July 13, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Luke 10:25-37
The Good Samaritan is so familiar we can miss it: the lawyer can't even bring himself to say 'the Samaritan.' Rev. Derek van Gulden asks who the Samaritan would be in today's divided world, and remembers an anonymous gift of a suit at the church rummage sale that helped someone land a job. Help often comes from where we'd never expect, and we're called to give it the same way.
Transcript
People of God. Would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, this morning I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help me this morning not to be the instrument of my own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every step, in every breath, in every moment of every day. Amen.
So the story of the Good Samaritan is probably one of the best known stories, not just from Scripture, but throughout so many different communities in this world. So much so that in this country there are Good Samaritan laws. But I want to take a look at the people involved in this first. It's real easy, and I know I've done it before, is to preach about the preacher, the pastor who walked to the other side, the Levite who did the same, ignoring. If I don't see him, I don't need to deal with it. Then there's the poor man who was the victim. We know almost nothing about him except he was robbed and beaten almost to death. And then there's the Good Samaritan.
Now, I think we need to remember that in that day, in that time, in that culture, Jews and Samaritans did not relate with each other. They were very much separate. You may say. But there's that other great story when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, which is a great story as well.
And if you pay attention, you'll see that Jesus uses people in his stories that you wouldn't expect to be there. He was a great storyteller, and he brings those things in. Even if you pay attention in this story, the lawyer who first wants to show everybody how much he knows at the very end, when he gets it, he can't even say when Jesus says, who are the three did the right thing. He cannot say the Samaritan. Now I can only surmise that's between Jews and Samaritans did not get along. They stayed separate culturally. He said, the one who showed him kindness. The one who showed him mercy.
But This Samaritan who we don't know his name, has throughout history, since the time that Jesus walked on this earth a little bit afterwards when word got out, really is an example of what it truly means. To love others. To care for others. To show God our love by caring for creation and each other in the worst of times.
If we did that today, can you think of other words we would use or people that would be in our situation? In our world today, in this moment in the world, who would be a Samaritan in our story. Who would be the one that stepped up and walked around? Anybody? Everybody. Everybody. Amen. That's it. Truthfully. That's good.
I asked these questions. Actually, a friend of mine put it out there to a bunch of pastors, and the list was endless. You don't have to go far anywhere in our world today to find somebody who needs help. Maybe not to that degree. Of the man who was beaten half to death, stripped and everything taken from him. But for some people, they are in those places. If you said some one from Hamas or Palestine or Israel or Iran walked up to somebody they saw beaten who was not of their culture, That would be a good Samaritan. If you saw somebody who denigrated the way people live their life, how they refer to themselves genetically, what gender, what socioeconomic class they come from, their education, anything you can think of. To somebody who is not of that same mind, that would be a good Samaritan.
The gist of this story, and it is a great story because it's lasted so long and it's taught so many people. But at the same time, it's so well known that we overlook some of that. Is that we're all in need of help at some time in our lives. And quite often that helps comes from someone we never would have thought, never. And I think if we each think about it, we can think of a time in our lives where, wow, the help I needed came from somewhere I couldn't even ever imagine. Or we reach out and help somebody without realizing that they never thought we would be the one reaching out.
There is this thing in Christianity that has been created by humans, lots of rules and regulations, and it's happens in every single religion that I'm aware of, no matter where you find it. But in Christianity, which I know better than the rest, we have so many rules, we have less in our denomination. But I know there's some people that still feel, why do we have all these things?
We have to remember that those were created by humans. Jesus came to this world an incarnate image of God, to experience everything that God had created, from being an infant, born into a family that became refugees, a man that walked the earth and tried to get people to listen more about what the message from God was than what they had created. Now I will stand here as your pastor and tell you these are my words. This is where I come from, the experience of my life.
But to truly show love for our neighbor, whoever that might be, whether it's the person living next door. A couple houses away or across the town line into Gloucester or down to Pigeon Cove. As I was told when I moved here. You'll never be a cover. You weren't born here. And they probably don't like you out there. And it was somebody from the Cove who told me that. Not that they don't like you, but you know. But I get it. I grew up on an island. We had five hundred people in the winter and about fifteen hundred in the summertime. And the bridge went up and down all year round. But boy, new people coming in, you'd have to be generations before you were accepted and said, you are one of us.
But it's easy for me to get distracted in this story. That Jesus tells so well as he does with all his stories, is another call. If you've been paying attention over the last four weeks, I've been talking about calls. Calls. The disciples had call to reach out and do things, call to do this, calls to speak up, stand up and show up. This is another call for us to do that, for us to do it in places that make us really uncomfortable, to reach out to people we would never think of reaching out to or our community that we come from wouldn't think of. They're not always easy, and most of us are not like the Good Samaritan. Although I truly believe we all are, because I truly believe we've all done that more times than we'd ever realized. But we need to do more of it, and we need to challenge others to do the same. And when I mean others, I mean others on every single level of our creation of the created world.
Think of it. If everybody did that, just consciously reached out to somebody in need. You don't think you ever would, or just because they need help and help them purely out of love. Because that's what this is about. I had somebody tell me one time, so if I do those things, will I, you know, be rewarded in return? I don't know. That's God's decision, not mine. But I believe you're rewarded in what you're doing.
So my challenge to you this week is to reach out. I know you can do it because I saw a lot of it happening over the last two days here. Has I always have at our fairs people that come up and they come here because they need something, whether it's clothes at the rummage sale, whether it's some simple thing that we would take for granted, like a set of dishes or some silverware or a lamp or something small. I have seen many times where the people interacting with them from the church go, oh, I think we mismarked that. That's not twenty dollars. It's two. Or leave something behind with somebody and saying, can you just make sure this person gets this when they leave?
I can remember someone during the first rummage sale I was at, bought somebody a suit, left it at the by the elevator. They paid for it and then said, this is for this person. I don't think they knew the person's name, but I think they were were looking for something like this. And that person, when I see them in town, which I do, often remembers that so much because it helped them go to an interview that they got a job with that gave them benefits. Simple gesture change, life. Beautiful. And the person who did it never stepped forward and said. They did it simply and they have met that person since. But I don't think the person who received it knows, but is just grateful.
So let us not take the Good Samaritan story for granted. Let us take it for what it truly is a beautiful story where Jesus lays before us what we are called to do as members of creation, as members of the human race, to reach out, to stand up, to speak up and to show up for others who can't do it for themselves. Amen.