By The Preacher’s Diary
1. Something I Had Never Seen
Sometimes you think you have read the Bible many times enough until you come upon something you never saw all the times you read the Bible. This morning, in the course of other matters, I felt prompted to read the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I picked up my Bible, went to my table, sat down, and read it, and I came upon something I had never seen there: the irony of extreme religion without compassion, without mercy, without righteousness.
2. Between Creed and Kindness
In that parable, a traveller on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho falls among robbers who strip him of his possessions and leave him half dead along the highway. Luckily, an eminent priest comes along, but he does not go near the dying man. He passes by “on the other side” of the road, keeping a pious distance. He is guarding his holiness, lest, according to the law, he should touch a dead man, or a dying man who eventually dies in his hands, and he becomes defiled (Ezekiel 44:25; Leviticus 21:1-3).
Next, a Levite passes by. The other was a Bishop, this is a church worker, an ordained elder, an assistant pastor of the same brood as the previous clergyman. The bishop did not draw close. He didn’t dare. He looked ‘safely’ from afar. This one manages to get close, but merely to take a look; “he came and looked on him”; he took a video of the show, and also “passed by” quickly to “the other side” of the road, lest he be defiled by the dying victim on the road. He was being careful not to break the law.
The injured man was very unlucky that day. First, he fell into the hands of robbers; and next, into the hands of brothers. He heard their footsteps and hoped that help had come from holier men. Sadly, each time, he was disappointed, with no strength to cry. With the robbers, it was physical pains; now, the pain was also in the soul.
The third person to arrive the scene was a Samaritan, a stranger to the dying Jew whose religious kinsmen had passed him by as if they would rather see him rot on the street than that they should lose their legalistic claims to holiness. They were persuaded that they were pleasing God, even if that should cost other’s lives. They were ‘keeping’ the rules of God, proudly and stiffly. Their attitude to people, to issues, especially to people’s calamities, was very religious but very loveless; very theological but lacking in compassion. The law filled their heads but did not touch their hearts. They never said it, but for all they cared, you could die in your bloody wounds so far as their theology was not injured. They keep to “the other side” of the road – their holier side of life. They withhold help not because they cannot give it, but because they are restrained by a law that deadens the heart; a stiff theology that elevates soulless rites. Thankfully, help came to the dying man from a most unlikely source.
Jesus often encountered their kind, especially in the temple. They were gladder to see you sick or dead than that you ‘broke’ their sabbath with the gladness of a priceless healing. They fought to keep the purity of obedience to God, yet what indeed they defended was not the Lord but their law – the tradition of the elders (Mark 7:5). They could kill you on the sabbath for ‘breaking’ the sabbath with an offering of kindness (John 5:10; Mark 3:3-6).
3. What they Lacked
The story says that when the Samaritan saw the dying man, “he had compassion on him.” That was something the pulpitless Samaritan didn’t preach but possessed; something the others preached but did not have: compassion, kindness, human feeling. They preached a holiness that did not have a practical human face. They proudly bore a title they did not live. They were always on the road going somewhere, carrying a religion without a heart. Sadly, there are more of them on the highway of life than those who will stop to pour the first aid of “oil and wine” into killing wounds. Deformed by dogma, they often find scriptures for their choices.
Jesus had told that parable to answer a Jewish lawyer, an expert teacher and interpreter of the laws of Moses, who had asked what one could do to inherit eternal life. The verdict of that lawyer was that the true neighbour was the one who “shewed mercy” to the dying man. Jesus used the word “compassion” to describe the Samaritan; the lawyer used the word “mercy.” Both words described the two great virtues that were lacking in the lives of the temple clan. They had the theology but lacked the spirit; the Samaritan lacked their theology but had a noble soul. They were religious; he was righteous.
What has a man without a heart of mercy got to do in the frock of a priest? What has he got to do with the title of a Levite? What kind of sermons will he preach? According to Hebrews 5:1-2, such a person is unqualified for the office of a high priest.
4. A Prayer
Help does not always come from quarters most expected. At times, divine help comes from strange places – like Elijah’s timely rations from greedy ravens (1 Kings 17:6). Sometimes, one’s true brothers are not those who are so by blood and by creed. Sometimes, your troubles merely reveal your true friends. In the day you fall among thieves on the highway of life (God forbid) – financially, emotionally, physically, may God deliver you from priests without mercy and Levites without compassion. May God send you help today, even if He has to send ravens. Amen.
● First published by thepreacherdiary.com
