Demonstrate Mercy

This sermon based on the parable of the Good Samaritan adds a surprising recipient of mercy

Read Luke 10: 25-37

If this sermon was meaningful to you, learn more about the rest of our church at missionhillsucc.org. You are invited to support the ministry of Mission Hills United Church of Christ with a one time or recurring contribution - missionhillsucc.org/give

Transcript

Sermons from 

Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

March 9, 2025

“Demonstrate Mercy”

Luke 10: 25-37 – Common English Bible

A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to gain eternal life?”

26 Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?”

27 He responded, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”[a]

28 Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

29 But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Jesus replied, “A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death. 31 Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 32 Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 33 A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. 34 The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ 36 What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?”

37 Then the legal expert said, “The one who demonstrated mercy toward him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

“And who is my neighbor?”  

It was 1942.  On February 18th, they were our neighbors.  On February 19th, they weren’t – after the president signed an executive order to remove all Americans of Japanese descent from our neighborhoods.  Frank Wada’s family lived in San Diego and learned about order 9066 from a notice on a lamppost near his home.[1]

Originally, each family was told they could have a truck and fill it up with their belongings and not to worry.  Three days later, his family was put on a train, not knowing their final destination, and told they could bring just one suitcase each.  When he died in 2021 at 99 years of age, Frank still had his suitcase.  He shared, “We were put on a train and ended up in the Santa Anita racetrack where we lived in the stables for 2 ½ months – and they were dirty!”  Then another train took them just across the California border to Poston in the Sonora desert.  With a population of almost 18,000, Poston was the third largest city in Arizona during the war.  For more than 3 years, the Wada family lived in this concentration camp and endured extraordinary summer heat, coaxed vegetable gardens out of parched desert grounds and made a home out of the barest of quarters—with no running water, no privacy, and minimal healthcare.  

But years of anti-immigrant propaganda fueled by politicians and newspapers meant that a prejudiced population was primed to turn a blind eye.  And so, on February 18th, they were our neighbors.  On February 19th, they weren’t.  Literally.

The legal expert asked Jesus a question to test him.  What must I do to gain eternal life?  Jesus answered with a story about living an ethical life:  “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”  Down, as in literally down.  Did you know that Jericho is nearly a thousand feet below sea level?  In 17 miles, the “road” from Jerusalem descends over 3,000 feet, passing through narrow canyons and treacherous cliffs – a perfect place for an ambush.  Like what happened to that certain man who was robbed, beaten, stripped naked, and left near death.  

But he was not the first nor would he be the last to have such a frightful experience and the crowd listening to Jesus knew it.  They knew exactly what he was talking about.  Some of them or some of their family members may have been victims themselves.  They could visualize – that’s me laying nearly dead alongside the road.  Who would help me?  And while lying there, just imagine watching through swollen eyes as a priest and a Levite both pass by on the other side of the road instead of stopping to help.  However, given how dangerous this road was, they may have thought, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"  And then came along a Samaritan who reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"  
 
 

Not what will happen to me, but “if I don’t stop, what will happen to him?” which is a question Martin Luther King, Jr. posed in a sermon the night before he was murdered in April 1968.  People kept criticizing Dr. King for straying from the mission others imagined he should have.  They didn’t like his critique of the Vietnam War.  They didn’t like his advocacy for economic justice.  Stick to the “race question.”  He was in Memphis that night and told the parable of the Good Samaritan as a way to explain:  why help them.  The “them” in question were striking sanitation workers.  

The strike began in February in response to the gruesome deaths of Echol Cole and Robert Walker.  You see, white residents objected to seeing garbagemen eat their lunch – picnicking, as those who objected called it.  Workers were told to eat their lunch inside the truck cab, but that wasn’t large enough, so one rainy afternoon, two workers sat under the protection of the back of the truck to eat their sandwiches.  Some kind of malfunction on those old broken-down trucks caused their crushing arms to come down and killed them both.  The city offered their families a $500 “death benefit.”[2]  It was their needless deaths on top of indignity after indignity that led hundreds to walk through Memphis carrying signs that declared, “I am a man.”  All because residents didn’t want to have to see them eat.  And who is my neighbor? 

In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King said, we are all “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...”  In other words, it made perfect sense to him that those striking sanitation workers were his neighbors and he couldn’t pass them by on the other side of the road.  

The lesson, or at least a lesson, of the parable of the Good Samaritan reminds me of the famous quote by Pastor Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

The context is 1930s Germany:  At first, Pastor Niemöller didn’t object to what was happening in his country.  Like many others, he was anti-Semitic, considering Jews to be “Christ-killers.”  He didn’t object to anything until the government started interfering with the affairs of the church, even ordering a change to texts in the Bible that were called “Jewish ideology.”[3]  That’s when he spoke out.  But as punishment for the pastor’s public criticism, he was arrested several times and finally sent to a concentration camp with others perceived as “threats to society,” such as Jews, Roma and Sinti people, gay men, and other “asocials,” like alcoholics.  Pastor Niemöller spent 8 years in concentration camps, including 4 years in the infamous Dachau.  He was liberated by American troops in April 1945, but whereas most Germans wanted to just move on, Pastor Niemöller insisted people must confront what happened so it might never happen again.  That’s when he first spoke his famous words and kept speaking until his death in 1984.  

