The Man in the Ditch A Sermon

The Man in the Ditch
Amos 7:7-17/ Colossians 1: 1-14/ Luke 10: 25-37
6th Sunday of Pentecost/ Year C / July 11, 2010

I’ve heard, and told, this lectionary passage from the perspective of the Samaritan. I’ve heard, and told it, from the viewpoint of the priest and the Levite. I’ve heard, and told it, from the perspective of the crowd listening in on the conversation between Jesus and the lawyer. I’ve heard it, but never told it, from the perspective of the lawyer.
When I was 9 we heard this story during Bible School and we acted it out. Different people were chosen to play each part. I was chosen to play the part of the man left for dead on the side of the road. The robbers were played by several boys that I did not get along with very well in our group. They tended to be bullies and liked nothing better than to beat on kids who were smaller than they were. Type casting was alive and well in our church groups.
Those boys played their parts well, really beating and hitting me, one even tore my shirt and laughed about it. The teacher thought they were playing, when in reality they relished the idea of beating me up. I was left laying on the floor in the gym bruised and battered. Each character came along according to the story. When the person playing the Samaritan, the Funeral Home director’s daughter, came up to me she first looked at me with disdain, but then realized that I was really hurt. She kneeled down and helped me sit up. She then told the teacher what had happened. She went and got a wash cloth to clean the blood from the corner of my mouth where the boys had hit me and a bag of ice for the lump on my head where they had banged my head on the floor. I was almost in tears. She yelled at the boys and helped me get up and into a chair. She sat next me making sure that I was ok. The teacher then turned on the group of boys and made them apologize for hurting me.
Then she asked me how I felt being treated that way. At the age of 9 I wasn’t sure what to say other than I thought it was mean an terrible what the boys did to me. She then asked me how I thought the man in the ditch might have felt as each person came by, looked crossed to the other side of the road and went on. I said that I thought maybe he hoped at least someone would come and help and when they didn’t he probably just lay there wishing he were dead.
That experience still haunts me even to this day. This story
became real for me in how we build walls and barriers, use bullying tactics and behaviors to hurt people who are small, different, lost, alone. For me this story is a re-run of the old, disgraceful human story; all of us, even the rankest outsiders, feel better about ourselves if we can keep someone else further outside that we are. Whether it’s the last ethnic group kept out of the fire department, or police department; the it’s the woman who is harassed by the men in the office because she works hardest to prove herself, or the gay man who hides his true self in order to save his job, his home, his life. There is always someone we leave in the ditch as we make our way up the ladder the world sets before us.

But what still intrigues me is the traveler found half-dead in the ditch. Other than having the snot beat out of him, we aren’t told much about him, are we? He probably was a Jew, but he could just have easily been a Samaritan, a Roman, an Edomite, anybody. I doubt if the robbers back then were any more discriminating in choosing victims than they are today. Though he probably may have been wealthy, you can get mugged for 10 bucks as you can a thousand. Amy Jill Levine in her book The Misunderstood Jew, makes the case that this parable can only be understood by putting ourselves in the place of the man in the ditch and then ask ourselves the question: “Is there anyone, from any group, about whom we would rather die than acknowledge as someone capable of good? “She offered help.” Or he showed compassion.” Or is there any group who members might rather die than help us? If so then we know the modern day equivalent of the Samaritan. Was he good? (The title “good” is one that the church has added.) We are not told. We are only told he had compassion on the man, went to his aid, helped him to safety, provided for his care and left. Who then is the one who proved neighbor? Who is the one who loved God with heart and soul and mind and strength and so loved the neighbor as the self? The Lawyer in the story could not answer. For in answering the Samaritan, he convicted himself. (Samaritans were enemies of the Jews.) So who are our Samaritans?
Levine, a Jew, sees the Samaritan, as a member of Hamas. Someone who is an enemy, someone who is not like ourselves, someone on the outside looking in, someone with a different skin color, or ethnicity or religion, some whose sexuality is different . Who then is the Samaritan, the Samaritan is not the one who is different for our human labels have no place in the world God calls us to inhabit. God’s people are never to play “finders-keepers,” nor are they to see themselves as being more deserving or better than anyone else. When it comes to the kindness of strangers, we tend to get what we expect. If we’re kind and helpful to people we don’t know or who are in trouble, in every circumstance, then we’re more likely to see that kindness returned. Even if we don’t receive reciprocal care and help, we know that God has called us to love the stranger regardless. That’s what it means to be God’s people.
The real Samaitan is the one who puts God and humanity first, recognizing the worth and dignity of the individual as a God given gift that is to be cared for and respected. For in that is the fulfillment of the law. It by doing that, Jesus says, that one gains eternal life.

But what happened to the man in the ditch after he was all better, after he was back on his feet, after he went home and told the family and neighbors what had happened to him? Was he changed, was he transformed? Was he no longer prejudiced towards Samaritans, Romans, whoever? Did he become a better person, more generous, more holy? We don’t know, do we? Which is true with so many parables Jesus tells us, so many of the encounters he has with people. Go and do likewise, he says. Did anyone Jesus said that sort of thing really go and do?

One of my favorite illustrations from the marvelous TV show The West Wing had to do with young Josh Lyman dealing with the emotional/spiritual (?) aftereffects of being shot. His boss, Leo McGarry, wants to help him and so Leo tells Josh the following story:

A guy was walking along the street and fell into a hole. He tried climbing out but couldn’t get up the sides, the walls are so steep. A doctor walks by and the fellow yells up, “Hey, Doc. I’m down here in this hole. Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription and throws it down to him. Later, a priest walks by and the fellow hollers, ‘Hey, Father, can you give me a hand?’ But the priest just writes out a prayer and tosses it down to him. Later, a friend walks by, and the guy hollers up, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me; can you help me out?” The friend jumps in. The guy looks at him, “Are you crazy? Now, we’re both down here!” The friend says, “Yeah. But I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.”

More and more, I see this as a story, not about the generosity of the Samaritan, or how he was changed or transformed. And I don’t think it is a jab at the strict adherents to the Law. I think it is the story about the guy half-dead in the ditch. And the reason that this despised, rejected, hated Samaritan could help him is that he had been down in the ditch himself, and he knew the way out.

And because Jesus was willing to become despised and rejected for our sakes, because he was willing to be thrown into death’s ditch, only for God to provide a way out, then he is telling us that when the time comes, when we find ourselves lying in the ditch, when we are half-dead, when all the experts, the lawyers, the doctors, the priests can’t help us, then he will come along and show us the way out.

He will pick us up and carry us to the place where we can be mended and made well.