The Free Community Church is now officially registered as a church. You now have a meeting place that is reasonably respectable – an attic and at a theatre company’s venue nonetheless. Gone are the days when decisions were made by one or two people who ran the show. You now have a Council of about 10 people who lead this church. You are becoming just like any other church. As I contemplated what the Lord might want to say today, I think he wants to ask the question: “What kind of church will you become? What kind of congregation will you evolve into?” I want to share with you from the parable of the Good Samaritan. Please turn your Bibles with me to Luke 10:

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" 27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[3] ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' " 28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." 29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 30In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half-dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[5] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' 36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" 37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

There are four kinds of people in this passage and there are four kinds of churches that you can end up becoming.

Don’t Be The Robber

The first group of people you encounter in this passage are the robbers. They found an unsuspecting victim. They beat him up, stole his money and stripped him of his clothes. The clothes and his ability to speak are a mark of that man’s identity. But he was beaten so badly that he was unable to speak and he no longer had any clothes. More than just his money they had robbed him of his individuality and his identity.

I was with a friend this week. Let’s call him John. John’s partner had just dumped him. She packed up her stuff and moved out last weekend. John was shattered. But you know he was not so much shattered by the fact that his partner had left but by the fact that he could not figure out how God fit into this situation.

You see, John and his partner Tina came to see me a year ago. Their relationship was a mess. We met a few times and talked and prayed and then Tina decided to move out. But some weeks down the road Tina seemed to have a sudden change of mind. John called me and told me that he knew that he had been right all along. God had answered his prayers.
You see John belongs to a large church that teaches that you can receive anything you want if you have faith. When John and Tina were going through their troubles John just could not understand. He kept telling me that his pastor had thought that God will grant you anything provided you have faith. All you need is the faith of a mustard seed.

So when John came and told me that God had answered his prayers I was quite troubled. But I did not see it fit to tell him that I did not think God was in it. I have seen miracles performed by God. I have seen the sick healed. I have seen people getting jobs. But you know, I very rarely see an emotional miracle – where suddenly things all change for the better. But here before me John was trying to convince me that Tina had experienced an emotional miracle. I held my tongue.

And as expected Tina finally left. This time for real and she wasn’t going to come back. John was shattered. He said he did not understand. Where was God. He had exercised faith. Was his faith not even the size of a mustard seed?

I told John what I felt. I told him that I do believe in miracles. I do believe in the necessity of faith but I also told him that I had refused to attend his church because I did not believe his pastor was teaching him the whole counsel of God. I took him to Hebrews 11 – one of his favorite chapters. It is the chapter of the heroes of faith. The beginning of the chapter speaks of various people who believed God and got their wishes and promises fulfilled. I pointed out one verse to John – a verse he had never read before. A verse his church had never thought before, verse 39:

39These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

None of them received what had been promised. John did not receive either. And it was not his lack of faith. But his faith was now shattered. He has to re-think his theology of faith. From my perspective, his pastor by overemphasizing only one aspect of spirituality had robbed my friend John of true faith.

Another friend of mine – has long lost his faith. You see he too belonged to one of these fast growing churches. Each week he had to be accountable for how many people he witnessed to, how many people he led to Christ, how many people he discipled and how much he prayed. The church is growing fast. But everyone is a clone. My friend was stripped of his humanity and he eventually burnt out and left the church completely. The church of course goes on but they had robbed as least one person of his faith.

Let us not become a church of robbers. You know this morning as I stood at the back and watched Arthur lead us in prayer, I thought it was so bizarre. Here was a guy with a funky hairdo, sleeveless tank top and a square earring leading us in prayer. Even more bizarre was the fact that Arthur probably believes that the only way back to God is through Jesus. And he was leading a prayer with a congregation where some of the people here today believe that Jesus is just one of the many ways back to God. IT IS AMAZING! God is in this place.