Who is my neighbor?  Scholar Amy-Jill Levine said the question should actually be:  Who is not our neighbor.[4]

The simplest lesson of this parable is that we should all demonstrate mercy to others.  But it’s in their simplicity that the parables are often most complex with multiple layers of meaning.  For example, given the prejudice and animosity felt by Jews toward Samaritans and Samaritans against Jews, the crowd who would have one minute identified with being left for dead alongside the road would have asked themselves the next minute, would I want someone like a Samaritan to stop?!  The crowd would have been horrified by Jesus’ example.  He asks them to answer, would I accept the demonstration of mercy by someone like a Samaritan?

We see the Samaritan in such neighbors as Frank Wada who, by the way, served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit made up of Japanese Americans that was one of the most decorated in U.S. military history.[5]  Or see the Samaritan in impoverished sanitation workers like Echol Cole and Robert Walker.  Or 6 million Jews and other “threats to society” imprisoned and murdered in Nazi death camps during World War 2.  But in every age, we must be attentive and ask, who are our neighbors, recognizing that history will repeat itself if we don’t learn from it.  Who is not my neighbor?

But I see another layer to the parable today.  The 2nd great commandment of Jesus.  The first – to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  The second – to love your neighbor as yourself.  Which, you do realize, means to love and show mercy to our neighbors as much as we love and show mercy to ourselves.  Yeah, that second part we need today.  

On Ash Wednesday, Diana Butler Bass said she didn’t need a smudge of ash on her forehead to remind her of her mortality because we are standing in ash up to our knees.  People are scared.  Ukrainians feel abandoned.  Federal employees feel battered.  Trans people feel expunged.  Europeans feel betrayed.  Legal immigrants feel terrified.  What are you feeling?

So today, in addition to showing love to others, I think we need to give ourselves a little grace and demonstrate some mercy to ourselves.  That’s part of our intention this Lent.  We have sound healing tomorrow night.  The following week, healing through art and color.  Then healing touch.  The history of and then a service of healing and anointing with oil.  It’s not selfish to say we need some self-care.  In fact, poet Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.”

But as Anna Ortega-Williams wrote in Essence magazine, what we really need in times of stress like these is community care.[6]  She said, these circumstances aren’t new.  As African Americans, we understand what it means to be attacked based on a mass, group level identity and we carry that in our blood.  A part of our lineage and our roots is to understand that we’re part of a collective.  We have always had a sense of ‘I am because we are.’  We take that term from Ubuntu.  We know that individual ‘self-care’ actions have never been enough.  And once we recognize that our individual harms and pain are interlocking…we also see that our healing is interlocking.  Individualism has never saved us.  Our wellness is multifold.”  So first, whatever you are feeling, know that you’re not alone.  And then, find community. 

I like that.  The best self-care is community care.  You know people who need that, so spread the word to those in your life who feel like that certain man who was robbed, beaten, stripped naked, and left near death, who lay there by the side of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho feeling abandoned and alone.  You know better than anybody what it means to be part of a community of care.  It feels good to know you belong somewhere, right?  You know what?  It feels even better when you can help someone else feel that way too.  As Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”  It could be just the demonstration of mercy that one of your neighbors needs, especially in times like these.  And couldn’t you use a little more mercy too?

Words of the Song:  Until Love is Spoken by Karen Marolli

Grant us hope when all seems dire. 

Grant us faith to spark a fire,

To fiercely burn, to drown the night,

And set the world ablaze with light.

And when we meet resistance and our call puts us in danger,

Grant us patience and persistence to stand up for friend and stranger.

Grant us courage to be kind,

Grant us singleness of mind,

To free the world from hate and fear,

So only love is spoken here.

And when our path of justice leads us to the dreadful fight,

Grant us vigor and entrust us with the power to do what’s right.

Grant us courage to be kind,

Grant us singleness of mind,

To free the world from hate and fear,

So only love is spoken here.

[1] https://www.history.com/news/442nd-regiment-combat-japanese-american-wwii-internment-camps
[2] https://www.theroot.com/watch-the-tragic-deaths-of-robert-walker-and-echol-col-1822619781
[3] https://hmd.org.uk/resource/pastor-martin-niemoller-hmd-2021/
[4] Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Luke, New Cambridge Bible Commentary, 2018, page 290
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
[6] https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/black-women-trump-presidency/