Tonight's talk (this is long)

When I was in college, one of my psychology professors introduced us to a famous experiment based upon The Parable of the Good Samaritan. In this experiment, conducted at a college seminary, a seminary student would enter a room and the professor instructed that student to give a sermon about the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Then he might say, “Oh, you have just a few minutes to get across campus, you’d better hurry.”
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Now just outside the exit door to that room was an actor, sitting down on the ground, holding his head, and groaning.
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Among those in the group that were told to hurry, 9 out of 10 future ministers stepped right over this guy because they were in too big of a hurry to give their speech about a priest and levite who were in too big of a hurry to help a dying man in need.
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That story has stuck with me and every time I’m driving in a grocery store parking lot, I always invite people to pass in front of me because I think about that story.
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AVOID HURRY. That phrase has made its way into my mental checklist of what it means to be a good person.
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You know, I’ve been waiting for years to use this illustration. And it was going to be a great lesson on why we need to avoid HURRY in our lives.
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But I had one problem.
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As I began to read and study the text, I realized THEY WERE NOT HURRYING.
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Anyway, I decided I might need to take another look at the Parable. But still I think that is a pretty good rule to live by, don’t you think? AVOID HURRY!
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But let’s look at the scripture—see what it really says.
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25 an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
26"What is written in the Law?"
27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[a]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[b]"
28"You have answered correctly, Do this and you will live."
29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
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That last verse struck me, because I’m always trying to justify myself. I want to be righteous. I want to measure up as a good person. That’s why I stop in the grocery store parking lot. This guy was an expert in Jewish Law, the Torah, our Old Testament. He knew the Jewish checklist, but the whose my neighbor part, that part must have bothered him, because if your check list to get into heaven involves always loving your neighbor as yourself, you want to make sure your not wasting your time loving someone else. You want to know who that is.
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Jesus, instead of giving him a straight answer, launches into the parable of the Good Samaritan.
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"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
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Here is how I know they were not hurrying. You see, I’ve vowed to read the Bible in 90 days and last week I was in Leviticus (which is a great way to get The BIG Picture of what Jesus means to us by the way.) And God instructed the Priests “do not touch a dead person unless he is a very close relative. The priest was making sure he did not disobey God. I’ll deal with the levite in a minute. But These guys weren’t rushing to work. They worked in Jerusalem and they were headed to Jericho. In short, they were not hurrying.
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33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34
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Jews hated Samaritans. In fact, if you were Jewish in Jesus’s day and riding your donkey down the road and someone riding their donkey just cut you off, you’d probably grumble underneath your breath, “Samaritan.” It was a derogatory term. Jesus had enemies. Jesus’s enemies called him names. They called him a Samaritan.
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But Jesus, in this parable, spends most of the words describing the care the Samaritan gave this man—and we don’t know a thing about him. Besides the fact he’s almost dead.
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34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
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Then Jesus asks a weird question. He asks, 36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
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That’s odd. Because the neighbor is supposed to be the guy you help. He is supposed to be the victim, the guy on the side of the road. The man wanted to know, “who exactly am I supposed to help?”
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And I think the Expert in Law gets it. He understands that according to Jesus, He is the man, stripped, beaten and left for dead. And in that condition he has no business quibbling over, “whose my neighbor.” But Jesus isn’t trying to best this guy in a debate. He loves him and he says, “I am the Samaritan.” The law (the priest) and especially a corrupt law (the levite) cannot help you in your situation. But now I’ve come. And I have pity on you, and I will pay a great price so that you do not have to justify yourself any longer. I will make you right.
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That lawyer either left miffed at being called a naked dead man in front of a large crowd, or he left overwhelmed with this new item on his check list about everybody being his neighbor, or he left celebrating, like someone who had just been given a tremendous gift. I hope he left with the latter. I hope he put away the checklist with all the things he needed to do for God, things such as Don’t hurry, and instead lived his life in a celebration of what Jesus had given him.
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My husband is an avid football fan and I remember being at an Aggie game. It was close and my husband had gone down to a landing to get a better view of the field. Finally A&M recovered a game ensuring fumble to beat Texas. And Eric in his excitement, picked up some stranger, some guy standing next to him and hugged him.
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You know, I think that’s how we are to live. We celebrate and we hug everybody. We help everybody. And during those moments when its dark and people are not cheering you remember that these are the death throws of a dying world, but that ultimately we have chosen to embrace the reality of Christ and what he has done for us.
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So we celebrate.