Luke 10:25-35

There is a story Jesus tells that may well be the greatest story ever told by anybody. It is not often told at Christmas; it isn’t part of our Christmas tradition. But I think it is a great Christmas story. To my mind it represents the best of Jesus, and the essence of the message that Jesus brought humankind. It is the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus told the story, but it belongs to everybody in the world. It illustrates a spiritual truth with the power to change lives, a truth which, if lived out over and over again, could change the world.

Luke writes about a lawyer who approached Jesus one day and asked, “Teacher, what do I have to do to attain eternal life?” Jesus seemed to like being in dialogue with intelligent and educated people, as a lawyer would have to be, and so He asked, “What does the law say?” The lawyer responded, “You shall love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. You shall love God, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus said, “You have answered rightly. Do this, and you will live.”

But, having a lawyer’s mind, he started worrying over the details. Perhaps he was afraid that this law was going to involve too much loving. And so he asked, “Who is my neighbor?” In response, Jesus told him the story we know today as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

One day a man was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was jumped by robbers, who beat him up pretty badly, took what they wanted and left him there, half dead. The first person to come along was a priest from the temple, who saw the wounded man and passed by on the other side of the road. Next came a Levite, a temple official, who also, seeing the wounded man, passed by on the other side. Then came a third man, a Samaritan.

Samaritans were Jews who differed from mainstream Judaism in their interpretation of the Torah. Samaritans did not get along with the rest of the Jews, who looked down on them as heretics. So in the story Jesus told, when the Samaritan came along, the man he saw in trouble, lying in the road, was virtually an enemy. Nevertheless, he stopped, knelt down, treated his wounds with wine and oil, and bandaged them. Then he picked the man up and put him on his own animal and took him to an inn. He told the innkeeper, “Please take care of him. I will give you some money now, and anything that you spend beyond what I have given you, I will repay when I come back on my trip home.”

“Who is the neighbor of the man who fell among thieves?” Jesus asked the lawyer, and the lawyer answered, “The one who showed mercy.” Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

This story is especially resonant for me because it describes the inclusive largesse of God’s love. Nobody is disposable. Every soul created by God is equally loved and has an equal place in this universe. Nobody is to be disregarded and thrown away.

The story also illustrates that we are our brother’s keeper, as human beings and, especially, as followers of Jesus. Although we know we should act as the Good Samaritan, it can be hard. I used to be very judgmental of the two people who passed by on the other side, but then I realized how many times I have passed by on the other side and how difficult it is sometimes to spot a need and to be there to meet the need and help the other person. I came to understand that the priest and the Levite might have been very good people—maybe preoccupied, maybe running late, as we run late, preoccupied as we’re preoccupied, distracted in some other way. But for whatever reason, they kept on going.

Do you see why I think this is a great Christmas story? Are there any words in the English language that sum up Jesus’ message more than loving? Than caring? He spent His ministry teaching and healing; His whole life was a loving gift from God for us. When we commemorate Jesus’ entrance unto the human scene by celebrating Christmas, what better way to do so than to think of a special, needed gift for those around us? And what better way than to give to those among us who, although we may not know them personally, need our help? Churches all over the world act as Good Samaritans for their communities as a way of celebrating Christmas.

As Christians we try to be Good Samaritans throughout the year. It can be a conflict as we try to live our lives, take care of our families and loved ones, and still remember to be sensitive to others who may desperately need something from us that we can provide. We understand this is Jesus’ deepest message to us: Love one another as I have loved you.

One way of caring is simply to show up—just to be there. It is the ministry of presence. I remember as a very young child, living in an Italian immigrant community, it was still a custom that when somebody in the family died, the casket would be brought to the house and placed in the living room. People would come and pay their respects to the deceased and the family. I remember, the two or three times I saw this scene, that there would be elderly women in black dresses, with black shoes, black stockings, black shawls, just sitting there. I don’t remember any of them ever saying a word, they were just sitting there—they were there. They were caring.

I live a couple of blocks from the United Nations, which is on First Avenue near the East River. One morning, when I was walking down First Avenue on the way to the office, I saw people in front of me slowing down, and a few had stopped. There was a fascinating drama on the sidewalk. There was a sick pigeon, shivering, its head telescoped into its neck. This pathetic creature, nearly dying, was leaning up against a building, and right next to it was a well pigeon, standing vigil—just being there. That was what had caught everybody’s attention.

I thought how symbolically important that was, right across from the United Nations, where the healthy nations must keep vigil over the sick nations. We must put aside the differences and divisions we have, and see the humanity of every nation, and nations must be there for each other—the ministry of presence.

The ministry of presence can be difficult to fit into our busy lives. For instance, last night as I was about to go to bed the telephone rang. It was a woman in my family who is struggling in her life, and we talk quite often. She tries not to call on Saturday night when I am preparing a sermon, but last night she felt very urgent and asked to talk anyway. So I agreed, and she began to recount some painful experiences she was dealing with. In the course of our conversation, she said, “I want somebody just to be there for me and to care.” I was concerned about being rested for my sermon the next day, but I also remembered that the sermon was about caring, so I did the right thing. I spent the time with her that she needed, to listen and to show that I care. This is the ministry of presence.

