Who is a Champion in the Kingdom of God?

July 11, 2004

The Rev. Dr. Anthony J. Godlefski, Pastor

Montgomery United Methodist Church

Luke 10: 25-37

The Most Important Commandment

25One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: "Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?"
26Jesus replied, "What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?"
27The man answered, “`You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, `Love your neighbor as yourself.' "
28"Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you will live!"
29The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Story of the Good Samaritan

30Jesus replied with an illustration: "A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
31"By chance a Jewish priest came along; but when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
33"Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt deep pity. 3⁴Kneeling beside him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35The next day he handed the innkeeper two pieces of silver and told him to take care of the man. `If his bill runs higher than that,' he said, `I'll pay the difference the next time I am here.'
36"Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?" Jesus asked.
37The man replied, "The one who showed him mercy."
Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same."

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, good morning! I’d like to invite you to consider a question with me today. It is simply this: Who is a champion in the kingdom of God? I invite us to study the scripture and find out the answer to this question together.

Now, what I’d like to do today is to treat our sermon this morning as a Bible study. I invite you to take a copy of our scripture lesson in hand [you can print the first page of this transcript if you wish], and let’s study this scripture together.

You’ve probably heard me use the term Bible study a bunch of times in the last few weeks. You probably think I’m on some kind of Bible study crusade or something like that. Well, if you think that, you are absolutely right. I’m so enthusiastic about our congregation studying the Bible together, and I’ve got some plans in mind for the fall about what we can do together about that.

Let’s begin today to do a Bible study together. There are four steps to a Bible study. Read – read the primary literature, read the story. That’s the first step. But also, let it read you. What do I mean by that? See if there’s something that leaps out at you. See if there’s a phrase in the Holy Scripture that you’re studying that lights up. Maybe you’ll say, “I never knew that was there before. That’s amazing! I wonder what God is trying to say to me through this scripture.” And underline it. Let your Bible be a marked-up Bible.  So, read is the first step.

The second is research. What did it mean in its original context? What did it mean in its original day? Third, reflect – what does it mean for us today? And fourth, apply – how can I apply it to my own life? Four steps to a Bible study. Read, research, reflect, and apply. We’re going to try that today.

First of all, we have read our scripture this morning. Have you underlined anything? You don’t have to explain it or understand it. You don’t even have to know why you were attracted to that verse or why it lit up for you. For instance,

*Who is my neighbor?

*He walked on by on the other side.

*Go forth and do likewise.

*The one who is kind to him.

Okay, we are getting to the heart of the story. That’s the idea. Whether you’re doing Bible study in a group or individually, the first step is to read the text and let it read you.

Second, research. This is important. You can use something called a commentary or a study Bible to help you understand the context and the meaning of that scripture in its original form. Let’s do that together. Here’s what happened:

“A teacher of the law came up and tried to trap Jesus.” Some translations read “A lawyer came up.” I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. This is not a civil lawyer. This is a Bible lawyer, a lawyer of the Mosaic Law, the Law of Moses. He tried to trap Jesus. Did you ever catch that part? He was trying to get Jesus to say something that was against the orthodox authorities. That was his point.

Let’s see what happens then. “Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” – a beautiful question that we all ask. But let’s see how Jesus dealt with this rather tricky teacher of the law. Jesus answered him, “What do the scriptures say? How do you interpret them?” He turned the question right back on him. You see, teachers of the law had scriptures written on their wrists, where we wear wrist watches. Jesus asked, “How do you read it?” In other words, look at your wrist and tell me what you read there.

And, the teacher said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.” That was the answer he gave. Listen to Jesus’s reply: “You are right! Do this and you will live.”

Wow! What if you or I had a chance to ask Jesus a question like this and Jesus said, “What do you think?” and we replied and he said “Right. Do this and you will live”, how would we react? We’d go home dancing on air! Jesus Christ said our theology was right! As George Gershwin would say, “Who could ask for anything more?”

But then what happened? “But the teacher of the law wanted to justify himself, and he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” A follow-up question to a positive response from Jesus Christ – would you have done it? I wouldn’t have. I would have taken the affirmation and gone home. But he asked the follow-up question. Why? Why did he ask the question? We have to go back to the verse where it says he was trying to trap Jesus.

“So, Jesus, if you say that my neighbor is my brother Israelite, you’re going to be all right. But if you say something else, I’ll have you trapped.” What did Jesus do? He took this negative situation and turned it into a positive. He gave us one of the most beautiful stories in the entire Bible.

He said, “There was a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” Going down – he sure was going down. Jerusalem is 2300 feet above sea level. Jericho was 1300 feet below sea level. So he really was going down, along rocky, twisty roads, full of bandits and robbers. Everybody knew it.

