Through it Together
Preacher: The Rev. Andrew Van Kirk
Scripture: Luke 10:25-37
I’ve spent a lot of time this week wondering about the man who was robbed, stripped, beaten and left half-dead on the side of the road.
Why? Why him? What did he do? Why did God let that happen to him?
Of course, I’m not really wondering about the man in the story. I’m wondering about the little girls at Camp Mystic…the grandparents at the cabin swept away with their grandchildren…my in-law’s friend Holly who washed away with her house. Why? Why them? Why did God let that happen to them?
I’ve read the Good Samaritan story hundreds of times. But I’ve never been so concerned about the plight of the bloodied man at the heart of the tale as I have been this week.
The parable revolves around a tragedy, a trauma, a man who was doing nothing in particular except traveling from one place to another place and “fell into the hands of robbers” which is a nice enough way to put a horrible thing. It’s like saying those little girls “fell into the hands of river.”
As many of you know, our thirteen year-old daughter Addie was at Camp Mystic ten days ago. She didn’t, thank God, fall in the hands of the river, but she was there when it happened. So was Claire, my first cousin and goddaughter. They were evacuated on a helicopter.
As a senior camper, Addie and her cabin mates were big sisters to the cabin of the little girls who died. They’d only spent five days together (the first five days those little girls had ever spent at sleep away camp), but Addie knew them.
I want to pause for a moment to say thank you. Thank you for your love, your prayers, your texts and emails — all the little and not so little ways you have supported my family and I these last ten days. We’ve felt a lot feelings, but one of the feelings I’ve felt most strongly is the prayerful support of our church and our community. It has been a great blessing.
I know that many of you also knew people who have perished. There is grief in this room that is specific, and painful, and not the same as my family’s. I am sad and heartbroken for that too. We will get through this together.
Since the earliest days of the church, this been understood that the inn in this parable — to which the Samaritan brings the injured man for healing — is the church; the innkeepers are the members. I’m grateful to have a room key here.
“Fell into the hands of” — let’s get back to that phrase. “Fell into the hands of…” or “ended up among…” in Greek, there’s actually no verb. It’s just a thing that happened. There’s no explanation about why. Or how. “Among robbers” — he is.
It gets at this truth about much of the tragedy that befalls human beings — it just is. We fall into the hands of it.
And this parable is relentlessly, uncompromisingly, unhelpfully unconcerned with why or how that happens. Jesus’ presents tragedy as it really is: something that happens.
Elsewhere in the gospels Jesus is asked about the victims of a terrible real-world tragedy — a stone tower by the pool of Siloam fell and killed 19 people. The disciples want to know why? Did those people deserve it somehow?
He’s a little bit nicer about it, but Jesus essentially answers them by saying, “Don’t be stupid.” Tragedy isn’t punishment. It just is a thing that happens in this broken world. We fall into its hands.
The gospel isn’t a manual for avoiding tragedy. Jesus never promises a way to avoid the pain and sorrow in life. He promises a way to live through it. The gospel doesn’t teach us a way around suffering; it teaches us a way through.
Passion — which means suffering; death; and resurrection. That’s gospel path.
We shouldn’t forget that the occasion for this whole teaching is a question about eternal life. Jesus’ answer is drawn from what the man already knew: love God, love your neighbor. At Camp Mystic, those girls were in a place where that would happen, not just seeing it modeled it, but doing it themselves. This is a large part of why we sent Addie, year after year. Loving God, loving their neighbor. None of us are ever fit for heaven, but at Camp those girls were closer to being in heavenly shape than I am most Tuesdays.
The lawyer, shockingly, just can’t leave well enough alone, and decides to ask a follow up question about who qualifies as his neighbor.
Which get us the man, and his tragedy that just is, and then the other travelers on this road of life. The priest and the Levite — who was something like a church lay employee today — they are plenty religious. But they pass by on the other side. I daresay they offered thoughts and…well, we know they offered thoughts — cause they thought to move to pass by on the other side of the road. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they offered prayers as well.
I really don’t mean to condemn the whole “thoughts and prayers.” When people get mad about that, it’s always to make a political point, and no one is upset at the priest or Levite here because they failed to hold the right policy positions on the prevention of roadside robbery.
