St Luke 10:23-37/Gaatians 3:15-22/2 Chronicles 28:8-15
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
We are such phonies. We are constantly pretending to be something, someone other than who we are. We have on-line identities by which we conceal the real us. We speak authoritatively on topics about which we’ve only read the caption on Yahoo news. We drop the names of the popular, the trendsetters, even those in our own circles. We waste time following the lives of celebrities and athletes on Twitter.
We are searching for meaning and worth. We want to be something. We want to be noticed. We are obsessed with ourselves. This is why we are so enamored by Clint Eastwood as Josie Wales, Christian Bale as Batman, Marilyn Monroe as Sugar. We imagine that is what we are like. As though we were full of character, always clever and focused, always bigger than life. Repent.
Stop trying to be clever. It is written, You are not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment (Rom 12:3). Be still and listen. Your worth does not come from who you are, from who your parents were. It does not come from what you have done, accomplished, or created. Your worth, your meaning, comes from who God is. He loves you despite yourself. He loves you despite your posturing, your vanity and lies. He loves you more than you love yourself. You don’t have to do anything, be anyone, or do anything. He is all things for you.
You have been bought, purchased with the Blood of Christ and raised up out of death in Baptism to His Life. His death and resurrection have put you to rest and called you to life. The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin. But Jesus Christ, His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, is given to you for free and nothing can confine you. What could not be earned or bought, what we could not steal, God has given in grace and mercy, in purest love.
Now consider the futility of the lawyer’s posturing. He thought to test our Lord. He was looking for knowledge. He wanted to see if Jesus met His standards; if Jesus knew what he did. He asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? The question shows more than he meant. He though he was clever, but it actually showed his ignorance.
Was there ever such an absurd question? What must I do to inherit eternal life? What if I asked, “What must I do to inherit the crown of England?” There are two options: be an offspring of the royal bloodline of Great Britain, or go to war. This is how an inheritance is passed. You can’t do anything to earn it. And since I don’t have the right bloodline, the (united) kingdom must change hands by violence.
But there is another problem with this question. Not only can we not gain inheritance by merit, but the idea of eternal life has an underbelly crawling with maggots. If we do not inherit eternal life, we inherit instead the birthright of our father, the devil; as we heard in the baptismal liturgy, “We are all conceived and born sinful and are under the power of the devil.” Flesh gives birth to flesh (Jn 3:6). We go to the reward of hellfire and the gnashing of teeth. If we do not inherit eternal life we are damned. This is not a game or the plot twist of a movie; the stuff of creative imaginations. This is real.
On top of that, our Lord does not take kindly to testing. He turns the question back to the lawyer. What is written in the Law? The lawyer wants to know what to do. The Law tells us what to do. And to his credit the lawyer answers without hesitation: Love God and neighbor perfectly, without fail. That’s it. Love God and man. You learned that in 7th grade. Piece of cake. This is the Law in its totality.
But the maggots are there. Do this an you will live, says our Lord. Was there ever condemnation so fierce? Who would dare to say, “I have done it! I have loved God and my neighbor without fail?”
Test the Lord and we wind up condemned. Do this and you will live is a dire threat. For the inverse is, “Do it not and you will die.” And the lawyer has not done this. He hasn’t kept the Law. No man since the fall of Adam has. That is, except One – the GodMan, begotten without the aid of man.
But no one has done this, so no one should live. And just like when we see the maggots spawning on top the bagel, we squirm under the Law. Love your neighbor and live. We are caught. Trapped. And the lawyer is squirming too. He is dead and he knows it. He is afraid. So he does what lawyers do – he looks for a loophole. Who is my neighbor? He wants to play, to fight, to argue his way out of damnation.
But he is not nearly so clever as he thinks. For every Sunday school student knows the answer to his question. Who is my neighbor? Everyone. Everyone is your neighbor. Ha! You’re it! And your dead. You’re supposed to love all men as yourself. There are no exceptions, no replays. The beggar on the freeway exit. The thief who stole your wallet. The man who murdered your family. Everyone.
