For this months blog I would like to share from a sermon I preached on being the Parable of the Good Samaritan in giving part of my testimony of how God worked in my life to love internationals. I preached and shared the following as part of our IMI International Worship Service in May of 2023. With this being said, I have edited the sermon into a blog format.
49 Nations Attending IMI Church
In doing ministry here in Norway, I serve as the IMI International Pastor at IMI Church and what a blessing it has been to serve in this role! It is exciting to come together as a church of now forty-nine nations! 25% of the world’s nations are represented in this church! This is something that I believe is truly special and important for us at IMI to take a Sunday aside and not only celebrate this, but express our gratitude to God that we are a growing Multi-Ethnic Church. We may be of many different nations, but we are united as one as Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Amen.
I want to share from Luke 10:25-37 being the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I want us to read Luke’s record of Jesus’ interaction with an expert in religious law and dig deep into this story. My prayer is that you take away something new as you read this passage today.
25 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
31 By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.”
33 Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. 37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
Luke 10:25-37 NLT
I love how Jesus responds to the expert in religious law here in regards to the greatest commandment and then asking “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds to the question in a way I do not believe his audience was expecting him to answer the man’s question through the parable. Many of us know the parable of the Good Samaritan, but perhaps some of us do not understand the historical context of why this must have left the Jewish listeners aghast in why Jesus uses a Samaritan as the hero of the story. The historical context of this is found in the Old Testament when the Israelites and Judeans no longer followed the Lord their God and so God executes judgement in exiling them from the Promised Land as he said he would in covenant agreement between God and his people.
After the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC (it was divided into two kingdoms during this time), Assyrian colonists who moved into the Promised Land intermarried with the Israelites who were left there in Samaria; these inhabitants became known as Samaritans. Most of the Israelites were taken away into captivity, but the Israelites that were left in Samaria were all poor and were to tend to the land. For further context, Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, while Jerusalem served as the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah.
Then later in 586 BC the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon. It is in 538 BC when the Judean exiles begin to return to Jerusalem from Babylon and it is then when conflict arose between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Samaritans built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim and used their own version of the Pentateuch (Genesis – Deuteronomy) as their Scripture. Hatred between the two increased dramatically when the Jewish king John Hyrcanus attacked the Samaritans and destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim in roughly 128 BC. In this “context of mutual animosity, no first-century Jew would expect a despised Samaritan to help a wounded Jew. But in God’s Kingdom, a despised foreigner becomes a helping neighbor!” – NLT Illustrated Study Bible
As usual, Jesus went against the cultural norm where the command to love your neighbor as yourself becomes someone outside of Jewish nationality. A neighbor in Jewish context, was normally identified as a fellow Jew, not a foreigner. However, in Jesus’ context, a neighbor is not only a Jew, but also a foreigner. I can only imagine some of the shocked expressions on Jesus’ listeners faces when he gave this parable in stating that the neighbor was not the priest, nor the Temple assistant, but the despised Samaritan.
What I also really love about this passage as Jesus finishes the parable, Jesus asks the man a question after the man had asked Jesus a question, as I refer to this as a typical Jesus move. Jesus turns the question on him and ask of the three, who would you say was a neighbor to the man attacked by the bandits? To which the man replies, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.” Here is the thing…
God is not concerned about societies cultural norms, God is concerned about how we love and care for others regardless of societies cultural norms. Being a Christian means that we as Christ’s ambassadors have to be willing to be bold and step across societies cultural norms in order to love and care for others. Especially when no one else will.
Leading up to these IMI International Worship Services we had the last Sunday of May, I met with a member of our church named Arne Viste. We met so that I could record a video of him to share during the service as he could not be there in person due to other commitments. After recording the video, we had a great conversation and I shared that I would be preaching on the Parable of the Good Samaritan for the service. He then began to share a reflection with me from what he had written down from a speech he had listened to by Martin Luther King. So, I decided to also listen to this speech and I want to share a small piece of that speech with you.
