Eewwww…..

Greetings from Munchester! The Student Fellowship organized by my church here is currently going through a series of parables and I thought I would share an analysis of one the parables discussed with you guys.

Okay so the Parable of the Good Samaritan taken from Luke chapter 10. The parable starts with an expert of the law asking Jesus, “what can I do to inherit eternal life?”. So the “expert” asks Jesus of what HE can DO to SAVE himself. Can you earn eternal life? Maybe, if we were perfect. Sadly, we aren’t. Beware of this kind worldly thinking that screams, “YOU are in charge of things” because in reality, we really aren’t. If you have ever been in this state, you can notice the methodology and purpose for “serving” is negatively affected. A good question to ask yourself, especially in times of “busyness for the Lord”, is, “why are you doing what your doing?”. Our motive should be love, for God, for men, nothing more nothing less.

Moving on, the expert of the law ask Jesus, “who is my neighbour?” and then the parable begins. So basically there is this guy who gets robbed, beaten up and left to die and 3 people pass him by.

The first passerby was a priest. Okay, priests back then in Jewish culture were the respected, the holy, the looked upon. They were the spiritual people of the Israel, learned in Scripture and the people who stood before God to offer the animal sacrifices. You would expect him, definitely, to lend this beaten up guy a hand but no, he walks on the other side and ignores him. The second was a Levite. Alright Levites were God’s chosen tribe amongst the Israelites, separated to be holy. Basically the Levites were temple workers. They performed the daily rituals/ceremonies and are likened to today’s people who served in the church regularly. As the priest, the Levite walked on over the other side as well.

Now wait a minute, these were people of God. They worked in the temple, served in the temple, read the word in public, prayed in public, fasted in public. How could they do all that and still have it in their heart to leave this man to die? Nah, no way, this parable of Jesus is terribly hypothetical. It’s the extreme case, the outlier case, the one that cannot possibly be my case. But is it?

Lets make some assumptions now. Maybe the priest and the Levite had some evangelical meet/ church duty to attend, thus they had no time to stop over and save the man. They might have already planned their day and this man was just not in it. Fair assumption? (leave your comments in the chatbox if any). The irony of “church activities” preventing us from the real church activity. These guys were fixated on their plans that they could not have been flexible enough for this man’s needs. Be it church plans, my plans, don’t we sometimes just get caught up with plans? Too caught up to even notice the need around us… and then we ask God for opportunities, pfft. Don’t get me wrong, these plans are usually in itself good plans like gyming, studying, spending time with your loved ones, hanging out, going for a church activity, etc, but we are called to be wise Christians.

Assumption number two, Both these groups only served in comfort. At that time in Jewish culture, sick/diseased people were deemed unclean. They were separated from society, outcasted even. The priest, Levites and “normal” people of society were the clean ones. For the priest and the Levites to help him, was to go against the norm. What if someone passed by and saw them mixing with this “dirty” person, who was in fact a Jew (one of them). Mind you when your beat up, bleeding and dirty, you look pretty diseased. They did not want to serve God when it would cost them something. Sure they fasted in public and put sackcloth and all that, but did that really cost them anything? Adding to that, they also might have been just not used to the idea of showing love in such a situation.

Their regular work was in an environment where people were “okay” all the time. There were no beaten up people hanging around priest and temple workers. They were just not ready to get down on their knees, bandage his wounds, spend money and time on this man. It was too difficult, it was not them.

You might be thinking, alright that’s definitely not me, I’m willing to sacrifice. Really? At times, we do behave like the priest and the Levite. We are good people. Grew up in church and all that jazz but when it cost us something to follow God, we back away. We say, “that’s not for me, that’s too hardcore, I was definitely meant to do something else”. The irony of that is we end up praying to God for our calling, jokers. If your finding serving God becoming easy and cost free then something may be wrong. During Jesus’ ministry, He faced all kinds of problems. He got ridiculed, rejected, chased away and ultimately crucified. No Christian walk is easy and breezy, none. If yours is, you might be in a dangerous trap of comfort and complacency. Another inference might be that our service is within the comfort zone. Serving in church is almost, costless and may even be a bit glorifying. The chances of you getting praised for whatever your doing in church is way higher than that of getting ridiculed/ shun upon.

So to conclude, Jesus tells the “expert” to go and do as the Samaritan and the story ends there. The Samaritan displayed all the necessary attributes of a Christian. Firstly,he was flexible enough to attend to the jew’s needs, mind you they were enemies. Surely the Samaritan had some business to do as well in Jericho. Secondly, he loved the man wholeheartedly. He cleaned his wounds, put the man on his donkey, meaning he had to walk, and also paid for his accommodation. On top of that, he came back after his business in Jericho for a follow up.

Lets not be Christians who go eeeww when the need is tough/uncomfortable but love God and his people wholeheartedly.As it says in Deuteronomy 6:5,

“love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”,

Amen.

- Alex Tan

Images taken from:
http://wheretowespeed.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/promulgate-this-the-parable-of-the-good-samaritan-and-the-gospel-of-radical-inclusion/
http://takingtheyoke.blogspot.com/2011/08/jesus-my-favorite-old-testament-priest.html
http://ancientlyre.com/?section=historical_details
http://www.christianmessenger.in/in-loving-god-take-the-wholehearted-approach/