"Dangerous Unselfishness" by Rev. Jillian Hankamer, 3/9/2025
- Northminster Church
- Aug 12
- 5 min read
A sermon for Northminster Church
Luke 10: 25-37
Intro
-MLK’s final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”
-Delivered on April 13, 1968
-”not scheduled to speak at Mason Temple in Memphis. In town to help galvanize striking sanitation workers, Dr. King was asked at the last minute to speak at the church because a crowd of a few thousand people wanted to see him.”[1]
-Toward end of speech Dr. King references this morning’s parable saying Jesus pulls this question about eternal life “from mid-air, and place[s] it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho.”
-he and Mrs. King once rented a car and drove from Jerusalem to Jericho
-”It’s a winding, meandering road. It’s really conducive to ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200…feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you’re about 2200 feet below sea level. That’s a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the ‘Bloody Place.’
Lenten theme
-May seem odd to begin Lenten journey with Samaritan story rather than more traditional texts
-But we’ll be using Luke’s gospel as guide
-from Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem on Ash Wed through other well-known stories
-will see “how Jesus’ ministry [is] rooted in relationships that [disrupt] the established social, political, and religious divides of his time.
- The material we’re using, “Everything [In] Between” asks us to explore “polarities…and supposed binaries” such as stranger and neighbor
-The hope being we can look beyond binary, black and white, easy answers and “find that God is present in between…and might be meeting us beyond the categories we create.”
Exegesis
-return to Dr. King and use of Good Samaritan story in final speech
-visited Jericho Road in 1959
-“He saw its twists and felt its turns as it wound through hills and sank into a valley outside Jerusalem. Along the way there were so many potential hiding places for robbers to lie in wait, ready to ambush weary travelers.”[2]
-Road from Jericho to Jerusalem “about 17 miles long and rops over 3,000 feet in elevation in a steep decline. The route was a common commute, especially for priests and Levites who could not afford to live in Jerusalem and would be returning ho,e after a tript ot the Temple. Though common, the road was dangerous, often filled with bandits.”[3]
-King points out it’s entirely possible and reasonable that the priest and Levite are afraid
-afraid to stop and help the one “beaten and left in a ditch.”[4]
-King suggests that perhaps these men ask themselves, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”[5]
-Here’s what I find interesting
-adjective “good” isn’t found anywhere in the parable.
-Luke expects audience will know several details about Samaritans:
-worship the God of Abraham and read same scripture
-have temple on Mount Gerizim
-conflict with the Jews who believe God can only be rightly worshiped in the Jerusalem temple.
-Commentator Richard B. Vinson, “Jews and Samaritans [tend] to avoid each other…[and] groups of Jews and Samaritans had each acted violently toward each other in the past. But Luke [does] not think that Jews and Samaritans [are] automatically hostile, or that they [have] no commerce or communication between them.”[6]
-Point of fact, in this parable Jews and Samaritans are traveling the same road and find shelter at the same inn.
-Violence isn’t necessary for story to be arresting to Jesus’ audience
-after all, in Jim Crow south there wasn’t always violence between white and black folks but everyone understood the reality of lynching
-in Jim Crow south not everyone was automatically hostile but everyone knew their place
-in the Jim Crow south there was commerce and communication between white and black folks but it rarely skewed in black folks’ favor
-And in the Jim Crow south white and black folks might have worshiped the same God but they weren’t doing that worshiping together
-Which is why, as King points out, Samaritan’s reversal of other men’s question is powerful
-Samaritan asks, “‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”[7]
-As King calls it, “dangerous unselfishness.”[8]
Transition
-Another layer to King’s unpacking of this parable’s complexity
-In conversation with close confidant Andrew Young after Jericho Road visit:
“...Andy, I think the Good Samaritan is a great individual. I of course, like and respect the Good Samaritan…but I don’t want to be a Good Samaritan…I am tired of picking up people along the Jericho Road. I am tired of seeing people battered and bruised and bloody, injured and jumped on, along the Jericho Roads of life. This road is dangerous. I don’t want to pick up anyone else, along this Jericho road; I want to fix…the Jericho Road. I want to pave the Jericho Road, add street lights to the Jericho Road; make the Jericho Road safe (for passage) by everybody…”[9]
-Don’t know if King intended for these words to become public, but thankful for them
-shows great man’s humanity and frustration
-reinforces complexity of this story
-also “rebukes tidy delineations between us and them…”[10]
-not Good Samaritan vs. bad priest and Levite
-In fact, Samaritan’s mercy is risky, his unselfishness is dangerous
-The priest and Levite live out their humanity
-Characters we forget about:
-Innkeeper shows trust by taking “a small down payment [and] believing it the promise of more.”[11]
-Even legal expert at beginning of story is bold, “he instigates this whole thing by asking a testing question.”[12]
Conclusion
-Often lesson of story gets over simplified to don’t be like the selfish Levite and priest. Embrace the example of the Samaritan.
-But if we’re honest and candid, we can see ourselves in each of these characters
-As commentator Rev. Jeff Chu says so well,
“Some days, I covet vindication of my own goodness. Other days, I have only enough courage to scuttle down the road, afraid of what might lurk in the shadows. On my better days, I’ll meet others in good faith, believing their promises. On my best days, I’ll encounter the world mercifully, staying tenderhearted enough to be ‘moved with compassion,’ even on roads that fill others with fear.”[13]
-GN: While the goal, the gold standard, the best of us might be the dangerous selfishness Dr. King saw in this story Jesus “recognizes all…aspects of what it means to be human…[and he] extends us the same grace he offered the legal expert.”
-Said another way: Jesus doesn’t expect perfection but asks that we do all we can to remember and live out the truth that “to love is what it takes to truly live.”[14]
[1] Nikita Stewart, “‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,’ Dr. King’s Last Sermon Annotated, April 2, 2018.
[2] Rev. Jeff Chu, “Commentary on Luke 10: 25-37,” from Sanctified Art Everything In Between Sermon Planning Guide, pg. 7.
[3] Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Luke, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pg. 291.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Stewart, ibid.
[6] Richard B. Vinson, Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary Series: Luke, pg. 334.
[7] Chu, ibid.
[8] Ibid, pg. 8.
[9] John Hope Bryant, “Fixing the Jericho Road,” from Huffington Post, March 18, 2010.
[10] Chu, ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
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