“The Good Samaritan” Luke 10.25–37 Pent 5B, June ‘24
1. Grace, mercy, and peace from God our heavenly Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel from Luke 10:25-37, beginning with verse 25: “And behold, a lawyer stood to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ ” We continue with our sermon series on Parables for Pentecost, the message is entitled, “The Good Samaritan,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Ah, the stunts lawyers pull! Right out of the gate, he’s sinning. Jesus told Satan in the wilderness, “Don’t put God to the test.” Even though the lawyer didn’t know he was talking to God in person, he was still putting God to the test by looking for a loophole in the Law. “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” (Luke 10:26). If you always love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself, you will live. “And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live’ ” (Luke 10:28). It’s true. The Law promises eternal life. All you have to do is keep it. Jesus held that mirror up to the lawyer.
3. But the lawyer didn’t want to look in that mirror. He didn’t want to ask: How could he be loving the Lord with all of his heart and not know in his heart he whom he was testing? How could an expert in the Law love God with all his soul and think that there was anything he could do to inherit eternal life? How could he love the Lord with all his strength and resist the Lord with all his strength at the same time? How could he be loving God with all his mind and play mind games with God’s commands?
4. Some test God by teaching “self-esteem” from “love your neighbor as yourself”: “You can’t love anyone else unless you first love yourself,” they say. Talk about mind games. Too bad the word love before yourself is not a command. Jesus means to love others as if they were your yourself. Make believe your neighbor is you, then do your magic. But people were looking for a proof text to justify their self-centered theology.
5. Just like this lawyer: “But he, desiring to justify himself . . .” (Luke 10:29a). This conversation should have ended when Jesus said, “Do this, and you will live,” but the lawyer wants a continuance. He wanted just enough of God’s Law to justify his conduct. We’re all lawyers in that sense. Except that Lutherans don’t generally pull stunts with the Law. We fear God’s Law because we’ve been taught that we can’t keep it. We save our stunts for Mount Calvary, where there is only welcome and no thunder. We wait for the cross to unfold like a flower in front of our eyes. Then we say, “I won’t be in church, because that would take all my strength, and am I not saved by grace alone? I won’t learn your Word, because that would take all my mind, and don’t I live by faith alone?” We actually use the Gospel to justify our stone-cold hearts. We lawyers got him on a technicality. We think.
6. This lawyer thought he’d try his luck with the Law, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29b). He was looking for a proof text to justify his definition of “neighbor.” What was that? Has anyone ever planned a wedding? No doubt you’ve learned that when you send out invitations, you can’t invite some close friends and not others, some family and not others, some extended relatives and not others, some acquaintances, etcetera. Unless you want to make a statement. You’d better know you can live with the consequences! For lawyers, every day was like planning a wedding. Think of a “who do I have to love” dartboard with a bull’s-eye, the inner circle, and then another, and another, until the outer circles, and the outcasts.
7. Now other lawyers were the bull’s-eye. Then, working from the center outward, Pharisees, Levites, scribes were the next ring. Just outside of them other Jews. Next, Gentile God-fearers, like the Roman centurion who built them a synagogue. Next, other Gentile undesirables. Then, further out, “tax collectors and sinners.” Out on the edge, the lepers. Finally, off the dartboard, the complete outcasts: Jesus’ enemies said, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (Jn 8:48). Because that was the worst insult they could come up with.
8. Think of today’s Israelis and Palestinians, and you get the picture. The northern ten tribes of Israel went into exile by the Assyrians, and they intermarried with the foreigners the Assyrians shipped in and repopulated the region of Samaria as half-Jews. Therefore not real Jews. It had been a hate-fest for centuries, and Jesus knew it. “Now, teacher, who do I have to love?” Jesus could have said, “You say you love the Lord and your neighbor as yourself, so have you not read the next few verses of what you quoted?” “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns [resides] with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers [aliens] in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:34). But the lawyer didn’t lack information.
9. Jesus engaged him and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:30–31). He didn’t want to get involved. He didn’t love his neighbor as himself. “Likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:32).
10. Now the punch line: Who will be the hero of the story? The priest and the Levite came up empty. “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was” (Luke 10:33). Is this a joke? Worse. Jesus made him admit who the hero of the story was. Can you see the lawyer boiling in his own rage against an imaginary Samaritan? Jesus leans into him. “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (Luke 10:36). The lawyer couldn’t even say, “The Samaritan.” He just said, “The one who showed him mercy.” When you ask your Lord, “Who do I have to love?” just begin with, “Of all people,” and you’ll have your answer.
11. Jesus used the Law on this man with what we call his “second use.” The lawyer’s cold theories of love were shamed by the Samaritan’s real love. “[the Samaritan] went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii”—that’s two days’ wages—“and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back’ ” (Luke 10:34–35). The Samaritan did everything. He was fulfilling the Law with love.
12. Real love forgets that the victim, a Jew, would rather die than accept his, a Samaritan’s, help. Real love forgets that he could get mugged and beaten too. He forgets himself. The Gospel says a Samaritan came upon him, and—literally in the Greek—his heart broke. The original Greek is esplagchnisthe. It means his guts fell out, or, more politely, “his heart broke” . . . and that sounds familiar. St. Luke used it to describe Jesus when he saw the widow of Nain burying her only-begotten son and to tell what happened to the father when he saw the prodigal son coming home: his heart broke . . . When Jesus began the parable, you saw him holding a mirror up to the lawyer’s face to reflect his own hypocrisy, but he could have made the Samaritan the victim in the story and let the lawyer walk by on the other side.
13. But that’s not how Jesus told the story. The Greek text suggests that “a certain lawyer stood up putting him to the test,” and the story begins, “a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves,” the lawyer wasn’t the hero in the story; he was the victim! And when the story ends, you see Jesus heartbroken and holding the mirror to a certain lawyer’s mouth to see if he was even breathing. The lawyer was beaten and left for dead.
14. Not by Jesus. Robbers, thieves did that. Thieves stole his soul and told him he could keep God’s Holy Law with his sin nature. But when his own sin beat down his strength, those thieves wouldn’t lift a finger to help carry the load. They walked by on the other side. Jesus’ parable showed the lawyer his own condition: stripped of his pride, sore with mortal wounds—heart, soul, strength, and mind—left for dead, in need . . . of a neighbor.
15. Jesus ignores that the lawyer would rather die than accept his help. He forgets himself. He set his face on a dangerous road. Nobody on that road to Jerusalem came from his inner circle. In the very center is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And outside are thieves and outcasts—all. “There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:22c–23), “by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3), enemies of God who have tested him since Adam and Eve. The only neighbors God had . . . were enemies. But that didn’t stop Jesus from being our neighbor. God loved His outcast neighbors by becoming a human outcast.
16. When Jesus saw this lawyer mugged by a code of hypocrisy, he engaged him. And the closer he got to Jerusalem, the closer a neighbor he became. And when he reached his goal, to get mugged—crucified and left dead—even a thief on a cross had a neighbor close by! Jesus was willing to be outcast from his own inner circle, forsaken by his Father, handing over the Spirit, in order to be our neighbor.
17. What must you do to inherit eternal life? Just inherit. You must take charity from Jesus. You must let this Neighbor pay the price for the Law you couldn’t keep. This Neighbor will take care of everything. What about “Go and do likewise”? You’ll have your chance, once the oil and the wine have done their work, “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Col 1:11) . . . Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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