Then there are those great crises of life when, like the man on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, robbed and beaten, we need the help of a passing stranger. I remember once late on a Monday morning, when I was driving into the city from New Jersey. I was approaching the Lincoln Tunnel. There was not a lot of traffic, but the cars were whizzing by pretty quickly. I hit a pothole and blew out a front tire. Carefully, I eased my way over to the side where there was a very narrow shoulder. I knew I was in trouble, stranded in a dangerous place.

This was in the days before cell phones. My only option was to wait, hoping a policeman would come by and help me. Not much later, an old car drove up behind mine, and a young Hispanic man got out. “Sir, can I help you?” I told him I needed help changing a tire, but what I really meant was I needed someone to change it for me. And very sweetly, very kindly, lickety-split, he changed that tire. I tried to give him some money, but he wouldn’t take it. I insisted, but he was adamant. I did succeed in getting his name and the place where he worked, but when I got to the office and called, they said no one of that name worked there. That man was not just a Good Samaritan, he was a very Good Samaritan.

I am sure everyone here has had the experience of someone stopping to help when we really needed it. There was a moment of danger, a moment of tragedy, a moment of loss, a moment of hurt. This is what Jesus was talking about when He told the story of the Good Samaritan. Someone, instead of passing by on the other side, stopped to help. I believe when we do this we commemorate anew Christ’s coming to teach us that we are all neighbors.

A moment of pure Christmas joy happened for me this year just before Thanksgiving, when a very dear friend called to ask me if my grandchildren were still planning to come to New York for the holiday weekend. “I have some­thing really special for you.” This is a man who is in another category of servanthood. In the last ten years, he has been very, very successful in his business, more successful than he had ever been before. He is grateful for his good fortune. I sometimes look at those in our society who have had immense good fortune financially, and I watch them take it in and hoard it and buy bigger houses and bigger cars and bigger everything, but they never know the joy of sharing and giving back. Richard is not like that. Richard is a give-back person.

The Saturday morning after Thanksgiving, Richard had taken over half of the great New York toy store FAO Schwartz. I cannot imagine what it cost him!  He told me to bring my grandchildren. “I have two hundred kids coming from the Bronx. We are going to give them the Christmas of a lifetime.” Nobody had any trouble getting my grandchildren up on Saturday morning. They were going to have the run of F.A.O. Schwartz.

I watched Richard and his wife as they were enjoying these two hundred kids. There were magicians, and all kinds of games and activities. “Come over here,” Richard said, and I stood with him and his wife as we watched some young kids sitting in a corner, each with a present, waiting for the signal to open them. When they did, every child was saying, “Gee, I got what I asked for!” Richard and his wife were beaming. They had had the kids write “Dear Santa” letters, which became the guide for the present to buy each child.

“I was once a kid from the Bronx,” Richard told me, his eyes welling up. 
When these children are Richard’s age, they will remember the time in 2006 when they had the run of F.A.O. Schwartz and got a personalized gift. I hope they will find a way to do the same for somebody else, that Christmas for them will become a very special Good Samaritan time.

We give out of gratitude for what we have, and in doing so we bring light to others and joy to ourselves. The greatest joy comes to the one who gives the joy. These lines from Isaiah could apply to giving: “Those who have lived in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in deep darkness, on them a light has shined.” This Christmas, let us all bring light and joy to those who need it most.  Laurie Beth Jones, in her book Jesus in Blue Jeans, tells a story about a time a number of years ago when she was a world forum luncheon in San Francisco and found herself sitting next to a man who is a priest and Buddhist monk. When she asked him how he could be both, he replied, “It’s easy, because Catholicism is a religion, but Buddhism is science, and I put the two together.” He told her he had just returned from Cambodia. Why, she asked, had he been in Cambodia? He told her this story. “One day I was in the immigration office in San Francisco, and outside was a crowd of Vietnamese people who had just come to America by boat, among them a woman who was shrieking and crying. I went over to her to find out what was wrong. She was sobbing, ‘My little girl, my little girl!’ When they had embarked in Cambodia, she had become separated from her two-year-old daughter. She hoped the little girl had been swept onto the boat by the crowd, but once on board she was not able to find her. She was convinced she would never see her daughter again.”

The priest told the distraught mother he would find her child, so he went to Cambodia and went from village to village showing everyone her photograph. It took him two years, but eventually he found her. “During these two years, what about your other work?” Laurie asked him. He replied, “That was my work.”

This Good Samaritan understood that the woman from Viet Nam, although he had never seen her before, was his neighbor. She was in distress, and he could help. This Christmas, remember that we are everyone’s neighbor. Jesus came to tell us the story of the Good Samaritan, and to tell us, “Go and do likewise.” Let us pray.

Lord, You sent Your Son not only to com­fort us, but also to bring the central message of Christianity, to love and help one another. Help us to look at those around us and remember that each one is our neighbor. Let us this Christmas and always live with open and merciful hearts. Amen.