Fifth Sunday after
Pentecost (Proper 10C)
July 14, 2019
Text: Luke 10:25-37
I’m
sure you would have known better than the priest or the Levite. You would have known to stop. After all, we have the benefit of this
text. We have Good Samaritan laws on the
books. We refer to people who come to
our rescue on the roadside or in times of trouble as “Good Samarians.” And we even have the Good Sam Camping Club,
complete with the coveted RV sticker of good ol’ smiling Sam with his shiny
halo. So I’m sure you would have helped
the poor man lying on the side of the road, stripped and beaten and
half-dead. Or at least you would have
whipped out your cell phone to call someone else to help. We’re good people that way. Unlike the lawyer, we don’t have to ask who
is our neighbor. We know our neighbor is
everyone, and especially anyone who needs our help. True enough.
We have it right at least up to that point.
But
the lawyer isn’t as stupid as you think he is.
You know, his first question is quite profound, and very few people ask
it today. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25; ESV). Now, we Lutherans could quibble, and I do and
have quite often quibbled… You don’t do anything to inherit. The inheritance is
a gift. Eternal life is given by grace,
through faith, apart from works. But
then, that isn’t self-evident, is it?
And he’s asking the right Guy about the right subject. If anyone knows, Jesus knows. How do I get eternal life? What do I do?
The lawyer does expect a Law answer to his Law question, and he has a
sneaky suspicion he knows the answer.
And it turns out he does. What
does the Law say, Mr. Lawyer? How do you
read it? He practically quotes Jesus: “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all you
mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (v. 27). That’s it.
The two greatest commandments.
The two tables of the Law. Love
God. Love your neighbor. The summary of the whole Law and
Prophets. Jesus affirms it. Yes.
You’re right. Do this, and you
will live (v. 28). It’s exactly what our
Lord says in our Old Testament reading: “You
shall therefore keep my statues and my rules; if a person does them, he shall
live by them: I am the LORD” (Lev. 18:5).
You know, if you could keep the Law perfectly, in every point,
flawlessly, you could be saved by the Law.
You can’t, of course, but that doesn’t keep people from trying. And truth be told, it doesn’t keep you from
trying. Because you’re not so different
from the lawyer, after all.
For
the lawyer desired to justify himself. He desired to be seen as one who “gets
it.” He wanted to be righteous in the
eyes of Jesus and in the eyes of those listening in on the discussion. Kind of like we desire to be seen as one who
“gets it,” to be right, to be respected, honored, admired. This is why we tell our stories so that we
come off looking great and everyone else, well… not as great. This is why our Facebook and Instagram pages
make us look so interesting. Not that I
want you airing your dirty laundry on social media, but let’s be honest, our
online profiles present something less than the complete picture. And we covet “likes” and “loves” and good
comments on our posts, because we long for approval. We are forever seeking to justify ourselves,
to be righteous. We justify our
actions. Even and especially our
sins. Yes, it was wrong of me to do
that, but I had my reasons. And at least
I know what to do if I see someone stranded or hurt on the side of the road. I’ll call someone whose job it is to help
them! And if I stop to help myself, then
I’m really a hero. And that really makes
me feel good. About me. Repent.
The
lawyer desires to justify himself,
and so do you. So Jesus must pull the rug out from under us
all. And that is why He tells the
parable of the Good Samaritan. The
parable tells us how it ought to be,
and isn’t. It tells us how we ought to be, and how we ought to act
toward our neighbor. But more
importantly, it tells us how we aren’t and don’t. The parable of the Good Samaritan is not a
moralistic story, as it is so often portrayed in Sunday School materials and
popular Christian piety. We don’t do the
kids any favors when we help them justify themselves: Look kids, just help out
people in need and you’re righteous!
You’ve got this Christianity thing down.
No, you don’t. This is the Law,
and it kills. It damns. You don’t love the way the Samaritan
does. That’s just the point. The priest and the Levite don’t love the
naked, bleeding man. They pass by on the
other side. They don’t want his uncleanness
to rub off on them. The lawyer doesn’t
love the man either. Not even
hypothetically. He would have passed by
on the other side, too. The lawyer
doesn’t love his unclean neighbor when that neighbor, in his uncleanness, needs
that love the most. And he hates his Samaritan neighbor. But the irony of the whole thing is, it is
the unclean Samaritan, the hated Samaritan, who loves his Jewish neighbor
enough to climb down into the ditch and get dirty and bloody to save him. He’s the most unexpected hero in the story. And he’s the only hero.
