Series: January 2026
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
“Risky Business"
“Risky Business”
Chris McCandless was a strong student at Emory University, who, after graduating in 1990, set out with very little and little preparation on a journey that led him ultimately to Alaska. His story is told in John Krakauer’s book Into the Wild, and a film of the same name. McCandliss was overconfident, if not troubled in other ways, and unprepared. It did not end well. He died alone in an abandoned school bus, with no way to get more food, the river having risen too high to escape for the season.
His is an extreme example of the dangers of the road, especially going it alone. We are raised to think we can, and while there are merits to personal strength and inner resolve, it is often a fool’s journey to make this trek solo. We return to a series we began over the summer, called “On the Road,” in which we explore the various aspects of our life’s journeys. It’s a new year, and thus a new journey. Today, some of the risks of the road.
We should honor the risks of the road we’ve endured and consider how to make our way moving forward.
Our lesson today is among the most familiar in the Christian scriptures, known as the “Parable of the Good Samaritan,” the parable being a form of story Jesus makes up to subvert conventional wisdom. In our culture, we almost always reference this parable for the way it reminds us to cross boundaries to help those in need. In his first inaugural address, President George W. Bush said this, referencing the parable: “And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.”[1] That was a worthy value to state. I would like to think it is still a worthy goal, though it feels one we’ve abandoned.
That is a powerful message, but it is certainly not the only one of the parable. As New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine contends, the main message, the more radical one, is that the Parable of the Good Samaritan depicts the enemy as capable of heroic compassion.[2] The hearer is confronted with the idea that they aren’t the only ones who can be the “good guys,” for in the parable, it is the ethnic enemy who cares as kin should.
The parable depicts a dangerous road. Listen to it from the perspective of risk management. Luke 10:25:29-37:
25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 26He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ 27He 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 neighbour as yourself.’ 28And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 30Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The 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.” 36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’
This road was notoriously dangerous. It would have been no surprise to those who heard this parable that the traveler is met by robbers who strip him—leaving him utterly vulnerable—and beat him, wounding him in body and soul. Levine points out that the Greek word for wounds in the passage is traumata from which you can tell we get the English word “trauma.” People with trauma are carrying their wounds
What are our options? We could avoid the road altogether, but that’s not a long-term strategy. We could toughen up and power through, as our culture would have us. We could arm ourselves. In addition to being unrealistic this way of thinking is based on the false presumption that we can be well independent of others.
Consider a couple examples. Over the past two years I have helped “coach” cross-country at my son’s middle school. It has reopened my eyes to just how brave we ask our young people to be over and over throughout the day as they walk their Jericho road. Think about it. We ask them, as young as 11, to move from class to class, do work from day one that goes on display in the classroom including self-portraits—who’s bad idea was that?—stand up and give presentations at a time when they’re as concerned about the shape of their bodies as they are their work, with no choice about when and where to stand, sit, move, go to the bathroom. Then they go to sports or music lessons or drama, all of which put them on display for cheering and jeering adults. They are so brave. Also, in America kids are afraid they’ll be shot. Even if you could navigate it successfully on your own, the defense mechanisms you would have employed would also have kept out some of the learning—the relationships, the engagement, the growth. Moreover, even those spared whatever ridicule happens carries with them the looming thought it could be them next.
Take a more serious—to us—example. I was watching a video of dialogue from Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian retreat center in New Mexico that featured a rabbi named Nahum Ward-Lev.[3] Nahum was vulnerably sharing about some of his struggles as a Jewish man right now in the world. I want to be careful, for it’s always a little tricky when a Christian discusses the struggle of a Jewish person, but I will try and do so as carefully as a I can. The rabbi said, what was learned after generations of persecution, after the Shoa, after the holocaust was that he and his people were entitled to be safe. Ward-Lev says, “I’m entitled to be safe, but I'm not going to be safe until everyone's safe. And that's a profound upsetting, inspiring, painful, liberating insight for me.”[4] I am not going to be safe until everyone’s safe.
This year, let our journey be one of considering how to make the road safe for everyone, not just ourselves or our own. And, let us imagine the capacity of even our enemies to be compassionate. Let’s learn to expect and pull that out of each other. We can no more go this road alone than Chris McCandliss could go on his with nothing and no preparation and think he could make it. Will we end up alone with the water too high and the shelves empty or will we set out together, heal each other’s traumas, and in doing so find a table that never runs out of food? You can only pack your own lunch or you can give yourself over to communion. You can’t have it both ways.
Amen.
[1] https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/inaugural-address.html
[2] https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2014/09/17/go-and-do-likewise-lessons-parable-good-samaritan/
[3] https://vimeo.com/1137717955
[4] Ibid.