It is only as we embrace our differences and be willing to listen and learn from each other that we can grow in the whole counsel of God. It is as we accept our differences and live in that tension that God is able to truly speak and the manifold truths of the God’s counsel can surface. At the United Nations BG George Yeo, Singapore’s foreign minister recently said:

“If any party believes it has a monopoly of truth, that is the beginning of evil”

I say it again because it is important to hear:

“If any party believes it has a monopoly of truth, that is the beginning of evil”

He goes on to say:

“On matters of religious belief, for example, no one should expect convergence. Our disagreements over issues like the death penalty, abortion, the nature of democracy, gay rights, animal rights and therapeutic cloning are in a sense inevitable and necessary. What we need profoundly is a respect for the plurality of the world…we must not only accept diversity, we should encourage it. Indeed, like biological diversity, it is essential for human progress that there should be cultural and political diversity in the world. Without diversity our ability to respond to new challenges will be weakened…no one should force his views on others…What we need instead is an environment which encourages mutual learning and healthy competition. For this we need to respect one another.”

This will not be easy. I recall a sermon I once read by a preacher called Wang Ming Dao. He was a famous Chinese preacher who was imprisoned for over 27 years by the Communist. He once preached on David'’ battle with Goliath and noted that David took five smooth stones for his sling. Wang Ming Dao asked the question: How do you think the stones became smooth?

By years and years of knocking against other stones of course. And that will happen in this church, that as we come together with our different perspectives and we keep knocking each other, keep irritating each other, keep challenging each other, we become smooth stones fit for the use in sling of God against the enemies of love. And out of the crucible of our differences will emerge the whole counsel of God. Out of the crucible of our differences will emerge a church that enhances each person’s humanity rather than destroy it in a misguided attempt to produce spiritual clones. It will be challenging. It will be difficult but it is the only way not to become a church of life robbers.

Don’t Be The Priest

The text says that a priest passed by the unconscious man but did not stop to help. Many of you reading the text would have very little sympathy for the priest. But I really do feel for him. He is a man in conflict. He is actually trying his very best to do good and obey God. But he is caught in a terrible bind. A bind that many Christians are caught in today.

The priest in the time of Jesus belonged to an elite class of people. They generally tended to be well off and served in the temple regularly usually for about two week periods of time. This particular priest had probably completed his two week stint and was on his way back. He was probably riding a mule or a donkey since he tended to be from the upper class.

The priest had to keep ritually clean at all times. A part of the temple food offering are given to him and his family as food. He can only eat this offering if he remains in a clean state. The dilemma that the priest is that he is a slave of his theological system. He is in a state of conflict.

For one, because the victim is unconscious – indeed half dead – he can’t speak. There is no way the priest can know if he is a good man or a sinner. He is bound by the teaching of his law. In Sirach 12:1-7 it states:

If you do a good turn, know for whom you are doing it and your good deeds will not go to waste. Do good to a devout man and you will receive a reward if not from him then certainly from the Most High…Give to a devout man, Do not go to the help of a sinner. Do good to a humble man, give nothing to a godless one. Refuse him bread, do not give him any, it might make him stronger that you are then you would be repaid evil twice over for all the good you had done him. For the Most High himself detest sinners, and will repay the wicked with a vengeance. Give to the good man and do not go to the help of a sinner.

This teaching in effect implies that to help a sinner is to effectively go against God.

To add to this because the victim has been stripped, there is no way of identifying the race of the victim. Was he a Jew, was he Gentile, was he Samaritan. There just was no way of knowing. A particular midrash on the Bible teaches that:

…if a gentile is in any danger of death, we are not bound to deliver them e.g. if any of them fall into the sea you shall not need to take them out: for it is said, “Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of your neighbor” but a gentile is not your neighbor.”

However the priest also has a commandment to help:

…if a man sees his fellow drowning, mauled by beasts or attacked by robbers, he is bound to save him.

How does he resolve this dilemma. For the priest, it was a technical argument. He did not see the man being beaten up. Thus he is released from the obligation to save and can give precedence to the other rules. Ludicrous? Perhaps. But just pause for a minute and consider how much Christians engage in theological debates of minutiae. I recall when I was about 21, I was so caught up with whether the rapture would be post or pre-tribulation. I would plough through book after book and engage in debates and discussions with my Christian classmates about this issue. Being a bit of a masochist I of course felt that rapture would be post-trib! Today I see all this discussion as a waste of time.

How many of you here, how many Christians spend countless hours discussing issues such as what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, what’s the difference between demonic oppression and demonic obsession and demonic possession, whether baptism by immersion or baptism by sprinkling are acceptable and yet we cannot see the broken body lying beside us.

