A Case Study for a Mugging - Haddon Robinson

0:09 It's nice to be here, I guess. I understand that the seminary is known for a place where folks horse around, and thus you have had the reputation of being the horse center of the universe. When Bob Cooley asked me a couple of years ago about coming, he never mentioned the snow, and it fills me with a little suspicion to discover that when I came, he left town for three months. I do feel comfortable being in an academic setting, at least here you know what homiletics is. Out there in the real world, it sounds like something to cure rather than something to teach. I mean, can you imagine your son growing up to be a homiletician? I was speaking in St. Louis some time ago, and I was introduced as the professor of home economics at the seminary.

1:07 So one is always grateful for friendly crowds wherever he finds them. And since I come out of an academic setting and in an academic setting, I suppose it would be good to begin by raising a kind of academic question. If someone asked you what God requires of people in their relationship to him, I wonder what you would answer. Some of you, I think, would probably answer in the words of Deuteronomy 6-4. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and strength and mind. And of course, you'd be absolutely right. And if I could ask you a second kind of academic question, what does God require of the people in relationship to their neighbor, I think you'd answer even more rapidly that your responsibility is to love her too.

2:07 The New Testament would be in hearty agreement. Paul says that love is the fulfilling of the law, that the fruit of the Spirit is love. And when he wrote to the congregation in Rome, he told them to owe no man anything except to love one another. But if I could make the questions a little more personal, A question I might ask you is, do you love God? That could be a bit more difficult. I imagine you'd think about it and say, well, yes, deep down inside I think I do love God. And on the surface, at least, there's little that I could do to prove you wrong. For in a way, your love for God is an intensely personal thing, something known to him, something known to you. But if I were to ask you the fourth question, do you love your neighbor?

3:02 That I think could be the most difficult of all. You'd say, well, you know, that depends. I mean, who is my neighbor? You mean the folks that live with me here on the campus? How about some of the folks over in South Hamilton? And certainly you're not going to draw the line the town limits, why not take in the people of Massachusetts and why stop at the state line? You could take in all the folks in New England and in fact you could take in 260 million people in the United States. Now you might say to me, I'm not sure I can answer your question because I really don't know who my neighbor is. It's interesting that essentially that same conversation comes to us out of the pages of scripture. In Luke chapter 10, a young lawyer, a theologian, comes to question Jesus. He isn't really in earnest. In fact, what he wants to do is to increase his reputation as a scholar at the expense of a dull Galilean peasant.

4:10 He wants to sharpen his intellect on the razor strap of argument. And so he has the whole conversation mapped out in his notebook at home. He knows how he'll begin and then how Jesus will answer and then how he'll reply. And it's not long before, in his mind at least, he has Jesus in a kind of intellectual checkmate. And so he begins the conversation with one of the greatest questions that men and women have ever faced. Ten thousand philosophies lay strewn along its path. He said, teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life? I admire Jesus' restraint. Jesus doesn't say, oh, that's a stupid question. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? I mean, the nature of an inheritance is that you do nothing for it. Somebody gives it to you and then they die and then all you have to do is to receive it. But Jesus didn't say that. Instead, Jesus said, you know, you're a lawyer.

5:12 You know the Old Testament law. What do you think it teaches? And I think this man was deeply discouraged with Jesus' response. I mean, here he had come hoping for theological dialogue. And Jesus was treating him like Ned in the first reader. I mean, just about anyone who grew up in the midst of the people of God knew the answer to that question. And so he blurted out the reply, You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said that's a good answer you keep doing that and you'll live and suddenly this lawyer recognized that he had sprung his own trap he was like a schoolboy who had been allowed to make up his own examination and then he had proceeded to flunk it he didn't have any problem with the first part of the exam I mean everybody in town knew how religious he was It was that second part that got under his skin.

6:12 And about that he was not quite so sure. And so seeking to justify himself, the text says, he said, well, who is my neighbor? He wanted a definition of terms. We can empathize with that, can't we? How many times do we come face to face with a clear requirement of scripture? But instead of obeying it, what we do is get a discussion group started. Because if we can talk about it long enough in just the right way, instead of bending our lives to fit the scriptures, we can turn the scriptures a bit to fit our lives. And it was in that spirit he asked the question, who is my neighbor? When Jesus answered the question, he doesn't give him a long theological discourse.

7:12 He doesn't even tell him that there are several Greek words for love. Instead he just told him a story. It's one of those stories that lies like a booby trap on the pages of the New Testament. You pick it up and it seems almost like a child's toy. You've seen it so many times before. But then it has a way of exploding and burying its shrapnel inside your soul. He told them the story of the Good Samaritan. The story of a man going from Jerusalem to Jericho, set upon by muggers. They stripped him, robbed him, beat him up, left him half dead by the side of the road. The story of a priest and a Levite who came past and saw the man and passed by him. of a Samaritan who stopped and lent a hand. And at the end of the story, Jesus said of these three, the priest, the Levite, the Samaritan, who was neighbor.

