13th Sunday after Trinity + Luke 10:23-37

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Most people think that all religions are basically the same and the common denominator between them all is that they teach people how to be good. Not only do they teach morality but they teach it for the purpose of earning salvation and eternal life of some type or another. This was the mindset of the Jews at the time of Christ, and this mindset is why the lawyer stands up to test Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson. His question runs the way of the law and morality. “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” In order to achieve this lofty goal what do I need to be doing and how do I need to be living? His question resonates with us and will all mankind because his question sums up how mankind thinks of religion: it’s a moral system by which we earn future in paradise.

The question is a law question so Jesus directs him to the law. “What is written in the Law? What is your reading of it?” The lawyer answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” He’s not wrong. That’s the summary of the Ten Commandments. The first table of the Law tells us how to love God with all our being. The second table shows us how to love our neighbor the same way we love ourselves. During holy week Jesus will give the same answer. “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” If you want to inherit eternal life by the Law, by your own works and merit, that’s how you go about it. Love God with every fiber of your being and love your neighbor in the same way and with the same devotion with which you love yourself. That might sound easy but it’s not and the lawyer knows it. He responds in spiritual self-preservation, “And who is my neighbor?” He sees what a tall order this is to fill. You can’t wiggle out of loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. That’s airtight. But the lawyer sees wiggle room with the second part. Who, precisely, does he have to love as he loves himself? The lawyer probably thought that he only had to love the people who loved him, or those like him because really, who can love every person so heartily and selflessly all the time?

To answer this Jesus tell the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is probably one of Jesus’ most misunderstood parables. A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and thieves overtook him. They stripped him of his clothing. They wounded him so severely that they left him half dead. Then comes a representative of the Law. A priest comes down the road, on his way to Jerusalem to perform his divinely-instituted task at the temple. He passes by on the other side of the road, unwilling to spare time or expense to help this half-dead man. But there’s still hope. Another representative of the Law comes strolling along, a Levite, who served in the temple and taught God’s Law to others. But he walks the same path as the priest, unwilling to come to the aid of the half dead man. Then comes a Samaritan, a man from a nationality the Jews didn’t think much of. This one does what the representatives of the Law were unwilling to do. He had compassion on the man. He goes to him, bandages his wounds, pouring on oil as salve and wine as antiseptic. He sets the half dead, bandaged man on his own animal and takes him to the nearest inn where He cares for him, leaving the innkeeper with money to continue to care for him, and promises to repay the innkeeper when he returns. “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? Jesus asks. “The one who showed mercy on him,” is the right answer.

Then Jesus levels all the lawyer’s hopes of inheriting eternal life by his morality and works with His final words, “Go and do likewise.” Go be the Samaritan to everyone you meet along the way. If you see anyone in need, with any kind of need, that one is your neighbor, or rather, than one is one to whom you should be a neighbor. Most people hear Jesus’ words as teaching Christian morality, that we are to try our best to be a Good Samaritan to others. But that softens the blow. If we want to inherit eternal life by our works, if we want to earn it with our morality, it must be perfect. It must be always done from the heart. It must always be done out of selfless compassion. He doesn’t even touch the first commandment, to love God with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind, because that’s entirely out of reach for us. We always love the things of this world and at times we love the things of this world more than God. We certainly love ourselves more than God, which is why we sin. The root of all sin comes from a lack of fear, love, and trust in God because we fear other things, we love other things, and we trust things other than God. Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater. If you can’t love your neighbor, every neighbor, at all times, as the Samaritan did, then you certainly can’t love God as commanded.

And that’s Jesus’ point. No one can do anything to inherit eternal life. It’s not a morality system. It’s not a self-improvement project. It’s not a “be the best version of yourself” shtick. If you look at the Law of God, summarized and encapsulated in the two answers of love God and love your neighbor with everything you’ve got, it will only condemn you. It will wound you and leave you on the road half dead. It will pass you by on the other side as the priest and Levite did. The Law doesn’t have compassion on anyone. Paul says, “It was added because of transgression,” (Gal. 3:19), and that “Scriptures has confined all under sin” (Gal. 3:20). Why? To show your sin so that you might then see your Good Samaritan. You’re not the Good Samaritan in the parable. Jesus is. He comes to you, dead in your trespasses and sins. He binds your wounds with the stinging wine of repentance and the soothing oil of forgiveness. He brings you into the inn of His holy church where He cares for you, richly and daily forgiving all your sins. He sets innkeepers, pastors, over you to care for you until He returns on the Last Day to judge the quick and the dead. Jesus is the Good Samaritan who has compassion on you, so much so that He assumes flesh to bear your sins on the cross and die to pay for each one of them. You cannot do anything to inherit eternal life. The inheritance is not of the Law but of the promise, and promises are only received by faith which trusts they are true because the one making the promise cannot lie.

Every other religion teaches you to be the Good Samaritan in order to inherit eternal life. But Christ teaches you that you cannot be the Good Samaritan to inherit life, but that you need a Good Samaritan to have compassion on you, forgive your sins, and give you eternal life by sheer grace. That’s what makes Christianity, true Christianity, different from every other religion in the world. Does mean we don’t have to be good or moral people? By no means. We “go and do likewise,” as forgiven sinners and inheritors of eternal life, not in order to inherit it ourselves. Our works and morality won’t be perfect because we still live in the sinful flesh and will until the day we die. But the Holy Ghost begins His work in us, so that we begin to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and so that we begin to love our neighbor as ourselves. Pursue the good of your neighbors around you as you have opportunity. Be a neighbor as the good Samaritan. But do so because you have a Good Samaritan, Christ Jesus, who daily and richly forgives all your sins, binds up your wounds, cares for you in His Church, and promises the inheritance of eternal life.

May the peace of God that passes understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.