But the priest had other problems too. You see the law stipulated a number of instances when he could become unclean. On top of this list was touching a dead body. And then the oral law added a few more to this list and on top of that list was touching a non-Jew. So the priest was confronted with a double whammy. He could not ascertain if the man was dead or alive – since under the law he could not come within four cubits of the victim. To add to that he could not know if the fellow was a Jew or non-Jew. If he did help and he did defile himself, then he and his family would not be able to eat the food of the offering. In a sense he was thinking about his family too when he made this decision.

You know, sometimes, we will have to inconvenience the very people we care for when we want to reach out and help others. How often have you and I refrained from helping because it was too inconvenient for us and perhaps even more so for our loved ones.

To add to this, some commentators believe that priests who become unclean were made to stand at the Eastern gate so as to shame them. Something like being made to stand in the corner so that everyone can see that you have been a naughty boy and did not care enough to keep yourself ritually clean. The priest who had just performed that temple services would have been seriously shamed had he become unclean.

The poor man was a slave of his theological system. He was a slave to his rules and regulations.

What kind of church will the Free Community Church become? Will you become a church that is enslaved by your rules and regulations? Will you become a church that is ensnared in your theological systems that you cannot see and perceive the suffering humanity of another being. I hope not.

You know in a very perverse way, the priest was actually fulfilling the law. He was loving his neighbor as himself. As a priest he would not have wanted someone else to lose their ritual purity as a result of him so as a result he chose not to risk losing his. That is the problem whenever we make a principle into a law – it leads to illogical and often dehumanizing results. May that never happen to the Free Community Church.

Don’t Be The Levite

The Levite was socially of a lower class than the priest. Unlike the priest he was not a professional clergy. He was also probably poorer and therefore could have been walking.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is about 17 miles long through the desert. It is difficult for us to picture that in tiny Singapore but what this means is that for long stretches of time, you can actually see very far ahead and you know who else is on the road. It is likely that the Levite saw the priest before him.

Now the Levite was actually slightly better than the priest. Partly because of his circumstances. For unlike the priest, the Levite had to remain ritually pure only during the worship service and not throughout. So the purity laws he had to obey was actually slightly laxer.

The Bible implies that the Levite actually came closer to the victim than did the priest. While the priest just passed by, the Levite came to the place and then passed by. So the question remains, why didn’t the Levite help the victim?

Again similar reasons to the priest but also he would have seen the priest pass by before. If the priest, his professional clergy and interpreter of the law did not see it fit or right to assist the victim, then surely the Levite who was lesser should follow the lead of the priest. Afterall who was he to challenge the priest’s actions – was not the priest a much more devout man?

You know one thing that worried me for quite a long time about the Free Community. When we first started out we kept getting people who said that this was not a proper church because we did not have a professional pastor. For me, who came from a Brethren denomination, the idea of the necessity of having a full time pastor to qualify you as a proper church was just quite ludicrous. But still we had many people who chose not to come here because we did not have a professional. Thankfully the Lord sent us a few speakers who are “professionals.”

But it bothers me. And it should bother you. Going back to my friend John. He was not a stupid fellow. He is quite an accomplished professional. And yet he just followed his pastor’s teaching blindly. Well who was he to question this man of God? This theologically trained expositor of God’s Word?

I wonder how many other Christians in reality do not truly have a personal faith but instead piggy back on the faith of their pastors and leaders. Such that if their pastors ever erred, their faith would be shattered. God calls you to work out your own salvation. He does not call you to be your pastor’s pet parrot. I hope that this church will never become a church of clones. I hope this church never becomes a congregation of clones – where you thinking and speech and life reflect that of your leaders. I hope you never become a church where all of you look like Jean your chairwoman – now that would be a rather scary thing wouldn’t it?

I once read a definition of disciple making that I thought was superb. The author said that to make disciples is help people become independently dependent on Jesus. I hope each of you and I hope this whole church will be a church that is independently dependent on Jesus. That while you will learn from one another, you will never uncritically accept whatever is dished out from the pulpit. That you will not become like that Levite that afternoon on the road to Jericho.

But there was potentially another consideration going through the Levite’s mind. As I said earlier it is quite possible that the Levite, unlike the priest was walking. Now what was he to do? Was he supposed to literally carry the man or was he supposed to sit down and wait? If he did the latter he would be endangering himself. To help was too risky.

