Turns out, he was mayor of the nearby community.  He walked over and looked down in the cistern and said, “This is terrible.  There ought to be a law against people falling in cisterns around here!  So, he went back to town, convened the town council and they passed a law banning people from falling in cisterns.  The mayor then returned to the field and posted a sign stating the ordinance, “No falling in the cistern by order of the Town Council.”  All this time, the man is still down in the cistern, yelling for help.

After a while, a group of ladies returning from a conference in another community happened by and heard the man screaming for help.  They all walked over and looked down into the cistern and saw the man and how dirty he was and said, “This is horrible!  What a blight on our community!”  So, they went to town, returned with some rose bushes, planted them all around the cistern and put up a plague that read, “Cistern beautification courtesy of the ladies circle.”  All this time, the man is still down in the cistern, crying for help.

About this time, a local minister happens by, hears the man’s screams, walks over and sees the man down in the cistern.  “This is terrible,” he cried, tears streaming down his face.  Speechless, he returned to town and called all the other ministers together and held a prayer circle for the man in the cistern.  All the while, he was still down there, crying for help.

Finally, this stranger that no one had ever seen came passing down the road toward town and heard the man screaming in the well.  He went over, looked down into the cistern and saw the man, filthy from head to toe, knuckles bloody from his futile attempts to climb out, eyes bloodshot from exhaustion and his voice raspy from yelling for help.  “I’m so very sorry,” he told the man.  “I nearly fell in there myself once.  Here, take my hand and let me help you out.”  Scotching his heels at the top of the cistern, he leaned over as far as he could and took the man by the hand and began to pull him out (Thanks to Fred Craddock).  You won’t believe what happened next.  But, we’ll get back to that in a minute.

First, may I ask, who’d you vote for last week?  OK, we won’t go there.  Did you vote at all?  Maybe we should go there.  Regardless of whom you voted for, weren’t you relieved last Wednesday when both candidates said that it’s time for the healing to begin?  Both men called us back to the one place that at least political healing can begin, our common ground as Americans.  We can stand in that place, can’t we, where, whether Democrats or Republicans, liberal or conservative, we’re all Americans?  Not a bad place to stand, wouldn’t you agree? 

This morning, Jesus is calling us to another kind of healing ground.  In fact, unless we are willing to stand there, it is impossible to call ourselves followers of Jesus.  Here’s the setup.

This man who considered himself to be an expert in religious law decided to give Jesus a run for his religious money, if you will.  You know, politics haven’t changed that much over all these years.  If you don’t have two legitimate legs to stand on yourself, then the best thing to do is try to make your opponent look worse.  So, Luke records that “a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.  ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’” (Luke 10:25).  This wasn’t your typical lawyer, as we think of attorneys these days.  This was a person who had studied most of what we now know of as the Old Testament and had become an expert in religious legalities. 

What he was really doing was setting Jesus up.  If he could get Jesus to say that one religious law was more important than another, then he would have trapped him into saying that some of God’s law was not as important as the rest.  It was a neat little legal trick and, had it worked, it would have been grounds for accusing Jesus of blasphemy and, at a minimum, discrediting him in the Jewish community, if not worse. 

Jesus saw it coming a mile off.  And, since he was neither a liar nor a prostitute, as he often did, he turned the question around.  That’s not just a neat little legal trick, either.  It’s a great way of responding to situations when people are trying to discredit you or embarrass you by asking something of you that’s going to leave you in a darned-if-you-do-darned-if-you-don’t position no matter how you respond.  It makes people own, themselves, what they’re trying to lay on you.  You get home too late one night and your wife asks, “Where you’ve been?”  You say, “Where did you think I was?”  OK, maybe that’s not a good example.  Let’s try this.  “Who’d you vote for this year?” Someone might ask that in a setting meant to embarrass you.  Turn it around.  “Who do you think I should have voted for?” Make them own what they’re trying to do to you.  Jesus did, and, for good reasons that will hopefully become clear in a moment.

“‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’” the lawyer asked.  And, Jesus turned it around by asking the lawyer, “‘What is written in the law?  What do you read there’” (Luke 10:26)?  The lawyer said, “‘You shall the love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27).  Jesus said, “you nailed it.  That’s it.”  “‘Do this and you will live’” (Luke 10:28).

