sermon art: Good Samaritan by Thomas Bertrum Poole
Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on July 13, 2025
[sermon begins after the Bible reading]
Luke 10:25-37 An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall 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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29 But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
[sermon begins]
Baptizing a baby can be simultaneously sweet and powerful. The little one is held over the font, they blink their eyes at me and look at their parents and back at me as they’re baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Sometimes, though, the baby is in a mood and things are less than easy. I tell the parents ahead of time that we’re just going to keep going no matter what because God accepts us no matter what. It’s also true that the more antsy a baby gets, the more antsy the parents get and there’s nothing that’s going to shut that cycle down in front of a bunch of people. Keeping it moving gets the baby back into the parents’ arms to be soothed. When adults or older kids are baptized, it’s powerful in a different way but it also goes pretty smoothly as water is poured over the top of their heads while they look down into the water that claims them. Toddlers and preschoolers are a whole other story. There’s just no explaining to a three-year-old how this is going to come down. It takes time ahead of the baptism to gain their trust, show them how to stand on the stool, look down into the bowl, and let water move over their head in this new way. It takes being calm with these wide-eyed kiddos and letting their sense of self lead them through the water part.
While baptizing people of all ages looks slightly different, God’s promises in baptism remain the same—to always be present, to always take us back, to invite us into lives that are ever more Christ-shaped, and to keep these promises forever. I go over those promises when I meet with parents or youth and adults being baptized. It’s good for folks to know that God’s promises are the focus of our baptism, not our less than perfect intentions that we call promises or our hesitant faith that we’re not sure would hold up to scrutiny. The promise of God’s invitation into lives that are ever more Christ-shaped is where Jesus’ parable of the Samaritan takes us.
About 1,000 years before Jesus was born, Samaritans were part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel that split from Judea. A few hundred years later, Samaria was conquered by the Assyrian Empire and the Samaritans identity was shifted by intermarriage. They remained similar to the Jews of Judea in the Southern Kingdom but Samaritans and Jews had different temples, Bibles, and claims and attachment to Abraham.[1] The Jews and Samaritans are analogous to the differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims or, closer to home, like ELCA Lutheran Christians and American Evangelicals. Jesus tells the story of the Samaritan, reimagining an existing ethnic division. We’re often most hostile to those with whom we’re closest. Maybe because we think they should know better or perhaps because we think we know better from our perceived self-righteous high ground. Jesus does one of the things that Jesus does best and reframes the high ground in a ditch on the side of the road.
In the story, it’s the Samaritan who saw the naked, beaten, half-dead man on the side of the road and was “moved with pity.” This word “pity” is from a Greek word that is also translated as compassion elsewhere in Luke. Luke uses this word only three times in the Gospel.[2] In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke it’s used 12 times and used specifically to either describe Jesus’ compassion or used by Jesus in parables to describe a major characters’ response.[3] This translation gem gets a shout out because this kind of compassion is quite specific when it shows up in the gospels. More than a moral claim, it’s a divine claim.
In our tradition, we understand humans to be created in the image of God.[4] Imago Dei. Our humanity is imprinted by God. One of the reasons we worship weekly is to remind ourselves of what we are and to whom we belong. We are forgetful people . When we are reminded of what we are in the story of the Samaritan, we hear the parable in its rightful place. Not as a moral action, rather as a divine reaction inspiring us across the road like the Samaritan. Jesus never calls him “good.” It’s divine compassion that shines through and is good.
Our bodies are created by divine compassion for divine compassion. When we act compassionately, endorphins are released in our brains which feel amazing. When we act compassionately, the hormone oxytocin is also released. Oxytocin reduces inflammation in our hearts and circulatory systems.[5] Also amazing.
Additionally, compassion is contagious. Social scientists have found that there’s a ripple effect. If you are kind and compassionate, your friends, your friends’ friends, and your friends’ friends’ friends have a greater inclination towards compassion. Our bodies’ systems are wired to react positively to compassion and our community systems are wired to react positively to compassion. This is one of those moments when faith and science come together like the thumb and index finger – between them we can grasp so much. Experiencing compassion ourselves inspires us to cross the road in compassion. Even witnessing acts of compassion prepares us to cross the road in compassion – especially across difference as the Samaritan did. Inspiring us to the compassion that is also in us as the image of God empowered by our baptism into the death and life of Jesus, making our lives ever more Christ-shaped.
In the parable, Jesus reveals the compassion of the neighbor, the compassion that Jesus first and foremost reveals in himself as his own compassion is stirred by the people around him and ultimately his own compassion poured out at the cross. Jesus’ compassion that is highlighted by Luke in Jesus himself and in the parables about Jesus is compassion stirred by death. Compassion stirred by the death of the widow of Nain’s son in chapter 7, by the man left half-dead at the side of the road in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and by the prodigal son showing up after he was assumed dead. In each of these instances, the compassion of Jesus transforms the ones who are dead, half-dead, or assumed dead. We could say that the compassion of Jesus, the deathless one, draws him toward death because there is nothing left to fear.
The lawyer questioning Jesus gives the right answer about the law, the Torah – love God and love neighbor as self. These are the main things, and Jesus agrees with him. The parable of the Good Samaritan highlights the main things in a way that speaks to us because we’ve hesitated like the priest and the Levite when confronted by difference and need. Perhaps the hesitation to cross the road makes sense to us. Maybe we know deep down who we would not want to help or who we wouldn’t want help from.[6] If we received help from someone we oppose, what would that mean about ourselves and our shared humanity. This isn’t theoretical or only in the distant past. American prisons and ICE detention centers incubate more violence not less. The United States is 5th in the world for incarceration rates behind El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan.[7] Yet we know that isolation, poverty, addiction, and violence breed more violence, and we can’t seem to stop ourselves. Perhaps divine compassion can inspire us beyond our moral failures to cross that road and help our Hispanic neighbors out of the ditch of our own making.
Remember that the compassion extended by Jesus includes you too. It can be difficult to see love of God, neighbor, and self as simultaneous. We’re tempted to say that we have to love ourselves before we can love our neighbor. Or we have to love God before we can rightly understand love of self. The actual experience is messier – more like football than baseball. A lot is happening at one time in Christ-shaped lives.
Crossing the road in compassion breaks the cycle of shame, judgment, and violence that we inflict on ourselves and other people just as human as we are. However divine compassion comes to you and through you, for today, know that the savior who claims us in the waters of baptism crosses the road into whatever ditch you currently find yourself in, pulls you out, tends your wounds, and reminds you who you are and to whom you belong, along with your neighbor. Alleluia and amen.
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[1] Matt Skinner, Profession of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast for scripture readings for July 13, 2025. Working Preacher’s Sermon Brainwave: #1032: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – July 13, 2025
[2] Luke 7:13 – Jesus was moved with compassion for the widow of Nain and her dead son; Luke 15:20 – the prodigal son’s father is moved with compassion when he see that his son has returned.
[3] Girardian Lectionary (Proper 10, Year C, Ordinary 15) on Luke 10:25-37, Exegetical Note #5 re Luke 10:33 (2013).
[4] Genesis 1:26-27
[5] The Book of Joy, 258.
[6] Skinner, ibid.