Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: July 14, 2019

Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

I don’t know how much “shock value” Jesus had intended when He began telling this famous parable of the Good Samaritan. He may have captivated His hearers with a violent opening scene, a matter of life or death, not unlike a TV crime drama of today. We see it all the time now, that’s the thing. It’s so normal that the news broadcast seems to have something missing if there isn’t a stabbing or shooting. The violent scenario that Jesus describes can happen anytime, anywhere. So the sad fact of nobody stopping to help one who becomes in desperate need is probably just going to continue getting worse. If you’re dying on the side of the road, the most likely thing you may find is someone wanting to get a picture of it on their camera-phone! Does our world have any more Good Samaritans, those helpful, caring types of people?

Try looking at the story this way, though: What if the bleeding, dying man had waved off the Samaritan? “No thanks, you don’t need to bother. I’ve got it all under control, thanks for the thought, though.” You would have thought the guy was nuts! No one in their right mind, (once they have stopped to help, that is) no one would listen to him, but instead would care for his wounds despite his protests. It would just be the right thing to do.

That may just be how Jesus is seeing it too. Based on what He says and does in this Gospel, we find the Lord actually tending to the spiritually fatal wounds that he finds as He encounters the delusional victim. And who is this victim? It’s the Law expert who brought the question to Him. This religious Lawyer in the Gospel reading wants to know how to keep the Law in order to inherit eternal life. But that is impossible. The Law, even God’s Law, doesn’t save. It kills. There is no nice way to preach the Law. You don’t take the edge off of the statement: “You are going to Hell” by saying it nicely or by smiling. You would only give the impression that either you don’t care or it is a joke. There is another option. You could avoid the Law altogether. Don’t say, “You are going to Hell.” Instead you try holding out the Law like it’s a promise. Pretend that the Law is obtainable. Mankind loves that. The Law still won’t save you, but it will gain you friends. It allows men their delusions for a time, until the wolf sheds his false, sheep’s coat and devours them. Despite the fact that it seems right to us and it can make you prosperous and successful, the Law cannot save. If there had been a law given which would have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the Law. But the Scripture has confined all sons of Adam under sin!

Besides this the lawyer who talked to Jesus could not do anything to inherit eternal life. It does not matter how hard he tries, how good he is, or how much he wants it. Inheritance is not earned. Even if the lawyer did keep the law perfectly, so what? God wouldn’t owe him anything. They’d just be even. Do you go to the police station to get a reward from them for obeying the speed limit and for not stealing from your neighbors? Those things are what you are supposed to do. What must you do to inherit anything? What must you do, for instance, to inherit the crown to England? That sounds good. I might like to be the Prince of Wales, you say? Too bad. You can’t be. You must be born of the right father and mother. There is no other way. You cannot earn it. You cannot buy it. You cannot even steal it. Inheritance is a birthright, an accident of genetics. It has nothing to do with your skills, abilities, personality, charm, or desire. You can make all the decisions you want about who you want to be but none of them will make you the Queen of England. Heaven is inherited in a similar way. To inherit eternal life you must be born from above by water and Spirit. You must call God Father and Brother. You must be emptied of yourself and filled with Him, adopted by Grace that you did not earn but which He bestows from His mercy. Righteousness comes through the promise by faith in Jesus Christ. It is given to those who believe.

Which brings us to the Good Samaritan parable. The lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” And the answer, of course, is: “Everyone.” That is what the Law expects. That is what the world wants. All the world loves this parable. For they think Jesus is only telling us to be nice to one another. This parable is thought to be just like Aesop’s fables. It is a call to good works, a religion of effort, morality, and motivation. But if that is what Jesus means with this parable, if He is simply cutting the Lawyer off from his loophole, saying everyone is his neighbor and he must love everyone perfectly, then He leaves the questioner, and all of us, condemned! For the Law does not save. The Lawyer was looking for a loophole because of his frustration with the Law, because he knows that he has not kept it. If this parable is all about what we’re supposed to do for others, then it’s just like Jesus telling the Lawyer that his case is hopeless, and that there’s no where else for him to go but to Hell. For no matter how good the Lawyer is, no matter how many people he helps, he will never be good enough. He cannot justify himself, try as he might.