Just over 55 years ago, on April 3rd, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King delivered a famous speech known as I’ve Been to the Mountaintop and on the following day standing outside of his hotel room he would be assassinated. In his speech he shares about the Parable of the Good Samaritan after his experience of driving down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This is what he says…
“And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, “I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable.” It's a winding, meandering road. It’s really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is [for us 754 meters above sea level]. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about [-258 meters below sea level]. That’s a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus, it came to be known as the “Bloody Pass.” And you know, it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it’s possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure/capture. And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” - Martin Luther King
For Arne Viste after listening to this it led him to have the following reflection, “Instead of asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Perhaps the question we should be asking is, “Who can I be a neighbor too?”
Who can I be a neighbor to in an international context was something that was not remotely on my mind 8 years ago. So let me tell you my story from an American citizen perspective in my own home country.
For the most part, you would not be able to tell now by looking at me now, but once upon a time I was very much a stereotype country boy living life in the Midwest. Where I grew up, we did not have an international population by any means and some of you may be shocked if I told you that I did not have my first international friend until I was twenty years old attending university.
So, the story of how God changed my heart and gave me a love for internationals began in the fall of 2013. During this time I had transferred universities to Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. There right beside campus is a wonderful campus ministry for university students called the Christian Campus House. I decided to attend the Open House for students and as I walked in, they had different tables set up representing the different ministry areas. So, I signed up to join men’s ministry and worship ministry then I came up to the international ministry table. And there sat my future wife Mikaela McMillen, now Mikaela Shipley, working on student staff for the Campus House as the International Ministry Assistant.
We started a conversation as she shared about the opportunity to reach over 600 international students at a university of over 21,000 students. Some of these international students had never heard the Gospel before and so there were opportunities through Campus House to share the Gospel with them. This is what I said, “Wow! That’s really neat!” but do you want to know what I said in my head? “That’s not for me, I will never get involved in international ministry, after all I am just a country boy.” Now there is so much I can unpack here, but then this blog would become quite long. Long story short, I did eventually get involved in international ministry which was an immense blessing. However, for those who know me well in ministry now would probably be a bit shocked that I wanted nothing to do with international ministry.
What changed me was by the spring semester of 2014 I found myself getting involved with international ministry attending international events at the Campus House. I would sit down at a table with internationals, sharing a meal together, listening to them tell me about where they came from and their culture. I was fascinated in hearing their stories and how they grew up so differently than from myself and suddenly my small world perspective changed into a large world perspective. Later God would tell me this, “I am not just God of Indiana, not just God of America, but I am God of the world and I care about people everywhere.”
Now why do I share this story with you? In January of 2023 while sitting in the main hall of IMI Church during the worship time, I had been praying and reflecting on the May IMI International Service. So, this story I just shared above with you was going through my mind and I asked God, “Why did I initially say no to international ministry?”
God responded by saying this, “You didn’t love internationals.”
Whoa, “God, why did I not love the internationals when I was younger?”
Then this is what He said to me, “You cannot love, what you do not know.”
“You cannot love, what you do not know.”
That’s a strong word I could also unpack a lot on, but I want to bring the blog to a conclusion and direct it towards those of you reading this who are Christians as I did to the church when I preached this. Can I speak sincerely to my *nationality here > __________ brothers and sisters in Christ reading this blog? If the international remains a stranger to you then that is all they will ever be, a stranger. If the international becomes a neighbor to you then glory be to God that the international is no longer a stranger! How magnificent can the love of Christ shine in you in loving your international neighbor!
Can I speak sincerely to my fellow internationals? If the international or nationality of whatever country you live in *nationality here > ___________, remains a stranger to you then that is all they will ever be, a stranger. If the ___________becomes a neighbor to you then glory be to God that the ___________ is no longer a stranger! How magnificent can the love of Christ shine in you in loving your ___________ neighbor!
Jesus teaches and commands us to love our neighbors and it is up to us, to you and I that the strangers around us become neighbors. Typically, a stranger is someone you do not know, but typically a neighbor is someone you do know. You cannot love what you do not know. The teaching of Jesus leaves us with this question…
“Are the people around you and I strangers or are they our neighbors?”
Best Regards,
Derrick Shipley