8:14 This man, not even wanted to talk about Samaritans, said the one who showed mercy on him. And Jesus said, go, keep on doing likewise. Now from that very familiar story, Jesus gets the answer to the question, who is my neighbor? But it's important to realize that in answering the question, Jesus took this man out of his world, his world of theory, his world of theology, and took him into another world, a world known to ambulance drivers and police sergeants and people who work in the emergency rooms of hospitals. And it was in that world that he found the answer to the question, who is my neighbor? If we are going to get the answer, then it seems to me one thing is important, and that is that we have the right point of view.

9:05 It was Helmut Thielecke, the German theologian, who said that in studying these stories of Jesus, the viewpoint is everything. And then to illustrate what he meant, he told of a time when his son was just a babe in arms. He held the youngster up in front of a mirror, and the baby moved, the reflection moved, the baby waved, the reflection waved, and then suddenly the youngster's face lit up, and he realized that's me every so often that happens when you're reading the Bible I mean you pick it up and it's black print on a white page stories about the long ago and far away but every so often as you're reading the text the print seems to disappear on the page of the scripture you see a reflection of yourself so the question is who is my neighbor and the interpretive question is whose viewpoint will we take?

10:04 Well, one point of view we might take is the viewpoint of that man who had been beaten up by muggers and left to die by the side of the road. I can imagine us going to that man lying there in a pool of blood and saying, pardon me, sir, we're doing a kind of, well, theological survey And I wonder from your perspective down there by the side of the road, who would you say your neighbor was? I think if the man could have mumbled a reply, his answer would have been as wide as the world. Just about anybody coming down the road, anybody willing to stop, anybody willing to lend a hand would qualify completely. That's the way it is, isn't it? You and I are driving down the road and our car makes strange noises and then comes rolling to a stop. And we don't have the tools or the skill to get the thing fixed.

11:04 Just about anybody coming down the road, anybody willing to stop and lend a hand, qualifies completely as a neighbor. It's when the other fellow's car has come to a stop and we're doing pretty well. We can sit behind the wheel and define neighbor with all of the preciseness of a shyster lawyer.

11:24 When our son, Torrey, was just a small boy, we were coming home from Sunday school and church, and I asked him what he had learned that morning. He told me that they had had the story of the Good Samaritan, and then he proceeded to give me a blow-by-blow description of what had taken place back in his unregenerate days, Torrey was on the side of the robbers. When he was all through, I said, son, I mean, what was the spiritual lesson of the story? It was obvious. I had taken him by surprise, and he thought for a minute, and he said, well, that story teaches that whenever I'm in trouble, you've got to help me. Well, it's not the complete answer. but from the viewpoint of that man by the side of the road. It is one way of looking at a neighbor.

12:18 But obviously the people who occupy center stage are a priest and a Levite. If the poor wretch by the side of the road were making a list of candidates for neighbor, the priest and Levite would have been at the top of the list. Tradition says that before they left their home in the morning, they quoted those two great verses of Scripture. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself. Well, who then would better qualify as neighbor than the folks who knew the verses? But Jesus said that the priest came down the road and he saw the man and passed by on the other side.

13:02 It's hard to understand how that could happen. how one human being could see another human being in such desperate need and do absolutely nothing to help him. Certainly doesn't sound like our kind of folks, not the people in our community. Sounds a lot like the folks who live down in New York City. Those folks who in Queens several years ago looked out of their window and saw a woman being beaten to death and didn't even bother to reach over and pick up the phone and call the police. But not our kind of folks. Not the people we know. But if you're thinking that, you're still outside the story. Because I'm sure that that priest had some good sound reasons, or reasons that sounded good for doing what he did.

13:59 Since he was a religious type, I'm sure they were religious reasons. back in the old testament the law said that if a priest touched a dead body he would become ceremonially defiled so i can imagine that priest saying to himself you know i'd really like the help but it'd be just my luck to have him die in my arms and then i'd have to go through all of the rites of cleansing and it's an expensive sacrifice you have to offer and besides that people might ask questions about what I'm being cleansed from. I mean, the whole thing could hurt my testimony. Again, I don't know that he thought that way, but I do know that whether he thought that way or not, we sometimes do. There has been in the Church of Jesus Christ a doctrine which has been labeled a doctrine of separation. The way that thing spells itself out is something like this.