I don’t know if you were paying attention just now or not.  But, Jesus just got the man to give us the information that mankind has sought since the beginning of time.  How can we live forever?  The lawyer said that we should love God and our neighbor as completely as we know how to love and Jesus told him he was right!  “‘Do this and you will live,’” Jesus said.  That’s pretty incredible.  And, it also happened not to be what the lawyer wanted to hear.  He really didn’t want Jesus to solve one of life’s greatest mysteries.  What he wanted was for Jesus to embarrass himself.  But, in front of no telling how many people, Jesus turned the question around and embarrassed the lawyer who meant to embarrass him.  So, now, the lawyer has to take it a little further.  

“‘And who is my neighbor?’” the lawyer asked.  Which, believe it or not, is the question Jesus really wanted that lawyer, and all of us for that matter, to ask and answer.  Because, when we answer that question, we’ll find ourselves standing on healing ground.  Except, not exactly like we might first think.

Before it’s over, Jesus is going to ask the lawyer to answer that “who is my neighbor” question for himself.  Which is kind of the way Jesus leads us to the truth.  Not by just handing it to us but by getting us to read scripture for ourselves (“‘What do you read there?’”) ask questions ourselves, to struggle with complex situations and walk with him toward the light.  That’s how Jesus always leads us to the truth. 

Good teachers ask more questions than they give answers because they know that truth is one thing and the process of finding it is essential to coming to the truth, not just knowing it.  We ask God questions like, “Who should I marry?” or “What should I do for a living?” or “How much money should I spend when I upgrade to a better house?”  That kind of thing.  When we ask Jesus questions like that, we shouldn’t be surprised if he turns them around on us and makes us work with him toward an answer instead of just dropping it on our heads at a prayer meeting some night.  If Jesus just gives us the answer, or we think he gave us the answer, and it doesn’t work out, then we’ve got someone to blame, namely, God, for how miserable our lives become.  But, if Jesus makes us own it ourselves, then we can accept responsibility for our own lives and enjoy his presence with us in it, no matter how it turns out.  “‘Who is my neighbor?’” the lawyer asked.  Again, Jesus turns it around, this time, by telling a story, a parable.  All of which is going to lead to another question before it leads to the answer. 

Three people pass by a man who has been beaten, robbed and left for dead in a ditch.  Jesus names two of them as a Levite and a priest, both religious leaders in their communities.  A Levite was a lawyer, someone who should have known the difference between right and wrong in complex ethical and moral situations, not at all unlike the lawyer who was testing Jesus.  The priest was someone whose job it was to be a spiritual mediator, someone who helped people get connected to God in all of life’s situations.  The lawyer and priest, both religious types, also had something else in common.  They were just too busy being good to be helpful. 

Then, a third man comes along.  A Samaritan.  Someone Jews thought of condescendingly as a half-breed, as though people have a choice in their ethnicity or as though it should matter if they did.  In the world where Jesus is telling this story, a Samaritan had zero clout.  In our day, he would have been looked upon with the same suspicion that Americans tend to look upon people who wear turbans, for example.  This is someone the lawyer might have expected to be the thug and the robber but who actually turned out to the be the one who stopped and helped.  The one who went into the ditch, medicated the victim’s wounds and then took him to another caregiver and left his credit card to make sure all the charges were covered, no matter what it cost. 

Then, Jesus moves in for the kill, if you will, with another question.  Remember, the lawyer had asked Jesus who his neighbor was.  Boy, wouldn’t that be nice!  If loving our neighbor is a big part of what it means to live forever then, if Jesus will at least identify our neighbor to us, we’re halfway home.  Frankly, I’m confused about who my neighbor is sometimes.  I grew up in a little town where I knew everyone on my street.  Ten houses in any direction I knew the name of every mom and dad and kid.  Since no one hardly ever moved, we literally grew up together.  Not anymore.  Nancy and I live in Rockwall, kind of.  What we really do is stop there and spend the night.  Since we both work and go to church in Dallas, we’re hardly ever home, at least during neighbor-making time.  I’d love for Jesus to identify my neighbors to me.  It gets kind of lonely, to be honest. 

But, not so fast!  Jesus, again, isn’t going to answer our question for us.  He’s going to get us to answer it.  So, he tells this story and then Jesus turns the question around again.  “‘Which of these three,’” he asks the lawyer, “‘do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’”  Did you see the turn in the question?  This whole time I thought Jesus was answering the lawyer’s question by saying that anyone who is in need is our neighbor.  And, there is some merit to that, by the way.  But, that’s another sermon for another day.  Because, it’s not the first question.  The first question isn’t, “who qualifies as my neighbor?”  The first question is, “Am I being a neighbor?”

So, let’s get this progression down right.  How do I live forever?  Love God and love your neighbor.  Who is my neighbor?  Wrong question, at least first.  First question is, “am I a loving neighbor?” 

