How do you feel when you see this sign? You probably aren’t saying to yourself, “Oh, good! I get to take a detour.” Instead you might feel a little anxious because you’re not sure where this detour will take you. Or you might feel frustrated because you are pressed for time and this detour will mess up your schedule.
Today we’re going to talk about detours, the sort of detours that come up when you are traveling the highway of life. Some detours in life come at you, and you can’t choose to take your normal route—an illness, a layoff from your job, a spouse that walks out of a marriage.
There are other times in your life when you have a choice to get off your normal path and take a detour—a detour that can help someone. Are you the kind of person who will follow the sign that says “Take Your Usual Route” or “Detour Ahead?”
Our text for today is familiar, perhaps the best known of Jesus’ parables. The story, about a man who takes a detour to offer help to someone in need, is so well known that even folks who know nothing about the Bible know about The Good Samaritan.
Sometime during the Judean part of Jesus’ ministry, he encounters a person called a Nomikos or an “expert in the Law.” The people of that time respected these lawyers as community leaders and professional interpreters of the Law. They had at least three areas of professional duty. First, they explained the requirements of the Law or Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) to ordinary people. Secondly, they kept alive the memory of past leaders like the prophets. And thirdly, they trained others in knowledge of the law.
The expert called Jesus “teacher,” but he was trying to give the teacher a test. This properly schooled lawyer was testing the popular, but unofficial, teacher to see if he could expose to the crowd that Jesus couldn’t handle a tough theological question. Jesus gave the test back to the expert. “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” In other words, Jesus says, you’re the expert; don’t you know the answer?
The lawyer can’t resist the temptation to show off his theological sophistication. He answers: “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, Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
His answer shows a lot of insight. Jesus then reveals his authority over the man by essentially giving him a grade. He says in effect, “You’re right. You get an A+ for that answer.” But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He says “Do this and you will live.”
But the lawyer wasn’t finished. “Okay, smart guy, what’s your definition of neighbour.” The classic interpretation for “neighbour” by the Jews at that time meant “one who is near,” near in terms of race and religion. To the lawyer “love your neighbour” meant love those of your own race and religion, and you have fulfilled the law.
One of my favourite authors, Frederick Beuchner says this about the lawyer’s question. “He wanted a legal definition he could refer to in case the question of loving (a neighbour) ever happened to come up.  He presumably wanted something on the order of: ‘A neighbour (hereinafter referred to as the party of the first part) is to be construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within a radius of no more than three statute miles from one’s own legal residence unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter to be referred to as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part than one is oneself, in which case the party of the second part is to be construed as neighbour to the party of the first part and one is thereafter relieved of all responsibility of any sort or kind whatsoever.”
I am reminded of the story told about W.C. Fields who was found reading the Bible on his deathbed. When asked what he was doing, he said, “I’m looking for loopholes.” This is the key to understanding Jesus’ response. The problem with the man’s question was that he was trying to justify himself from not loving his neighbor, even though he knew it to be the second greatest commandment.
This isn’t just the lawyer’s problem. It’s our problem too. We often justify ourselves for not helping others. We tell ourselves that we can’t help someone because it’s too dangerous, too involved, too time-consuming or too costly.
Jesus then tells the famous story. One of the things scholars tell us about the story is that the opening scene is easily identified. Even into the 19th century the road between Jerusalem and Jericho was known to be dangerous.

Perhaps you have heard of the town of Telluride in southwestern Colorado, known for being a great resort and ski town. But it didn’t always have that reputation. Back in the wild west days, the road to Telluride was so full of robbers that the town got its name from the contraction “To Hell You Ride.” There is no surprise in hearing that there was a violent theft on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The surprise comes with the mention of an enemy.
Samaritans were despised by Jews. Some 700 years earlier Israel was invaded by Assyria. Assyria exiled tens of thousands of Israelite captives, and they resettled the area with people from other parts of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 17). The Jews that remained and the foreigners that moved in lived together, had children and became a new people. Their descendants were the Samaritans of Jesus’ time. Though Samaritans believed in the law, they worshipped at Mt. Gerizim rather than Jerusalem (John 4:20–22). They were considered to be half-breeds and heretics by the Jews. The racial and religious contempt between these two groups was intense and at times even violent.
But it is a Samaritan that is the hero of the story. He took a detour in order to help a neighbour in need. It was a Detour That Took A Risk.
When the Samaritan stopped to help, he knew he was on a dangerous road. He maybe even thought that the robbers might be near and that they might get him next. But the Good Samaritan didn’t use risk as a justification not to act. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “the first question the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But…the good Samaritan reversed the question: If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”
This was also a Detour That Took Personal Involvement. When the Samaritan sees the wounded man, he doesn’t go over to the other side of the road. Instead, he has compassion for him. He also pours oil and wine on the wounds. He wasn’t afraid to get personally involved.
The Samaritan didn’t wait for someone else. He didn’t just call 911. He didn’t just write a cheque. He got involved. He was moved with compassion toward action.
The third thing to notice is this was A Detour That Took Time. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, he tells of a fascinating experiment. “Some years ago two Princeton University psychologists, John Darley and Daniel Batson, decided to conduct a study at Princeton Seminary inspired by the biblical story of the Good Samaritan.
Darley and Batson met with a group of seminarians, individually, and asked each one to prepare a short, extemporaneous talk on a given biblical theme, then walk over to a nearby building to present it. Along the way to the presentation, each student ran into a man slumped in an alley, head down, eyes closed, coughing and groaning. The question was, who would stop and help? Darley and Batson introduced three variables into the experiment. First, before the experiment  started, they gave the students a questionnaire about why they had chosen to study theology.  Then they varied the subject of the theme the students were asked to talk about. Some were asked to speak on the relevance of the professional clergy to the religious vocation. Others were given the parable of the Good Samaritan. Finally, the instructions given by the experimenters to each student varied as well. In some of the cases, as he sent the students on their way, the experimenter would look at his watch and say, ‘Oh, you’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. We’d better get moving.’ In other cases, he would say, ‘It will be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head over now.’
If you ask people to predict which seminarians played the Good Samaritan their answers are highly consistent. They almost all say that the students who entered the ministry to help people and those reminded of the importance of compassion by having just read the parable of the Good Samaritan will be the most likely to stop. Most of us, I think, would agree with those conclusions. In fact, neither of those factors made any difference. The only thing that really mattered was whether the student was in a rush. Of the group that was, 10 percent stopped to help. Of the group who knew they had a few minutes to spare, 63 percent stopped. Helping will take time.
At the end of the story Jesus asks the lawyer who it was that had been a neighbour to the man in need. Did you notice that little twist? The question the lawyer had given Jesus was, “Who is my neighbour?” But Jesus says the more important question is this: What sort of neighbour are you?
Sometimes there is a risk in being a neighbour. More often there is the need for personal involvement. And just about always being a neighbour will take time. If we are going to be the church, it will begin by being a neighbour to those in need.