You know there will be times when as a church you will have to stand up for what is right. Before you were registered, if we felt something was not right, we acted – always politely but we acted firmly. Will this church now because you are registered ever say one day that you fear your registration being revoked so you will not rock the boat even when a manifest injustice is happening? Will you cringe from speaking out for the down trodden because you want to be respectable? I hope not. Because that would be a sad day indeed.

Become The Samaritan Church

At this point Jesus hearers would have expected him to bring in another character and they would have expected a Jewish character but Jesus attempts a bold plot twist. He brings in a Samaritan. Jesus did a tremendously courageous thing. I don’t think we can appreciate how bold Jesus truly was.

To get a glimpse of how much the Jews detested the Samaritans, listen to the following:

In the wisdom of Ben Sirach it states:

There are two nations that my soul detests, the third is not even a nation at all: the inhabitants of Edom and the Philistines and the stupid Samaritans.

Similarly the Mishna declares: He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like one who eats the flesh of swine. To the Jew to receive food from the Samaritans was a bad as eating the flesh of a pig. One commentator notes that:

The Samaritans were publicly cursed in the synagogues; and a petition was daily offered up praying God that the Samaritans might not be partakers of eternal life.

Jesus was taking someone who was utterly despised and making him into a hero. Kenneth Bailey who spent twenty over years as a missionary in the Middle East said that he never ever dared to go to a Palestinian and tell the story of the good Samaritan replacing the Samaritan with the good Jew. Likewise he never would have done that with a Jewish audience. So great was the animosity. Jesus could have been lynched for what he did in this story because he was making the morally despised Samaritan into a being who was more superior in spirituality than the priest or the Levite.

Perhaps you do not realize it. But in Singapore today, in the Christian church, many of you are the equivalent of the Samaritan. You are viewed as unclean. It is better to have a meal with an unbeliever than it is to have a meal with you. You are unacceptable. You are a defilement. You are the new Samaritan. You are in luck. You are already despised! But the question is: Are you the good Samaritan?

The passage says that the Samaritan was moved with compassion. The Greek word is a very strong word. The word means your very insides your very internal organs are moved. It is a word of strong feeling. While the priest gave in to his logical theology, while the Levite gave in to his respect for authority, the Samaritan gave in to love and to compassion.

You know the Samaritan was not a gentile. He was considered a heretic – again like many of you but he was bound by the same cleanliness and purity rules as were his Jewish cousins. But the Samaritan in this story did not give in to the rule of law but submitted to the rule of love. And in God’s sight that made all the difference.

While the priest just passed by, while the Levite came to the place that the victim was, the Samaritan came to the victim. He came up close. He moved towards all the blood, the gore and the stench. He became involved. He too could have given in to his understanding of theology. He could have given in to his fear of being robbed. He could have given in to the excuse that he did not know the identity of this man – perhaps he was a Jew. But he didn’t. He got involved.

The passage says that the Samaritan bound up the wounds of the man and poured oil and wine on them. The sequence is a little strange. In fact it seems like Jesus got it wrong . You the sequence is:

1. Pour oil on the wounds to clean them
2. Disinfect the wound with oil
3. Bind the wounds

But Jesus had bind the wounds first and then the pouring of the oil and wine. A clue on why Jesus presented it this way can be found in the fact that oil and wine were elements that are used in worship and the word “pour” is from the language of sacrifice and worship. What is God saying here?

Hosea 6:6 says that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. Similarly in Micah 6:6-8 the word of God says:

With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

The priest had worshipped in the temple. The Levite had worshipped in the temple. But Jesus is saying that the only one who truly worshipped God that day was the Samaritan who first loved unconditionally – yes unconditionally because he could not know whether the victim was a Jew, a Samaritan or some Gentile. The imagery is beautiful, first the Samaritan binds the wounds of the victim as God binds our wounds as is often stated in the Old Testament. Then he pours wine and oil onto the altar of that broken man’s body. The priest and the Levite had come before altars of stone at the temple but the Samaritan worshipped God through acts of love at the altar of a broken humanity.

Not only did he love and worship upon the altar of a broken humanity. This Samaritan loved and worshipped potentially on the altar of enmity and hate. Firstly he could not have known the identity of the victim. Quite possibly the victim would have been a Jew. In other circumstances this Jew would in all likelihood have despised the Samaritan.