And we loose. We have nothing left. No boast to make, no referee to blame. It is your fault, your own most grievous fault. Because if everyone is your neighbor and you must love them all as yourself, which is exactly what the Law demands, then there is no hope. Do you see? There is no comfort in the Law. The maggots are always there. We go to Hell, just as we deserve. Our birthright, more worthless than a bowl of soup, is shown. Everyone is our neighbor and we have failed. We have not done this. We will die.
But notice this: our Lord does not answer the lawyer’s question. The Sunday school kids know it is everyone, but Jesus won’t say it. Instead, He tells a parable and asks a question of His own. And His question cannot be answered, “everyone.” It has been changed from active to passive. It is not, Who is my neighbor?, but, Who was a neighbor to? Not everyone. Everyone was not a neighbor to the man who fell in the ditch! Only One was.
This is the Divine Passive. God is the actor. And I hope the Sunday school kids learn this answer better than “everyone.” For the answer to Jesus’ question is that Christ, the One who had mercy, was a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers. He did what the Law could not. For the Law was added because of transgressions, writes St Paul, until the Seed should come of whom the promise had been made. The priest and the Levite were impotent. They could not help. Christ is the Seed. He is the Samaritan, the One who was full of mercy and compassion. And it was He who dirtied Himself. He knew the cost and went into the ditch anyway. He stepped into our filth and refuse, was infected with our disease, our pollution, and it killed Him. He bound up our wounds. He poured on His oil and wine. He walked while we rode. He paid for everything. And He is coming back.
Then Jesus says, Go and do likewise. Does this mean we are to go and find people in ditches and help them? That we are to go and love all men as ourselves and that if we do this we shall live? That is the Law. And it is true. Love God and love neighbor is the Law. But God gave His inheritance to Abraham by the promise. If Jesus’ statement, Go and do likewise, is meant to return us to the Law, than we are right back where we started. The worms crawl back in and we’re dead.
But that is not the primary meaning. If it were, if this is an admonishment to be nice and try harder, to not judge and help people, than the parable serves no purpose than teaching the Law, sharpening the instrument of death. And sadly this is how many Christians understand this parable. But all it does it further condemn us. Christ is nothing more than a new Moses and the lawyer is dead, and so are we.
But the promise is made concerning the Seed, who is Christ; so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. This is what I mean: Go and do likewise, means, “God and be neighbored by the One who shows mercy. Go and receive the divine mercy of Jesus, the Good Samaritan. For in this way the inheritance of heaven, of eternal life, is given by the Promise. And this makes all the difference.”
The Kingdom is overthrown by violence. The King gives up His crown in death. It is now yours by the birthright of Holy Baptism, a holy inheritance in the living Christ. This is what Joe received this morning. This is what you, begotten by Baptism, have received. Your bloodline now runs though the Cross and your are the rightful heir of heaven. The crown changed hands by war. God in our Flesh surrendered to death in order to empty death and crush the serpent and make you His.
Blessed are the eyes that see what you see and hear what you hear. For the mercy of God is hidden here. The Divine plan of God’s rescue for men is hidden in the changing of the question from Who is my neighbor?, which is the condemnation of the Law, to, Who was neighbor to??, which is Jesus, the One who showed mercy to you. He had compassion on you, bloodied and killed by the Law. He has tended your wounds with the oil of His Baptism and cleansed you with the wine of His Eucharist. He took your wounds to Himself and by His stripes you are healed. He brought you to the Inn of His Church. He paid for everything. And He promised to come back.
This is what the Kingdom of heaven is like: an unexpected rescue from death by an outsider who loves everyone perfectly. And this parable opens all of Scripture. For all the Scriptures testify of Christ. Where the world sees only another admonition to good works, another exhortation to be nice and help other, another appeal to a social Gospel of civil righteousness, by faith your blessed eyes see the Law fulfilled for you, your blessed ears hear of the rescue received by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sin. You see the One who loved you as Himself all the way to the Cross.
