters in Bosnia had almost no protective equipment, yet they were called upon the fight continuous fires caused by bombings in their city. Jordan, an ex-Marine and firefighter from Rhode Island, felt such compassion for those firemen halfway around the world that he gathered up donations of equipment and protective gear and moved to Sarajevo to start a firefighters training program there. He also recruited experienced firefighters from the U.S. to go to Sarajevo and help him in the training program.
It takes a tremendous amount of work and energy to set up a program like that. Why would John Jordan put himself in that situation? Jordan said, “I was at home watching the news about how these guys in T-shirts and jeans and not much else were fighting fires in the middle of sniper and mortar attacks. It’s like coming on a car accident. You either stop and help or you drive by. I stopped.”(9)
So, who was a neighbor to the injured man in this story? The one who had mercy on him.
And Jesus slowly nods, a little smile sneaking across his face as he says, “Go and do likewise.”
When we stand before God one day in the hereafter, will God care about whether our theology was correct or does God care more about our merciful acts. Look at the life of Jesus and decide which is more in sync with God’s heart. Then go and do likewise.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol XXXVIII, No. 2, p50.
2. Ibid… p50.
3. Ibid… p50.
4. Ibid… p51.
5. Ibid… p51.
6. Ibid… p52.
7. Ibid… p52.
8. Ibid… p52.
9. Ibid… 53.
