Sermon for 9/3/23: Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity

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The Good Neighbor

Luke 10:23-37

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen. 

 

 

Consider the futility of this lawyer’s words. He wanted to test the Lord. He wanted to see if Jesus would meet his standards. He asked: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” But that question revealed far more than he intended. He thought he was being clever, but in fact, he showed his ignorance. Was there ever so naive a question from the lips of men? No matter how good you are, how badly you want it, how sincere you are, or how hard you work, you cannot inherit eternal life. After all, you weren’t born into it. You can’t do anything to inherit something. Inheritance is always the gift of birth.

Added to that, our Lord does not really take well to testing. He turns the question back to the lawyer: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The lawyer wants to know what to do, and the Law certainly tells him that. And to his credit, the lawyer answers Jesus without hesitation: “Love God and love your neighbor.” How easy it is to spit out these orthodox cliches. “Love God and love your neighbor.” We learned that in the Catechism. But then our Lord says, “Do this and you will live.” Do you hear the condemnation in those seemingly innocent words? Not one of us could dare say, “I have done it. I have loved God and my neighbor perfectly and without fail.”

Test the Lord, and you wind up in serious spiritual trouble. “Do this and you will live.” These words are actually a threat. The lawyer hadn’t done this; he hadn’t kept the Law. Apart from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, no man has ever kept the Law. No one has done this, and so no one should live! There is no Law that accuses us more, no Law that makes us rage with more fire against God’s judgment. This lawyer is dead, and he knows it. He is afraid. But like the good lawyer he is, he looks for a loophole in the Law. He asks, “Who is my neighbor?”

Every Sunday School student knows the answer to the question: “Everyone is your neighbor.” Everyone. There are no exceptions. You have no excuse, no boast to make, and no one to blame. It is your fault, because if everyone is your neighbor, and you must love them all as the Law demands, then there is no hope. There is no comfort found in the Law. We get from the Law what we deserve. We have not loved God or our neighbor, and according to the Law, we will not live.

But Jesus does not answer that question from the Lawyer. Instead, He tells a parable, and then asks the lawyer which man in that parable was neighbor to the man in need. In the Good Samaritan, we see pictured that One who is nothing but mercy. He did what we could never do: He perfectly kept the Law. The priest and the Levite who walked on by could do nothing. But the Good Samaritan knew the cost, and He went into the ditch to get us anyway. He paid for everything, and He is coming back to redeem us finally and fully from this world of sin and death.

Then Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” Does He mean that we will live if we help the man we find in the ditch, if we love all neighbors as ourselves? If Jesus means that we must simply return to the Law, then we are right back where we started, and this parable would serve no other purpose than to further condemn us. It would show us nothing about grace and the kingdom of heaven. But that cannot be the meaning of this parable. Jesus never leaves His people without hope. So then, what does “Go and do likewise” mean? It must mean this: “Go and be neighbored, be rescued by the One who shows mercy.” Yes, I know this is not the usual way we see the interpretation of this parable. You can check all the commentaries—even some of the Lutheran ones—and they will not interpret the parable this way. But Luther did. And he got it right. Don’t forget the lawyer’s original question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s the question Jesus answered. There is nothing we can do. But at the same time, there is nothing we have to do.

Jesus, the Good Samaritan, is your neighbor. He has done what you and the Law could never do. He has had mercy. He didn’t have to. He was free of any obligation. But He was moved by His own compassion. He paid the price for all that was necessary to heal you. And that is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. It is like an unexpected rescue from death by an outsider who, for reasons beyond human understanding, perfectly loves His Father, and He perfectly loves His neighbor. We see the Law fulfilled for us; we see the rescue we have received through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We see the One who loved us all the way to the cross. He is Christ, the good Samaritan, the good Neighbor: the One who had mercy. In the name of the Father and of the Son (†) and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always.  Amen.