Robbers attacked and beat him, stripped him, leaving him half dead. Oh, by the way, the man, implicitly, was a Jew. He was an Israelite, one of the teacher’s own. So it happened that a priest was going by, but when he saw him he walked on by, on the other side. It was common practice in those days to tell a story that involved three characters. So as soon as Jesus began the story, the listeners caught on to what he was doing. “There was this Levite, there was this priest, and always the third one was an Israelite.” It’s sort of like today – this rabbi, this priest, and this minister were on a fishing trip. It was like that.

But, the priest just walked by on the other side. He couldn’t risk being contaminated by a dead body. The Levite went over and checked it out, but then he became afraid that maybe it was a trick. He walked on by. (A Levite was a temple assistant.) The third one they fully expected was going to be an Israelite. But Jesus turned it right around and said a Samaritan came by and helped out the fellow on the ground, the half-dead Jew.

Now what was so tricky about that? The Israelites disliked the Samaritans deeply. That’s my line. Your line is “How deeply did they dislike them?” Ready?

The Israelites disliked the Samaritans deeply.

How deeply did they dislike them?

They disliked them so much that if a Samaritan had to come to their village to do a business transaction and left footprints in the sand, the Israelites would put straw in the footprint and light it up.

The Israelites disliked the Samaritans deeply.

How deeply did they dislike them?

The Israelites disliked them so much that if they needed to take coins from the Samaritan in the course of a business transaction, they didn’t take them in the hand. They held out a jar of water and let the Samaritans put the coins in the jar of water.

Why did they dislike them so much? Sheer prejudice. Why do people in Northern Ireland dislike the people in Southern Ireland? Who knows? It’s passed down from generation to generation. Do you have a hard time relating to it? Listen to the news. Jews = Israelis. Samaritans = Palestinians. The fight goes on. Same fight, different generation. Details at 11. It still goes on to this day.

So, Jesus said a Samaritan was the hero of the story. The lawyer went, “Oh, no! It can’t be. I’m not supposed to like Samaritans.” And here, Jesus paints a picture of him helping out a near-dead Jew. And Jesus says, “Who was the neighbor of the man who was beaten up?” And the lawyer stood there and said, “The man who helped him.” And Jesus said, “Right again. Go forth and do likewise.”

Jesus outsmarted him, which wasn’t hard because He was the Son of God. But He did, and He made the point.

Let’s apply it. Who is a champion in the kingdom of God? Champion in our society? Somebody who wins a competition, isn’t it? Somebody is a winner, somebody else is a loser. I don’t mean to make too much of it, but it is the way of this world. I like watching the Olympics, but when an extremely competent, good-natured athlete beats another extremely competent, good-natured athlete by one one-hundredth of a second, is that a victory? I think there should be a whole bunch of gold medals! I can’t get anybody to agree with me, but I think there should be. But it’s the way of this world – you’re a champion if you beat out somebody else.

But if you want to be a champion in the kingdom of God, Jesus told us who’s a champion. Who is it? It’s somebody who loves the Lord with all his or her heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loves his neighbor as himself. Let me put it short and sweet. A champion in the kingdom of God is somebody who loves God and helps people. No competition there, and it’s available to each and every one of us.

Let me tell you a story. I know a widow who found out that a young woman was between jobs and struggling, and that widow helped her out until the young woman got another job. She’s a champion in the kingdom of God. Do you remember who won the 2001 Miss America pageant? Do you remember who hit the most homeruns in 1998? You get my point – these people were champions in their own way. But let me ask you another question. Do you remember your favorite aunt or uncle who did kind things for you? Do you remember a favorite Sunday School teacher who blessed you in some way with the knowledge of the Lord? These are the champions in the kingdom of God. Their names are written in the book of life.

So, dear friends, who is a champion in the kingdom of God? It’s somebody who loves God and helps people.

Now, last thought. I am hoping that somebody is going to hear or read this sermon who feels flawed. Just as Jesus proved to that lawyer that the person you’re prejudiced against may help you big-time someday, the person you thought was lower than low was the hero of the story, the person whom you thought was worthless can be worthwhile. And so it is for us today. If you are someone who feels flawed because you were born on the wrong side of the tracks or because you’re too this or not enough that, or because you feel you’ve made big mistakes in your life and can’t do anything good, or you feel you’re struggling with some sin and can’t be a champion – I say, rise above all that and know that if you love God and help people who are before you, you can be a champion in God’s kingdom.

May it be so for you, now and always. God loves you. I do, too. Have a blessed week. Amen.