Secondly the Samaritan took a great risk. Let me explain. There is a part of me that understands the perverse “logic” of the Middle Eastern terrorist. You see ingrained in Middle Eastern culture is the idea of blood-revenge. The concept goes like this. If you harm someone I care for that I am going to get you. But if I can’t get you then I am going to get someone close to you. If I can’t get someone close to you then I will look for someone connected to you in some way no matter how remote and I will get him.

A commentator, WM Thompson says this:

It is one of the cruel features of the lex talionis that if the real murderer cannot be reached, the avengers of blood have a right to kill any other member of the murderer’s family, then any relation of the murderer, no matter how remote, and finally any member of this confederation…

It is for this reason that the terrorists are quite happy to just bomb non-military buildings. I had a friend who died in the Marriott bomb blast in Jakarta. It was tragic, he was about to leave the country for good and was having his final coffee in that country. But to the terrorist it made sense – he was a Westerner and therefore he was connected to the infidels who brought shame to the terrorists’ people.

Imagine for a moment, an American Indian, let’s say an Apache riding across the plains comes across a cowboy who has been severely beaten and scalped even. He takes this cowboy onto his horse and rides into the closest cowboy town. What do you think will happen to the kind Apache man the moment he enters the town? He is going to be lynched.

And here a despised and distrusted Samaritan takes a beaten up man who is probably Jewish into a Jewish village. He was taking a great risk. When was the last time you loved with a risky love? When was the last time you loved in a situation where you risked being maligned and slandered against? Where the good you choose to do is interpreted to be impure or even evil. When was the last time you loved someone who would not have accepted you?

You know I wonder if we truly worshipped God today. Our music is getting better. The standard of the sermons is getting better. Our communion liturgy is beautiful. We even now have a congregational prayer time. But I am not sure we worshipped God.

I sometimes volunteer at the anonymous HIV test site and on more than one occasion I have had to tell someone that he had been infected with the HIV virus. I remember each time I have had to do that vividly.

While preparing for this message, I had to inform one more person that he had been infected by HIV. And it was an occasion that the Lord used to show me that for all my beautiful words, for all my passion I was perhaps not much different from the priest or the Levite. You see that particular night as I was volunteering, a gay guy came into the room. He was quite good looking and seemed like a really nice fellow and he was very afraid. He was convinced that he had been infected by the virus. Listening to his story, it was obvious that he had done some rather stupid and dangerous things and I too had a sense that his chances were not good. So I tested him. Then the next person to come in was a straight guy. He was rather obnoxious – sounded like he was doing me a favor by coming to be tested. I did not like him at all. And I tested him.

While I met other clients that night, one of the senior volunteers – a delightful lady who is a mother of two grown up children - came into my room and told me that the results were out and I had a positive that night. My heart sank. I walked to the room where the results were kept and looked for the results of the gay guy. I turned around and told the senior volunteer, “But he’s negative.” She looked at me strangely. “No not the gay guy. The arrogant looking straight guy.” The tension in my body disappeared. I felt a little light and caught myself saying to myself: “Thank God it wasn’t the gay guy.”

In a flash, I sensed the Lord asking me:

My child, how are you any different from the priest or the Levite? You too worshipped me in church three days ago. You sang songs to me. You listened to my word. You made your offerings. And you prayed. But you, have in your heart, in a split second chosen to pass by the broken straight guy as he is about to languish in shock. How is your worship any different from that of the Levite or the priest?

Today as we gather here, when was the last time you and I reached out to worship God on the altar of a broken humanity? When was the last time you and I reached out to love someone who would potentially reject us and harm us for who we are?

The great worship we experience here is only true worship if it spurs you and I on to be Christians of the Good Samaritan. A church that constantly seeks to reach out to the broken and not only the broken but also the broken who would hate us and revile us. A church that would transcend our own cultural, racial, economic and sexual orientation boundaries. A church that sees the altar of God as being located where broken lives are and not where glitzy church buildings are.

Today and on each Sunday that you gather here, you have the opportunity to make the decision afresh. What kind of church will you be? A church that robs, a church that is entangled in its own theology and rules and regulations, a church that is keen to blend and follow the crowd or will you be a church that worships God through loving the broken lives that would even despise you?

I hope you will be the church of the Good Samaritan. You know the English Bible has Jesus telling the lawyer: Do this and you will live. And we take it to mean: Do this and you will have eternal life. However I am told that the Middle Eastern translations of the Bible has Jesus saying: Do this and you will be living. Go forth therefore this week and be living!