14:57 we are called by God to live a holy life there are things that we cannot do places we ought not go activities in which we ought not engage and there are people out there in the society who do those things and say those things and go to those places and so in the name of holiness we withdraw from the people on the Jericho road who need our help.

15:31 Second man down the road was the Levite. If the priest was like the pastor at the temple, then the Levite was like the assistant pastor. He took care of the scrolls, sort of kept the operation going from time to time, did ministry. But Jesus says that he too came and saw the man. He too passed by on the other side. So you've got to wonder what went through his head. Maybe he thought, well, like a priest like Levi. I mean, if he didn't have time to stop, I'm busy, and he is, I don't have time. Or perhaps he thought, you know, I'm on my way up to Jerusalem, going to give my lecture on neighbor love. There's several hundred people up there waiting to hear what I have to say. And what I'll do is I'll jot this man down on a three by five card, and I'll use him as an illustration. And I'll challenge the young people to start a Jericho Road Mission Society and come back here, get this thing organized, and, you know, we'll be able to have a whole mission to folks beating up on the Jericho Road.

16:34 Again, I don't know that he thought that way. I do know that whether he thought that way or not, we sometimes do. There is a kind of arithmetic that has been spawned in the counting rooms of hell. The kind of arithmetic that's always interested in reaching the masses, but somehow never gets down to a man or a woman. The kind of arithmetic that is always talking about winning the world for God, but really doesn't think much about winning a neighborhood for God. The kind of arithmetic that somehow makes it valiant to cross oceans, but never really crosses streets. The third man down the road was a Samaritan. If the priest and the Levite were at the top of the list of candidates for a neighbor, then the Samaritan was at the bottom of the list.

17:34 The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other with a deep, long-standing hatred. In fact, whenever a Jew talked about a Samaritan, he called him a dog. Everybody knew exactly who was meant. And yet Jesus said that when the Samaritan came down the road, he saw the man. He was filled with pity, got down on the side of the dirt road, cleansed the wounds, bandaged them up, took the man, put him on his donkey, brought him to the hotel, sat up with him through the night, paid the room rent, and then promised that if anything else was needed, he'd pay for it. When Jesus was through it, the story said, which of these three do you think was neighbor to this man who was beaten up by thugs? The two who knew the theology?

18:29 Well, the one who stopped to help. And the lawyer, not willing to take the name Samaritan on his lips, said, well, I guess the one who showed mercy. And Jesus said, go. Keep on doing likewise. From that story, we get the answer to the question, who is my neighbor? The answer is as simple as it is sublime.

18:58 Jesus is saying that your neighbor is anyone whose need you see, whose need you're in a position to meet. it's as simple and as sublime as that your neighbor is anyone whose need you see whose need God has put you in a position to meet there's some things that we put into neighbor that Jesus obviously excludes your neighbor for example may be somebody who is unknown there's no evidence that this Jew or Samaritan ever met each other before And one of the marks of the love of Jesus Christ and his people is that they have gone to other cultures and other countries to reach people that they did not know but whose needs they were aware of. Your neighbor may be unfriendly.

19:54 The Jews and the Samaritans were deep and long-standing enemies. You may find your neighbor, somebody that rubs you raw. doesn't appreciate what you do for them, slams the door in your face when you try to visit. Neighbors sometimes can be very unfriendly. Your neighbor may be unlovely. There's nothing particularly attractive about a man lying in a pool of blood by the side of a dirt road. And you may have a neighbor whose lifestyle you don't approve of, whose hairstyle you don't like who is a whole way of operating turned your thermostat down your neighbor may be unrewarding there's no evidence that that jew was ever able to pay the samaritan back for what he'd done Sometimes in our churches, and I admit this to my own shame, we reach out to people not because of what we can do for them but because of what they can do for us.

21:13 Statistics are a bit low. The budget's a bit heavy, so we need to get some more folks in to make the operation look good. very possible to reach out to people because they benefit us, not because we benefit them. But Jesus is saying that your neighbor is anyone whose need you see, whose need God has put you in a position to meet. And buried in the story there is some indication of what it might take to be a neighbor. One thing it takes is willingness to be involved. You have to stop. You have to lend a hand. You have to give time. Like most of you, I live a hectic, hurried, somewhat harassed life. The hardest thing to give to people is time.

22:07 You've got to stop. You've got to get involved. And it also costs money. This Samaritan laid out two silver coins, two denarii. One denarius was equal to one day's wage for a manual laborer. He put two of them on the counter and then became surety for anything else that was left. He gave his money, he gave his time, he got involved with somebody that was unknown, somebody that was unfriendly, somebody that was unloving, somebody that was unrewarding. Because your neighbor is anyone whose need you see. who's need guide has put you in a position to meet. But there's a hook in that, isn't there? Saying your neighbor is anyone whose need you see, whose need you're able to meet. It's in that little phrase, your neighbor is anyone whose need you see.

