American Church in Paris - Sermons
ACP HOME - Sermon Archives - Past ACP Sermons
|
"Go and Do the Same!" by Dr. Alex Aronis 15 July 2007 Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Mark 1:32-39 © 2007 Alex Aronis |
I gave my first sermon at the American Church in Paris two weeks ago, and I indicated then that there are three prepositions that help us understand what spiritual formation should be about. The prepositions are WITH, LIKE, and FOR. We must commit ourselves to being WITH CHRIST so that we can become LIKE CHRIST, and the more we become LIKE CHRIST, the more we will want to give our lives in service FOR CHRIST. In that first sermon I stressed the importance of spending time WITH Christ. It is my conviction that everything flows from our being WITH our Lord. This morning I am going to be talking about living our lives FOR Christ, giving ourselves in service FOR our Lord.
1 THE SCRIPTURE PASSAGE
We will be looking at one of the great parables of Jesus, -- For many, it is the most favorite of all.
Our passage begins with an expert in the Old Testament law coming to Jesus to tempt him, to test him. It's the same root word as in the Lord's prayer, where we pray “lead us not into temptation.” The root word is «peira» from which we get the word “peril.” We pray lead us not into peril, or testing, or temptation.
1st Question
So the lawyer is testing Jesus, and he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This has to be one of the most important of all questions. If there is eternal life, we would certainly want to know how to enter into it!
As far as Jesus is concerned, the answer is found in the Scriptures. So Jesus asks, “What is written in the LAW?” by which he meant “the Torah,” --the writings of Moses, --the first five books of the Old Testament. “How do you read it?”
1st Answer
Without hesitation, the lawyer quotes Deut 6 --“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; and, then from Leviticus19 he adds, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
1st Application
Jesus agrees. “You have answered correctly,” he says. And then adds, “Do this and you will live.”
Let's pause for a moment to acknowledge that -- in actuality -- no one can do this, -- only Jesus Christ, himself. Only Jesus fulfilled this royal law, --loving God totally, with all of his heart, and soul, and strength and mind and loving his neighbor as Himself. It is impossible for anyone of the rest of us to do this completely, -- would you agree? Impossible to do this consistently, without deviation or any lapse whatsoever. And that is why we all need forgiveness, --because we all fail to keep the most important of all the commandments. In fact, that is why Jesus came and gave himself for us all, so that we could have forgiveness and eternal life. That is the wonderful, liberating news of the Christian message.
2nd Question
But the lawyer wanted to justify himself, he was looking for a loophole so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” [“How are you defining the term ‘neighbor’? Is everyone a neighbor, including foreigners? Are there no boundaries?”]
The question is certainly relevant for us today. This topic of aliens, of foreigners, is urgent. It is a burning issue in so many of our countries. We live in an age of high ethnicity. And we wonder: “To whom do we have an obligation?” “How broad a net are we to spread?” “Leviticus says we are to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves,’ --but how far should love go?”
Notice how Jesus responds. He doesn’t quote Scripture. Doesn't get into a theological dispute. Instead he tells a story that has gripped the imaginations of countless people through the centuries.
2nd Answer -- The Parable
He begins with a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem is elevated to 2,500 feet (762 meters) above sea level and Jericho is on the floor of the Jordan valley 800 feet (244 meters) below sea level. So there is a steep decline on this road with many twists and turns which provide hiding places for bandits. In fact, so many robberies took place on this road that it was known as “blood alley.”
As this man was making his way to Jericho, he was brutally attacked. Robbers stripped him of his clothes and money, beat him unconscious and left him half dead.
Fortunately, a priest was on the same road. But when he saw the man lying half dead, he angled across to the other side. In the same way a Levite -- who would have been a junior or assistant rabbi -- when he came to the place and saw the man unconscious, he also passed by on the other side.
A third man came down the same road. He was a Samaritan.When he saw the man, our text says that he felt compassion for him. He gave him first aid, --disinfecting and bandaging his wounds, pouring on oil and wine--a remedy that is still used in that part of the world. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, held on to him until they got to the inn, and took care of him. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.”
It’s hard to imagine the shock and disgust that the lawyer must have felt as he listened to this story. The star of Jesus’ story was a hated Samaritan. Jesus was pushing a Samaritan in the Jewish lawyer's face.
But the Samaritan described by Jesus wasn’t arrogant or cruel. When he saw the man left for dead, he was filled with compassion. Esplagchnisthe -- Compassion. Jesus uses this same word in his other most famous parable-- the prodigal son. When the prodigal son was returning to the Father and was still a long way off, the Father saw him and was filled with compassion, ran, put his arms around him and kissed him. Compassion Esplagchnisthe is the strongest of all love words. It represents love from the guts, the center of your body. It comes from God.
By the way, if you look up at the two lower left-hand panels of the stained glass window, you will see depicted there the two great parables -- the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, side-by-side. It was compassion that made the difference in both of these great stories.
You’ll also notice the Le Bon Samaritain by Nicolas Morot in your bulletin. I think it’s a magnificent depiction of the Samaritan supporting the naked man on the donkey as he takes him to the inn. You can view this painting in the Petit Palais just across the river.
