Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship for this 5th Sunday after Pentecost, landing on July 13, 2025!
The bulletin for this service can be found here. It has the order and words of worship and the full sermon. Alternatively, you can follow along with the words that will appear on your screen and read the sermon on this page below the video.
If you’d like to enhance your online worship experience, you can have a candle in your space, lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished near the end after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you’re comfortable by having something small to eat and drink prepared for the appropriate time. Further instruction will be given then.
May God’s call to love and be neighbour fill us with joy and peace, today and always!
By your Spirit, O God, may our eyes be opened to your justice, our ears be opened to your promises, and our hearts be opened to your love, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
So I have a confession, I very impulsively did a thing the other day that I’m not exactly proud of. I am embarrassed and almost ashamed to inform you all that I went and watched the new Superman movie this past Thursday on its opening weekend.
I know, it doesn’t sound like a big deal, until you realise like my son did that Superman is a DC property. And maybe then you’ll react like he did in saying, “Don’t we only watch Marvel movies?” And he’s not wrong, I usually only go to the theatres, especially on opening weekend to watch MCU movies and saved all the other comic book movies for streaming if I even bothered with them at all.
But the reason I went to watch this one is… well, it’s Superman. Probably the best known super hero ever created. And while the last like 5 or 6 titles that featured Superman have been awful at best, I guess I just wanted to see what direction this new movie would take this beloved character. Aaaaand… it wasn’t that good.
I mean, this is Superman we’re talking about. He’s supposed to be super. He’s supposed to be the most overpowered hero we have. He’s supposed to be able to beat anyone and do anything. And if he can’t? They would just create a new power for him so he can. And not only does he somehow have every useful power ever conceived of, he’s also the most moral, righteous, and upstanding character to ever grace the pages of a comic book. He was supposed to be the inspiration for us to be better. He is supposed to be the motivation all the other characters to do better. And he’s supposed to be the epitome of truth, justice, and what used to be the American way.
But how they portrayed Superman in this movie? Well, I think they tried to make him too relatable. Well, as relatable as an overpowered meta human from another planet can be, at least. Sure, they highlighted his struggles, his worries, and his loves, his very human traits which were always present in the comics, but it’s just that… I’ve never seen any Superman iteration get beat up as badly or as often as this one has.
I get it though, I guess. Like I said, Superman as a character has always been almost too strong, like to the point that they actually have to say he’s holding back when he’s running faster than a speeding bullet or leaping over tall buildings. So it’s like this movie puts limits on his limitless potential perhaps in an attempt to make him more attainable, accessible, and more human in terms of flaws and general beat-up-ability.
Because that is sometimes a thing, right? I mean Superman being motivating and inspirational is cool and all, but once he is so super that it’s overwhelming and intimidating, then we might just lose interest. We might feel down about ourselves because we can’t even compare. We might not even want to try when we know we can’t be anywhere near as good.
At least, I know I feel this way when I see and hear what my colleagues are capable of, or when I see the accomplishments of my peers, or even when I compare myself with those who I aspire to be like, then I might shrink away as I don’t feel like I can ever be good enough, strong enough, or faithful enough to do all the good that they can do. Maybe you know what I mean and feel the same way when you look at your heroes, those you admire and look up to, those role models that model for you the role you can have in community, society, and the world.
Or maybe you feel that way every time you hear or read this Good Samaritan story that we get in today’s gospel lesson. Talk about inaccessible and intimidating. This guy did what no one expected him to. He went up against all odds and broke every mold that he would have been put in. It is almost overwhelming how much he dominates in the “being helpful” department.
And just to highlight how helpful he actually is, maybe we need a bit of context around this story. We’re told that this is incident happened on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, which might not sound so bad but it actually was. Serving as a sort of a more direct shortcut between the two cities, this road was steep, rocky, and treacherous. And to make matters worse, it was littered with thieves and bandits constantly on the hunt for their next mark and victim. And because of all these reasons to not travel on this road, no one really did… unless they had to. Not just if they were in a hurry and needed the shortcut or they were actually a thief or a bandit themselves, but people would take this route if they didn’t want their travels to be too well known perhaps in hopes that their clandestine activities be kept on the down low.
So this is where we find the victim of this parable. It wouldn’t have surprised anyone to hear that he was jumped, robbed, and left for dead. In fact, it would have been more surprising if he weren’t. But him even being on this road meant that he probably wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen himself. And the same goes for those religious leaders who didn’t help him as well. Ironically enough, this would give them more reason to not help the man. Not only would it be ritualistically unclean for them to do so, but it would probably also implicate them and their shady travels on this shady road.
But that’s just it. As many reasons that the two religious leaders had to not help, this Samaritan had more. He could have walked away and no one would think anything of it. In fact, his peers would have probably encouraged it.
But he didn’t. He stopped. He helped. He risked his safety, his reputation, and probably his life to show mercy.
And my goodness that level of good is intimidating.
I don’t know if I could do what he did if I were in that same position. I don’t know if I could stand up to what he had to face. I don’t know if I could be as good as this outsider, this foreigner, this super man.
But if I learned anything from that not-that-great movie version of Superman, is that even superheroes could get scared. Maybe they get beat up as well. And as perfect as the Samaritan seemed, he probably compared himself to others and maybe even felt intimidated. As good of an example as he is for us, he would have very much had his own flaws, fears, and failures. Even though he is a fictional character in this parable, he is still very human. And that doesn’t stop him.
And it shouldn’t stop us.
See the beauty of this parable wasn’t at all in the Samaritan’s past upbringing or accolades or accomplishments. It wasn’t about the respect he had from those around him. It wasn’t about what set him apart to be better than anyone else. But this parable is about how we don’t have to be all that in order to do all that. We don’t have to have super-hero levels of strength and power to matter and mean something in the world. We don’t have to know all the answers and have it all together to be a neighbour and a good person. Instead, God sees us as we are, knows us for who we are, and loves and calls us anyway, flaws and shortcomings and all. And God empowers us not to be perfect, but to accept the mercy that we’ve been shown and reflect out onto all people.
So may we, like the Samaritan in the story, also see others. May we know their hurts and pains that we may or may not share with them. And may we find the strength in us to not save or fix, but to believe that we are called, see that we are forgiven, and know that we have been invited and welcomed into a community where we can love and be loved, and recognise how we can be a neighbour to all by compassionately serving and helping and acting out of mercy.
My friends, this is the kingdom of God. This is the church to which we all belong. This is the body of Christ that we are intimately a part of: open and inspirational, accepting and accessible, and empowering us how to live, to be, and to love.
In this season after Pentecost, may we see the role that we play in the world and in this body of Christ, that we might be empowered to live in our calling, love in our salvation, and show mercy by the promises that we’ve been given. Thanks be to God. Amen.