23:03 Because it's clear as you read the text that all three of these men saw the same thing. In fact, it is the same phrase. A priest happened to be going down the same road. and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. And so to a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came to where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

23:31 All three of these men saw a stranger who had been mugged, but in a sense, they really didn't see the same thing, did they? One man may have seen a ceremonial defilement Another may have seen a sermon illustration. Only the Samaritan saw his neighbor.

23:52 Because buried beneath this story, there is a deeper truth, and that is this. That what I am determines what I see. That's just the principle of life. What I am determines what I see. You and I go to an art museum. You know and appreciate art. I'm something of a clod. We're walking down the corridors, and you said to me, Robinson, you see that picture? Now that's art.

24:26 I look at the picture and say, that's art? Same picture. The difference isn't what's hanging up on the wall. The difference is here inside. What you are determines what you see. when I was a kid growing up in New York City I got into Sunday school and when I was in Sunday school I got waylaid into memorizing Bible verses and I had to memorize some of those nasty little verses over in 1 John you know those verses that say if a Man says he loves God and loves not his brother. He's a liar. Because if you haven't loved your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you've not seen? I memorized it, but I thought the whole thing was a bunch of pious nonsense.

25:21 I mean, it was ridiculous. I could see absolutely no relationship between loving God and loving my brother or my neighbor. I mean, my brother, my cousin, my neighbor. We had personality conflicts. He'd talk about me behind my back. He'd turn the radio out loud when I was trying to study. He's always in my way. I couldn't see any relationship between loving him, loving God. I didn't have any trouble loving God. I mean, God was always working my side of the street. He was always kind, always good, always gracious. God, that was one thing. my brother, my neighbor, that was another. The time passed, I discovered that John was on to something. I discovered that in the scripture, Christian love is not objective. Christian love is subjective. Christian love does not reside in the person out there being loved. It resides in the person here doing the loving. I discovered, for example, that my basic premise was wrong, that it is not such a simple thing to love God. I learned that by nature the heart is a rebel and that men and women no more search for God than a thief searches for a policeman. And the only way I am able to love God is that the love of God himself is shed abroad in my heart through the Holy Spirit. What the New Testament is saying is that that same love that enables me to love the Father in heaven enables me to love my brother and my neighbor on earth. It's a kind of pious nonsense to talk about loving God whom you've not seen if you don't love your brother whom you do see. You see, that lawyer thought he had God in his pocket. But when he answered as he did, Jesus was raising two questions with him.

27:28 One of the things he was saying is it's evident if you're trying to define your neighbor out of your life, you don't know much about neighbor love. But you've also told me something else. You don't know much about loving God either. because the same love that enables you to love the Father in heaven enables you to love your brother.

27:53 What you are determines what you see and then what you see will determine what you do. That's just a fact of life. Remember that poem we learned when we were children? How did it go? Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been? Been to London to see the Queen. Pussycat, pussycat, what saw you there? I saw a wee mouse sitting under her chair.

28:27 Of all of the cities that I've ever visited, I think that London is probably the greatest. there's the Tower of London with the blood of history soaking its bricks there's the Westminster Abbey cradling its historic dead there's the Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard and the residence of the queen here's a cat who's been there and now she's back home and she's showing her slides everybody is gathered to hear about the trip Somebody says, Pussycat, did you get to the palace? Oh, yes, I was in the palace.

29:10 Pussycat, did you get inside? Oh, yes, I just walk right in. Security isn't very good at the palace these days. Well, Pussycat was the queen there. Oh, yes, the queen was there. Did you see her? Oh, yes, she was there. Pussycat, what does she look like? I mean, how is she dressed? How does she wear her hair? Is she tall? Is she short? The cat says, well, I really didn't notice. Oh, pussycat, what did you see there in the palace in the presence of the queen? And the cat said, well, underneath her chair was one of the nicest little mice you would ever want to see. Why? Because she had a pussycat heart. When you've got the heart of a pussycat, mice are infinitely more important than queens. What you are determines what you see.

30:09 What you see determines what you do. Well, let me quit where I began. The question is, do you love God? Oh, I appreciate that. I appreciate that testimony. I really appreciate you standing up and telling us about your love for God. Well, that leads us to the second question.

30:38 Do you love your neighbor? Because it is, indeed, a kind of pious nonsense to prattle on about how much we love God whom we've not seen when we're blind to our neighbors whose needs we can see. My neighbor is anyone whose need I see, whose need God has put me in a position to meet.

31:13 It's as simple.