2nd Application
Jesus concludes the story by asking, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
Observe what Jesus has done. The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” The term “neighbor” is a noun. Jesus asks, “Which of these three, do you think, [made himself a neighbor] to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” He makes a verbal noun out of it.
The “neighbor” is not the person who needed help. Rather, “neighbor” is the person who took the initiative and helped the person in need.
“Which of these three became a neighbor to this man?” Jesus asks. And the lawyer answers correctly -- “The one who showed mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
2. Making the Application
a. The Need to Take Action
Aristotle defined a story as that account of the world, which has a beginning, middle, and an end. A story moves somewhere. A story has a point.
But you’ll notice that this story has no ending. We are not told what the lawyer did. The words of Jesus, “Go and do likewise,” hang in the air; and we wonder, --what effect did this story have on the lawyer?
C. S. Lewis in his classic “Screwtape Letters” describes the strategy the senior devil, Screwtape, uses to trip up a person who is becoming serious about God. Screwtape says, “The great thing is to prevent this person from doing anything. Let him talk about his insights, let him write a book about his intentions. Let him do anything, --but act. According to Screwtape, “No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will.” As long as he is not moved to action, there’s nothing for the devil to worry about.
But notice, --action is precisely what Jesus wants the lawyer to take. “Go and do . . . . ” These are actions verbs. “Go and do what the Samaritan did.” “Go and do the same as he did!” That is his word to the lawyer, --and it is his word to us as well.
b. Practical Steps
You know that there are many people here in Paris, as in any other capitol of the world, who are lonely, who feel lost, who are praying for God to guide them, to help them, bless them. And God wants us to be the answer to their prayer. God used the Samaritan, --and he will use us to meet the needs of people all around us.
May I suggest a very healthy way to begin each day? When you get out of bed, say something like this, “Today, with God’s help, I am going to become a good neighbor to someone. I am going to do something good to someone. I am going to help someone who has a need. One pastor says that when he gets up he says, “Today, I’m going to live to give rather than live to get. Today, I’m going to be a giver and not a taker.”
And by the way, when you serve others, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Maybe we can give somebody a ride, take a co-worker out for lunch, buy some flowers for your wife, give a gift of chocolate to someone leaving town, take the time to give directions to a stranger, call a friend and tell him or her how much he means to you. That phone call, that note, that encouraging word could be exactly the lift, the encouragement to show him that somebody really does care, somebody really does value her.
I AM CONVINCED THAT THIS IS ONE OF MOST exciting ways to live.
Jesus, himself, spent each day making a difference in people’s lives. Acts 10 tells us that “Jesus went about doing good.” In Matthew 20, Jesus tells us why he came to earth. “The Son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many!” Don’t complicate it: you don't have to preach; you don’t have to know a lot of theology. Just be eager to help others: Hold a door open for someone, bring a co-worker a drink, give your bus seat to an elderly person.
c. Being a Good Neighbor - William Wilberforce, two French ladies
I’ve been reading the biography of William Wilberforce. He is the English statesman who overcame incredible odds to bring about the end of slavery in the British colonies. Wilberforce wrote that he derived a great deal of inspiration from this parable of the Good Samaritan. And yet, as great a person as he was, and as committed as he was to helping others, he lamented over the fact that he missed many opportunities to do good. “It is my constant prayer,” he wrote, “that God will enable me to serve him more steadily, and my fellow creatures more assiduously.”
On one occasion Wilberforce and Prime Minister William Pitt visited Paris. They apparently did not know French that well because William Pitt made the following suggestion. He said, “We need to look for some charitable person on whom we can practice our French.”
The other day Carol and I took a bus to visit the beautiful church, Sacre Cur. Afterwards we found a charming neighborhood, and met a middle-aged lady who looked charitable. Carol began practicing her broken French on this woman, and the woman responded in broken English. She told us that Dallida, a well-known singer, used to live on that street. She mentioned that Dallida sang a very popular song called Bambino. She proceeded to sing three or four measures of the song, and then laughed in a delightful way and said goodbye.
Minutes later, we met another woman on the same road, with her daughter and granddaughter and we asked about Dallida. When I mentioned the song, Bambino, she also sang it for us. Here were two very charitable French ladies, total strangers to us, serenading us with the song “Bambino.”
You can be a good neighbor in a big way or in a small way. William Wilberforce was a good neighbor to the slaves in a very, very big way. These two women were good neighbors to us in a small way, but nevertheless a delightful way.
Conclusion:
Gal. 6:10 sums it up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. As you have an opening, a chance, a window of opportunity---do good to all people, --in big ways and in small ways. There’s a wonderful reward in all of this: when you go around being good to people, others will be good to you. God will make sure of that.
Jesus asked, “Who was a neighbor to this man attacked by robber? Who became a neighbor to him?” The lawyer answered, “The one who had mercy on him.” And Jesus told him, -- and he tells us, “Go and do the same.”
WITH CHRIST, LIKE CHRIST, FOR CHRIST. LET’S GO OUT AND BE GOOD NEIGHBORS, -- FOR CHRIST. AMEN.