Please realize that of these I am the least. These are lessons for us all. I think we need to start praying for God to reveal to us who He wants us to stop and tend to during our day. Who can we share what Jesus has done for us? There is always someone, cast aside by the world, lying at the side of the road.
Now onto the priest. We must recognize who Jesus is telling this parable to; a religious expert of the law. So the first person that comes along is a priest from the Temple. For us today, this represents the leadership within the church. Sometimes we tend to only seek individual lessons but there are lessons for us collectively as a body as well. The priest represents the church and what does the church leadership do? Not only did he not stop to help the man but as soon as he sees him - he crosses to the other side of the road to pass by him. Many commentators have said that this priest knew the law that said he would become unclean for seven days of he came into contact with a dead body. As a priest he had religious responsibilities. He had temple responsibilities. He had responsibilities that he created within his religion. What is the lesson here? We need to be very careful as religious leaders to not let our religious responsibilities keep us from doing the will of God. Too many churches are building a building at the sake of the kingdom. More concerned with not missing a service than with stopping to help the unsaved. Sure there may be outreach activities disguising more entertainment as evangelism but those lying in a pool of their own blood are left on the side of the road. It isn't about the next play we can put on or the next program we can start up. It is about this one simple man who desperately needs to be tended to because he is apart from God. The church needs to cast aside its formalities, cross back to the correct side of the road, and be the church.
Second, Jesus says that temple assistant comes along next. We are the temple assistants in this parable. We too can have the same religious tendencies. The tendency to come close to those who desperately need God but to then walk right on by. Maybe we fancy ourselves too busy. The business of religion is geared these days to take up our time. Our skills and giftings are analyzed within the construct of church growth theories. Then we are given assignments within the church; ministries. Soon we can be so busy within our doing church that we walk by those God puts in our path. Maybe we can allow our religiosity to separate us from the very people we are supposed to witness to. There sometimes can be a level of smug pride amongst Christian circles fueled on by a desire to feel better about our own sin issues. The church is very good at looking outside at the world in judgment instead of internally at ourselves.
It isn't my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. - 1Corinthians 5: 12 (NLT)
Our focus on the world is supposed to be centered on Jesus, not religion. Instead we tend to look down on "sinners" forgetting we are no better, just saved by the grace of God.
The third person who walks across this man in the parable is a "despised Samaritan." Jesus knew that the listener would be aghast at the notion of a Samaritan as the hero. To the Jews, the Samaritans were half-breeds. They were indeed despised. Yet contained within the story of the Samaritan reaction is how we are supposed to behave as Christians towards those who are unsaved in the world. The first thing is that when the Samaritan saw this man he immediately had compassion for him and the state he was in. That is how we are to approach those in the world too. Unfortunately, too often we have disdain for those in the world, especially those caught up in some of the more egregious sins and lifestyles. We are supposed to see them as this beaten and bloodied man; left for dead. We are supposed to have compassion on them; as Jesus always did:
Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. - Mark 6:34 (NLT)
Beloved, that is how the people are we come across every single day. They are sheep without a shepherd. They need to see Jesus in us and hear Jesus from us. We need to get past this false sense of righteousness we can become enamored with and start to see people as this mugged man, lying on the side of the road and have compassion upon him.