It
certainly knocks the lawyer off his high horse.
He wouldn’t touch a bloody, half-dead man. Not in a million years. Maybe you
wouldn’t, either. Then again, maybe you
would. But don’t think that gets you off
the hook. Who are the neighbors you do
not love? Those who voted for
Trump? Those who didn’t vote for
Trump? The poor? The unborn?
The tax-collectors and prostitutes?
The widow? The Orphan? The stranger among you? Who do you refuse to help? Who do you refuse to forgive? Why are you so afraid to get your hands
dirty? Why don’t you put your time and
effort and money where your Christ-confessing mouth is? Repent.
There is no self-justification here.
There
is only justification in Jesus Christ.
Jesus
is the Good Samaritan. He’s the only One
who fits the description. You are not
the hero of this story any more than the lawyer is. You know who you are? You are the naked, beaten, bloody corpse
lying in the ditch. That’s who you are. And
guess what you can do to help yourself… Nothing. Not a thing.
You can lay there and die. That’s what you can do. You’ve been attacked. You’ve been assaulted. You’ve been robbed and murdered. The devil.
The world. False teachers. Your own sinful nature. They’ve robbed you of your life and they’ve
shown no mercy.
But
Jesus… Jesus finds you, a helpless,
hopeless, disgusting mess of blood and gore, and He does not pass you by. He gets down into the ditch with you. He’s not afraid of your shameful nakedness. He’s not afraid to get bloody and unclean. He covers you with Himself. He breathes into you the breath of life, His
Word, His Spirit. He pours on the salve
of His Gospel, His death, His resurrection, and gives you to drink of the wine
that is His blood. He binds your
wounds. And He carries you… “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows” (Is. 53:4)… He carries you Himself to the Inn of His holy
Church where He cares for you. He washes
away your uncleanness. He forgives your
sins. And He charges the Innkeeper, your
pastor, to take care of you in His place, and continue to apply the medicine,
the Gospel, the Absolution, the Supper, until He returns for you, as He will on
the Last Day.
This is
the Jesus who strapped you… not just to His own animal, but to His own back…
carried your cross, your sin, you,
all the way up Calvary hill. He took
your place. He became the naked, beaten,
bleeding man for you. He died your death, so that you could
live. And having paid for your sins in
full, He is risen and lives and reigns, seated at the right hand of God the
Father Almighty. And He loves you. Real love.
Extraordinary love. Love poured
out of every vein. Love in the
font. Love in the chalice. Love that forgives and heals, that saves.
Indeed,
His is the love that loves God with all His heart, soul, strength, and
mind. His is the love that loves His
neighbor, you, as Himself, even to the death of Him. The Law is fulfilled in Jesus. He does it, all that you cannot do. And He gives it all to you, to be counted as
your own, His righteousness, as a gift.
That is justification. Jesus does all this, and you live. Try as you might, you can never justify
yourself. But you don’t need to. Jesus is your justification whole and complete. Jesus is all the justification you need. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Nothing.
Jesus has done it all. “The law
says, ‘do this’, and it is never done.
Grace says, ‘believe in this’, and everything is already done.”[1] By Jesus.
For you.
But
you do have neighbors who need to be loved, so get busy. “You
go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37), He tells the lawyer, and He says the
same to you. Not to be justified. No, we’re past all that. Do it because you are justified. By God, in
Christ. Jesus doesn’t heal you to send
you back into the brokenness of living for yourself. He heals you to be His hands in the world by
giving yourself for your neighbor. Jesus
pours His love into you and fills you so that His love flows through you to
your neighbor. And His love will never
dry up. It will never fail you. There is always more love, more healing, more
forgiveness and life right here in the Inn, the Church, where Jesus dispenses
the medicine of His Gospel. You can’t
out-give God. You can’t
out-Good-Samaritan Jesus.
That
is the point of the parable. Jesus is
the Good Samaritan. Jesus loves
perfectly and fulfills the Law for you.
Jesus rescues you from sin and death.
Jesus gives you His righteousness as a gift. Jesus alone is your justification. It’s all about Jesus. Jesus, for you. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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