Who has God loved? Who is God’s neighbor? Everyone! Therefore, O Sinner, who has been your neighbor? Who loves you as He loves Himself? He is no phony. He is authentic and genuine. Blessed are you for your transgression is covered. Blessed are you, for the Lord does not count your iniquity against you. Your righteousness is in Christ. You will live. Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
We are such phonies. We are constantly pretending to be something, someone other than who we are. We have on-line identities by which we conceal the real us. We speak authoritatively on topics about which we’ve only read the caption on Yahoo news. We drop the names of the popular, the trendsetters, even those in our own circles. We waste time following the lives of celebrities and athletes on Twitter.
We are searching for meaning and worth. We want to be something. We want to be noticed. We are obsessed with ourselves. This is why we are so enamored by Clint Eastwood as Josie Wales, Christian Bale as Batman, Marilyn Monroe as Sugar. We imagine that is what we are like. As though we were full of character, always clever and focused, always bigger than life. Repent.
Stop trying to be clever. It is written, You are not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment (Rom 12:3). Be still and listen. Your worth does not come from who you are, from who your parents were. It does not come from what you have done, accomplished, or created. Your worth, your meaning, comes from who God is. He loves you despite yourself. He loves you despite your posturing, your vanity and lies. He loves you more than you love yourself. You don’t have to do anything, be anyone, or do anything. He is all things for you.
You have been bought, purchased with the Blood of Christ and raised up out of death in Baptism to His Life. His death and resurrection have put you to rest and called you to life. The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin. But Jesus Christ, His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, is given to you for free and nothing can confine you. What could not be earned or bought, what we could not steal, God has given in grace and mercy, in purest love.
Now consider the futility of the lawyer’s posturing. He thought to test our Lord. He was looking for knowledge. He wanted to see if Jesus met His standards; if Jesus knew what he did. He asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? The question shows more than he meant. He though he was clever, but it actually showed his ignorance.
Was there ever such an absurd question? What must I do to inherit eternal life? What if I asked, “What must I do to inherit the crown of England?” There are two options: be an offspring of the royal bloodline of Great Britain, or go to war. This is how an inheritance is passed. You can’t do anything to earn it. And since I don’t have the right bloodline, the (united) kingdom must change hands by violence.
But there is another problem with this question. Not only can we not gain inheritance by merit, but the idea of eternal life has an underbelly crawling with maggots. If we do not inherit eternal life, we inherit instead the birthright of our father, the devil; as we heard in the baptismal liturgy, “We are all conceived and born sinful and are under the power of the devil.” Flesh gives birth to flesh (Jn 3:6). We go to the reward of hellfire and the gnashing of teeth. If we do not inherit eternal life we are damned. This is not a game or the plot twist of a movie; the stuff of creative imaginations. This is real.
On top of that, our Lord does not take kindly to testing. He turns the question back to the lawyer. What is written in the Law? The lawyer wants to know what to do. The Law tells us what to do. And to his credit the lawyer answers without hesitation: Love God and neighbor perfectly, without fail. That’s it. Love God and man. You learned that in 7th grade. Piece of cake. This is the Law in its totality.
But the maggots are there. Do this an you will live, says our Lord. Was there ever condemnation so fierce? Who would dare to say, “I have done it! I have loved God and my neighbor without fail?”
Test the Lord and we wind up condemned. Do this and you will live is a dire threat. For the inverse is, “Do it not and you will die.” And the lawyer has not done this. He hasn’t kept the Law. No man since the fall of Adam has. That is, except One – the GodMan, begotten without the aid of man.
But no one has done this, so no one should live. And just like when we see the maggots spawning on top the bagel, we squirm under the Law. Love your neighbor and live. We are caught. Trapped. And the lawyer is squirming too. He is dead and he knows it. He is afraid. So he does what lawyers do – he looks for a loophole. Who is my neighbor? He wants to play, to fight, to argue his way out of damnation.
But he is not nearly so clever as he thinks. For every Sunday school student knows the answer to his question. Who is my neighbor? Everyone. Everyone is your neighbor. Ha! You’re it! And your dead. You’re supposed to love all men as yourself. There are no exceptions, no replays. The beggar on the freeway exit. The thief who stole your wallet. The man who murdered your family. Everyone.