Sometimes — and really, for much of last week, the floods were one of these sometimes — sometimes thoughts and prayers are the very best thing you can do. We can’t always do something. But these two guys could have. The priest and the Levite were there. They saw it.
It’s easy to be hard on these guys…but…there are these moments in my life that are among the places I feel the most spiritual shame in confusion; moments when I’ve been the priest — a security guard in a coffee shop at Duke; a drive-thru line in McDonalds; a spin-out in the rain on 380 — moments where I’ve failed to do the thing.
When I look back on those moments where I’ve missed, where I’ve been at the priest or the Levite in this story, it’s not really because I didn’t want to help. It’s because I wasn’t paying attention to the present moment. I was worried about my own past; thinking about my own future; stewing in my own stress about something. Mother Erica made this really profound point last week about the way the gospel calls us to be present to the now. The priest and the Levite wouldn’t let the “now” intrude.
I also can’t get over how incredibly lonely they appear in the story. They are traveling alone. They stay away from the other man’s pain and sorrow. They go on alone. Maybe they have a rich social life, but I’d bet not. And certainly here, they cut lonesome figures. Ann Landers, the advice columnist, once shared that the most common question she was asked was: “What is the matter with me? Why am I so lonely?” Her answer: “Get involved! Do something for other people.”
We can be mad at the priest and Levites of the world, but I think I mostly feel sad for them.
Jesus does not suggest that it’s incumbent on every person in Jerusalem and Jericho to go into the roadside assistance business. We don’t have to spend our lives seeking out trouble and suffering. There’s enough of it that just happens — people just falling into the hands of stuff: robbers, floods, fires, tornadoes, cancers, accidents, assaults, racism, addictions, fears, injuries. There are sufficient opportunities to be a neighbor to those in need just from being a person here on earth. You don’t have to look for trouble; it’ll find you.
For the man on the side of the road, there is no other solution to his problem but the help of his fellow human being. We are not built to survive tragedy alone.
I received a little bit of a surprising text last Saturday morning from our friend Liz. Stephanie and Addie were down in Austin, the boys and I were still trying to get back home from my grandmother’s house in New Hampshire, and Liz asked me for the garage code and if I’d turn off the alarm. She had a little something to drop off for Addie. I obliged, and a little later a notification popped up on my phone that someone was there.
And a little later that day, when Addie walked in the house, was a huge basket on the kitchen counter, full of candy, and snacks, and notes, and DoorDash gift cards. There was a homemade lasagna in the fridge. Our friends had all gotten together and put together an enormous amount of stuff. One of them had even gone to Camp Bow Wow and picked up our dog so he’d be there to cuddle Addie. No one had asked us what we needed. They hadn’t asked permission. They’d just put together this enormous outpouring of love. And we didn’t need that many Nerds Gummy Clusters, you know — but we did need that love. In ways we never could have admitted or asked for.
We are not built to survive tragedy alone. We’re not built to avoid others tragedy alone either.
The lawyer’s question about “Who is my neighbor?” Was really a question about “Whom do I owe love?” And Jesus answer is, “To whom can you show love.” It’s not about owing, but about showing.
Is it a burden? Sure. But Jesus didn’t say it was too much trouble to save us. Why should we?
Because remember, the parable is just a story. But there is man in the gospels who really fell into the hands of robbers, robbers who stripped him, beat him, and left him half dead on the side of the road outside Jerusalem — that was Jesus. Every chance we take to care for those who have fallen into tragedy is a chance we have to serve Jesus Christ, to bandage his wounds, to carry him on our donkeys, to pay for his needs with our money. As you did it to the least of these, Jesus promises, so you did it to me.
And look, it sucks to take your turn on the side of the road.
But the gospel doesn’t spare us that. It just gets through it, with love and hope. Together. Not worried about to whom we owe love, but doing our best to figure out to whom we can show it.
Reflection Questions
Where have you experienced the quiet ministry of someone simply showing up for you?
What keeps you from acting in love when you see someone hurting?
Is there someone nearby whose pain you’ve walked past—maybe because it felt too big, or not your responsibility?
What would it look like this week to live as if every wounded person you meet could be Christ in disguise?
How can your love today make someone’s road a little less lonely?