But notice that Jesus turns the lawyer’s question around. The Lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” That is, “Who must I love?” Jesus asks back, “Who proved neighbor to the man in need?” That is, “Who is the one who loved?” Jesus made the questioner realize he was left in the ditch. He did not call him to do good. He needed to receive mercy from the hand of our Lord. The Lawyer is caught in the ditch of the Law. He is dead on the side of the road, whether he knows it or not. The Law goes marching by. The helpless priest and Levite skitter past not because they do not care, but because they cannot help. They, standing for the Law, can only kill. The Lawyer must find a Neighbor who can lift him out of death, the one Neighbor who is merciful, who will bind up his wounds, pour on wine and oil, walk beside him as a servant while he rides, take him to an inn of recovery, pay for everything, and promise to come back. That Neighbor is an outsider, an ethnic enemy, despised, scorned, betrayed, and killed on a cross. He has no obligation to help. He is moved by compassion. That Neighbor can make the Lawyer a son of the heavenly Father and obtain the inheritance of heaven, to be handed out when Christ returns again on the Last Day.

So the answer then to “who is my neighbor?” is not “everyone.” It is instead Jesus. Jesus is my Neighbor – not for me to serve, for me to love, for me to do good things for Him, but for me to be served by, to be loved, to receive good, from Him. Jesus, the Merciful One, is my Neighbor. He loves me as Himself. He keeps the Law for me. Here is eternal life: not in a call to do good works, to be the Samaritan, but rather in receiving the good services of The Samaritan, our Savior. Jesus finds us broken by the Law, helpless in the ditch, dying. We wound up there because in our sin we hated Him. But still He loves us. He intervenes. He provides. If you want to say oil stands for Baptism, wine for Holy Communion, the Inn for the Church, then go ahead. This is, after all, a parable.

Now, why did you come here today? We all have bad reasons. We like to try and justify ourselves. Maybe you came to Church because you felt guilty and hope your attendance will please God. Or maybe you are just lonely and don’t have anything else to do. You come out of habit or because you have friends here and want to see them. I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter much. Here is the significant thing: You are here and Jesus is here. He is not here to judge and condemn you. He is here to heal you, to restore and refresh you, to love and forgive you, to be your Neighbor and your Brother. It is not that your sins are not significant or that He is enabling you, winking at your sins or looking the other way. Your sins are destructive and shameful, but He forgives them from His mercy. God is love. He loves to love you.

In that mercy you have the power to resist and overcome. You do not have to remain desensitized to sin like our culture is to violence. You do not have to live in drunkenness and lust, in lewdness, anger, and covetousness. You do not have to keep making the same mistakes. He has provided a better way, a good way, the only way. It is the way of the cross, the mortification of the flesh in daily drowning and dying, in emptying and brokenness, in dependence upon Him and His mercy. In His death and resurrection all things are new, all things are clean and pure. But most significantly, in His death and resurrection, you are His and you are perfect. Submit to that; receive it as a gift. Give up. Die to self. Live to Christ. Rest in grace. Wait in hope.

Whatever reason you may have thought you had for coming to this service, or even if you came without any reason at all, the real reason in the end is that God led you here. Your presence is of cosmic significance. The angels see you hear God’s Word and they rejoice. The Lord has not forgotten the promise He made to you when you were Baptized. He claimed you. He put His Name on you. No one steals from Him. This is where He wants you because this is where He is present according to His mercy and grace. He has a surprise for you, for that law expert that is inside you. You do not have to keep the Law. You do not have to be good enough. You do not even have to understand it all. He gives Himself to you. He will lead you. This place is but an inn of rest and recovery. It is temporary, a shadow of the real thing to come. Jesus has paid for everything and He is coming back. He will take you home.

In the meantime, in this humble inn of grace, this spiritual hospital that will not last for eternity, eat what He gives: His Body. Drink what He sheds: His Blood. In Him and in these gifts there is strength to wait and there is strength to believe. In Him there is a promise and a foretaste. Soon, dear believer, soon, your Lord will return.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Green Altar Parament

Green Altar Parament


Readings:
Lev. 18:1–5; 19:9–18 keep My statutes and My judgements
Psalm 41 Blessed is he who considers the poor
Col. 1:1–14 strengthened with all might according to His glorious power
Luke 10:25–37 The Good Samaritan neighbor – the one who showed mercy

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