And we loose. We have nothing left. No boast to make, no referee to blame. It is your fault, your own most grievous fault. Because if everyone is your neighbor and you must love them all as yourself, which is exactly what the Law demands, then there is no hope. Do you see? There is no comfort in the Law. The maggots are always there. We go to Hell, just as we deserve. Our birthright, more worthless than a bowl of soup, is shown. Everyone is our neighbor and we have failed. We have not done this. We will die.
But notice this: our Lord does not answer the lawyer’s question. The Sunday school kids know it is everyone, but Jesus won’t say it. Instead, He tells a parable and asks a question of His own. And His question cannot be answered, “everyone.” It has been changed from active to passive. It is not, Who is my neighbor?, but, Who was a neighbor to? Not everyone. Everyone was not a neighbor to the man who fell in the ditch! Only One was.
This is the Divine Passive. God is the actor. And I hope the Sunday school kids learn this answer better than “everyone.” For the answer to Jesus’ question is that Christ, the One who had mercy, was a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers. He did what the Law could not. For the Law was added because of transgressions, writes St Paul, until the Seed should come of whom the promise had been made. The priest and the Levite were impotent. They could not help. Christ is the Seed. He is the Samaritan, the One who was full of mercy and compassion. And it was He who dirtied Himself. He knew the cost and went into the ditch anyway. He stepped into our filth and refuse, was infected with our disease, our pollution, and it killed Him. He bound up our wounds. He poured on His oil and wine. He walked while we rode. He paid for everything. And He is coming back.
Then Jesus says, Go and do likewise. Does this mean we are to go and find people in ditches and help them? That we are to go and love all men as ourselves and that if we do this we shall live? That is the Law. And it is true. Love God and love neighbor is the Law. But God gave His inheritance to Abraham by the promise. If Jesus’ statement, Go and do likewise, is meant to return us to the Law, than we are right back where we started. The worms crawl back in and we’re dead.
But that is not the primary meaning. If it were, if this is an admonishment to be nice and try harder, to not judge and help people, than the parable serves no purpose than teaching the Law, sharpening the instrument of death. And sadly this is how many Christians understand this parable. But all it does it further condemn us. Christ is nothing more than a new Moses and the lawyer is dead, and so are we.
But the promise is made concerning the Seed, who is Christ; so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. This is what I mean: Go and do likewise, means, “God and be neighbored by the One who shows mercy. Go and receive the divine mercy of Jesus, the Good Samaritan. For in this way the inheritance of heaven, of eternal life, is given by the Promise. And this makes all the difference.”
The Kingdom is overthrown by violence. The King gives up His crown in death. It is now yours by the birthright of Holy Baptism, a holy inheritance in the living Christ. This is what Joe received this morning. This is what you, begotten by Baptism, have received. Your bloodline now runs though the Cross and your are the rightful heir of heaven. The crown changed hands by war. God in our Flesh surrendered to death in order to empty death and crush the serpent and make you His.
Blessed are the eyes that see what you see and hear what you hear. For the mercy of God is hidden here. The Divine plan of God’s rescue for men is hidden in the changing of the question from Who is my neighbor?, which is the condemnation of the Law, to, Who was neighbor to??, which is Jesus, the One who showed mercy to you. He had compassion on you, bloodied and killed by the Law. He has tended your wounds with the oil of His Baptism and cleansed you with the wine of His Eucharist. He took your wounds to Himself and by His stripes you are healed. He brought you to the Inn of His Church. He paid for everything. And He promised to come back.
This is what the Kingdom of heaven is like: an unexpected rescue from death by an outsider who loves everyone perfectly. And this parable opens all of Scripture. For all the Scriptures testify of Christ. Where the world sees only another admonition to good works, another exhortation to be nice and help other, another appeal to a social Gospel of civil righteousness, by faith your blessed eyes see the Law fulfilled for you, your blessed ears hear of the rescue received by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sin. You see the One who loved you as Himself all the way to the Cross.
Who has God loved? Who is God’s neighbor? Everyone! Therefore, O Sinner, who has been your neighbor? Who loves you as He loves Himself? He is no phony. He is authentic and genuine. Blessed are you for your transgression is covered. Blessed are you, for the Lord does not count your iniquity against you. Your righteousness is in Christ. You will live. Amen.
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