This is the 5^th week of our 40 Days of Purpose Spiritual Renewal Campaign.  In trying to ask and answer the question about our life’s purpose, we come to this possible answer, “You Were Shaped for Serving God.”  But, how we approach discussing that is everything.  Not by asking, first, “What is my ministry in this world?” as much as, “Am I being a minister in this world?”  Which question do you think Jesus would have us answer first? 

You see, one question is very self-centered, if we ask it first, even though it appears others-centered.  If I only work on answering, “What is my ministry?” or “Who is my neighbor?” then I may get stuck there, only asking who qualifies to receive what I have to offer.  And, if we’re like the Levite and the priest, because the answer is always self-centered, very few will ever qualify for our ministry and we’ll never get to it, no matter how religious we may become.  If we’re like the Samaritan, for whom the question was other-centered, we’ll do more ministry as we go by accident than those who are always looking for who qualifies.  What question would Jesus have us ask, first?  Is it about how this world measures up to what we are and what we have or is it about what God expects of us no matter who qualifies or doesn’t? 

I don’t why the Levite and priest didn’t stop that day.  And, I don’t know why the Samaritan did.  I’m guessing they didn’t stop for some of the same reasons I didn’t stop this week.  How about you?  Of course, it’s just a parable and we have to be careful not to try and make the story tell us more than it was meant to.  But, even if it was just a “story” Jesus told, it was too-close-for-comfort real. 

Maybe the Levite and priest were just in a hurry.  Maybe they saw something in that ditch that frightened them.  Like, if they stopped, they might become the next victim, like they might catch some mysterious “ditchitis.”  Which is a risk we take.  The further and further we step away from the world we can control the more and more we’ll find ourselves in a world others control.  That can be frightening.  I’ve had divorced people tell me before that they felt like lepers.  People they trusted stopped coming around, like they were afraid divorce was contagious or something.  AIDS victims certainly know that to be true, no matter how convincing the scientific evidence otherwise about how AIDS spreads. 

Maybe the Levite and the priest thought that getting beaten up was a contagious disease.  All I do know is this.  When we look over into the ditch and see someone wounded and we walk away, that tells us more about us than it does about them.  No matter what put them in the ditch.  Which is why it is so important to move toward the healing ground. 

Some years ago a spiritual mentor of mine taught me this simple principle for spiritual growth.  I’ve not practiced it perfectly.  But, when I have, it has always paid rich dividends.  Walk toward what frightens you most.  What frightens you is telling you something about yourself and you’ll only completely discover what that is by facing down the fear.  I’m not suggesting that, if on-coming freight trains frighten you, you should step onto the tracks and walk toward them.  I only say that because I have learned to cover all my bases. 

But, if people with AIDS frighten you, for example, go down the street to AIDS ARMS and volunteer to work with AIDS victims.  When you climb into their ditch with them and pour oil and wine on their wounds, some might spill over onto whatever it is in you that makes you frightened of people who have any disease.  If people on drugs frighten you, go stand in their ditch and see who the oil and wine does more good for.  If poor people frighten you, step across the street and volunteer in Mission: Oak Cliff.  You may be surprised to discover some poverty in you that needs healing.  If people bound by drug addiction frighten you, step into their ditch for a while and ask them who beat them up!  You might be surprised what that oil and wine does for you.  “Walk toward what frightens you,” I hear Jesus saying.   

You’ll never forget that person who takes a step toward you when you are the one in the ditch.  I’ll never forget when my spiritual mentor, the same one who encouraged me to walk toward my fears, told me, “Whichever way the road turns for you, I’ll be with you on it.”  And, he was, until the day he died. 

You just never can forget that person in your life.  The one who steps toward you with oil and wine while you’re in the ditch and helps you back up onto the road toward healing.  You can’t forget.  Can you?

The mayor stopped by.  The ladies’ circle stopped by.  Even the preacher stopped by.  Laws got passed, a cistern got beautified and prayers were offered for the man in the cistern as well as others who risked falling in.  Only problem was, that man was still in the cistern but, now, only more desperate than ever.  Until the stranger stopped by, looked down and said, “I know how you must feel.  I fell in there once myself.  Here, take my hand, let me help you.”  And, he reached down into the cistern, vice-gripped the man’s hand and pulled him out to stand on solid ground, on healing ground, again.

You know who that man was don’t you?  Sure you do.  You know because you remember what that hand felt like when it vice-gripped yours.  You remember what that hand felt like, don’t you?  Sure you do.  I know you do.