Sentences Without Commas
Luke 10: 25-37
Excuses.
You can find them everywhere. And some pretty good ones, too.
I like the one from the high school student who didn’t turn in his homework because he usually
did it in one hour over the weekend, but since daylight savings began and the clocks sprung forward, he
lost that hour.
There’s the one from the guy who wasn’t on time for work because he left his window open all
night and in the morning, it was too cold to get out of bed.
Or the driver who explained his auto accident by saying: an invisible car came out of nowhere,
hit me, and then vanished.
And the classic one from the person whose bills were late: The check is in the mail.
Now I hope none of you graduates ever used any of these – or will. No one will believe them
anyway!
But since I’m on the topic of excuses, I’d like to know what excuses the priest and the Levite in
this parable used.
Now let me give you the back story.
You see, there was this man walking from Jerusalem to Jericho. The distance was only twenty
miles, but since Jerusalem is 2300 feet above sea level and Jericho is 1300 feet below sea level, the road
drops 3600 feet in those twenty miles. It was a narrow road, too, with lots of twists and turns and well,
plenty of places for thieves to hide. It was likely the most dangerous journey in all of Judea.
And there comes this man – walking by himself – and he is beaten and robbed and left for half
dead on the side of the road.
And then a priest walks by, likely in his fine robes, with all the paraphernalia of his office. A man
of God to be sure. Well respected and admired and honored by the people.
And he sees this poor traveler. Well, he doesn’t just see him, he looks at him – he pays attention
to him. He might have even stopped to see just how badly he was hurt.
And after he did, he crossed to the other side of the road and kept on walking.
Maybe he felt pity for the man. Maybe he was concerned in his soul for his plight. Maybe he
even prayed that he would be all right.
But he was far too busy, far too occupied, far too concerned about whatever it was that he had
to do in Jericho to bother to do anything. To DO anything.
Now to give him his due, he was a priest. And if a priest touched someone who was bleeding, it
would defile him, make him unclean. He couldn’t do his priestly duties for seven full days. And people
were counting on him to fulfill his priestly duties. He just couldn’t risk that. Ceremony took priority over
compassion.
I guess that was his excuse - he had something more important to do.
You know, we can always find something more important to do. We all have priorities and
responsibilities and duties and jobs to do. Just wait until you get into college life or out in the real world
when you go to work. Everything will be grabbing for your attention.
And it will be so easy to excuse yourself from doing something that matters because you have
something else to do that matters. And making the choice really won’t be as easy as you may think I am
telling you it is. If you do one thing, something else might not get done; or not done in time; or not done
right. And you’ll have to find an excuse for that!
Life is tough.
But the advice I give you as you continue your journey after the cap and gown are put away is
this: Don’t be sentences without commas. A sentence with a comma runs straight toward the period,
without a single pause. Without stopping to think if maybe, just maybe, something is more important
than the thing you thought was most important. The road before you will have some version of a half
dead traveler. Many versions. And you will have to decide what to do. I hope your sentences will have
commas.
Now comes a Levite.
The Levites were related to the priests as well. They were like assistant priests, doing the
manual labor that the priests were not allowed to do.
So they had to stay clean and undefiled too.
But there is something else in this story that makes the Levite’s actions a bit different.
Apparently, he checked out the half dead man, but from a distance.
You see, these robbers who hung out on that road often disguised one of their own to look like a
victim. And when some traveler came by and checked things out, he would be ambushed.
So I suppose that when the Levite crossed to the other side of the road and walked on by, he
was playing it safe. Better to do that than to get involved.
To get involved.
Not easy to get involved, is it? We can find all sorts of excuses not to get involved, not to step up
and help, not to be a part of the solution and not the problem. And they are probably good excuses, too.
We might even call them valid reasons – and maybe they are!
But what kind of world will we have if we don’t get involved? What kind of society will we have
if we walk on by on the other side? What kind of life will you lead if you rely on the excuses, even valid
reasons, to leave something by the side of the road?
I know you will be busy – college classes for you high school grads, job responsibilities for you
new employees, and, eventually, families and a host of other things that will place legitimate demands
on your time.
And it will be easy to skip the comma and head straight toward the period. But I hope you
won’t. I hope that despite the cost of being involved, you will always allow a comma to get in.
And now we get to the Samaritan who was also walking on the road that fateful day.
Let me tell you something about the Samaritans. They were despised by the Jews. The Jews
regarded them as mutts, mongrels, half breeds (and I feel like I should have my mouth washed out with
soap after saying those words). Spiritually, they had the same disregard for them. Instead of
worshipping in the temple of Jerusalem, they had built their own temple for worship at Mount Gerizim.
The Jews wanted nothing to do with them at all.
It’s kind of surprising that this Samaritan was walking the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. They
rarely traveled into the land of the Jews for fear of the derision of the Jews. Maybe this Samaritan was
walking carefully, looking back over his shoulder, and not for robbers and thieves, but Jews.
His attitude was probably: let me get to where I am going quickly so no one sees me or knows I
am here.
Besides, knowing how he and his people were hated, why should he even bother with this poor
half-dead guy lying on the side of the road? Had the roles been reversed, the Jewish man never would
have bothered with the Samaritan.
And yet, he stopped. He tended to the man’s injuries. Even put the man on his own donkey and
took him to a nearby inn to be cared for. And paid for his care. He put a great big comma in his
sentence.
Was he crazy to put aside whatever else he had been planning to do? Was he crazy to get
involved? Was he crazy to overlook the basic hostility between his people and the Jews?
Was he crazy to even care?
Or did he just decide that helping another human being was worth a comma?
That that was what God wanted him to do.
You know, you will meet a lot of people in this world who will think you are crazy for caring.
Care anyway.
You will meet a lot of people in this world who will think you are crazy for getting involved.
Get involved anyway.
You will meet a lot of people in this world who think you are crazy for failing to put self first.
Fail to put self first anyway.
You will meet a lot of people in this world who think you are crazy for trying to make a
difference.
Try to make a difference anyway.
And you will meet a lot of people in this world who think you are crazy for actually taking God
and His will seriously.
Take God and His will seriously.
Well, you know what? It’s crazy people who make this world a better place in which to live.
People crazy enough to put a comma in the sentence of their lives and not rush right on to the
period.
Congratulations graduates. My prayer for you is that you will discover what God offers you in
this life; that you will find miracles where no one else saw them; and that you will place as many
commas in your sentences as you can.
Remember, the people who will call you crazy are the crazy ones!
Worship
June 12, 2016
Call: litany
Assurance: Litany
Children’s Message: Tool box
Prayer: Lord God of compassion, enable us to show compassion to our neighbors, and not just in
words but in deeds. Lord God of commitment, enable us to commit ourselves to the task of supporting
others, and not just in words but in deeds. Lord God of providence, enable us to provide for the needs of
others and not just in words but in deeds. And Lord God of love, enable us to love those whose paths
cross ours, and not just in words but in deeds. Blessing on grads. Needs, etc.
LORD’S PRAYER