Sermon - Pentecost 5 - Luke 10:25-37

Sometimes I forget, and maybe you do too, that this familiar parable of the Good Samaritan is precipitated by Jesus’ conversation with the lawyer.  “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 

In many ways, this is really the main question of life, the only one that really matters.  Because this world, this life, is not permanent, and everyone should be concerned about what happens next.  Where do I go when I die?  Will I inherit eternal life?  And what must I do to make that happen? 

And this lawyer, he asks his question in terms of the law, doesn’t he.  There’s some assumption there.  That he has to do something.  I wonder what he thought Jesus would say:  “Feed the poor, and you will inherit eternal life”  or  “take care of mom and dad”  or “make sure you live in peace” or make a certain sacrifice, or say a certain prayer, or what?  Surely there must be something I can do! 

But Jesus’ answer is a bit coy, and he doesn’t spoon-feed the man.  Rather, he engages him.  He begins to teach him.   

Well, you’re a lawyer:  “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”  In a way, Jesus shows the man he already knows the answer.  Ask a question of the law, get an answer of the law. 

Love God – with all your heart and soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor.  A succinct and thorough summary of the entire law.  A similar summary that Jesus would offer when they asked him what was the greatest commandment.  In a way, this fellow hits it out of the park with his answer.  Home run.  A plus.  Perfectly said.  Jesus says, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 

But easier said than done.  Easier to summarize the law, than to fulfill it.  Easier to recite the 10 Commandments than to keep them. 

Now the fellow gets in trouble.  Because he wants to justify himself.  So he does what a lawyer does, he looks for a loophole.  “just who is my neighbor, anyway!?” 

But hold on a minute.  Before we get to the parable, and the question of who is the neighbor.  What about Jesus’ statement, “do this and you will live?” 

That should have crushed him right then and there.  It should crush us all.  For we do not keep the commandments, and therefore we do not deserve life.  Sin has a different reward, the wages of death. 

But there’s a lot of attempts at self-justification today, too.  People try to give the commandments a haircut, trimming off the “all your heart” part and re-writing it to accept something half-hearted.  Delete “all your soul” and just make it say, “for the most part.”  And all your strength and all your mind.  Well, we can’t be held responsible for thought crimes, can we?   

There are so many ways we try to wriggle out of the law’s condemnation, its all-pervasive demands.  Sure, if we could keep it, we would live.  But we don’t keep it.  Not even close.  No matter what the little lawyer in each man’s heart tries to argue.  

Right then and there the lawyer should have pleaded guilty before Jesus, and begged for mercy.  For that’s the real answer. How do we inherit eternal life?  Only by the grace and mercy of Christ. 

Christ, who, for his part, did keep all these commandments, and perfectly.  Who did love God with his all, and loved neighbor as himself.  Jesus does what we cannot, and he does it for us, for our good. He lives a perfect life, and dies a sacrificial death to free us from the condemnation of the law, to overturn the guilty verdict, and to secure for us the inheritance of eternal life.  Jesus is the answer to the question the lawyer should have asked, not, “what must I do to be saved,” but, “since I can’t keep the law, how can I even hope to be saved?”  Only by the grace of God, in Jesus Christ crucified and risen. 

Now on to the parable.  Who’s the neighbor to the man who was beaten and mugged?  Well all were neighbors, the priest, the levite, and the Samaritan.  But only the Samaritan was a good neighbor to the man.  He helped him, tended to his wounds, paid for his care, and put the others to shame by his love and kindness. 

On one level here we have an example of loving the neighbor, and it is a good example. Be like the Samaritan, of course.  Don’t be like the priest or Levite. 

But there’s more going on here, too.  For we just showed the futility of trying to earn eternal life by our actions.  We can’t love God or our neighbor as we should, we don’t do it, and too often we don’t even want too.  We are quite often like the priest and Levite, passing on opportunities to serve others, and likely justifying our actions nonetheless. 

But here again we ponder Jesus, who is the true and ultimate Good Samaritan.   He finds us beaten and bloodied by sin, and shows us mercy.  He takes us to the inn of the Christian Church and provides for our care.  He pours on us the healing oil and wine of the Sacraments.  And he promises to one day return and settle up, which he will do on the last day. 

That road from Jerusalem to Jericho was well known to the people of Jesus’ time as particularly dangerous one.  So often did people fall among robbers there, it was actually called, “The Way of Blood.”  How fitting that Jesus comes rescue us by his own holy precious blood.  His cross is the way of blood that saves us from the blood on our own hands, and the broken commandments that earn us death.   

And it is in his loving mercy that we are taught to love our neighbor.  Indeed, only by his grace do we have the faith required to do truly God-pleasing works of love for our neighbor.   

So, Christian, you who would inherit eternal life.  Don’t try to justify yourself, for you’ll never measure up to the many “all” demands of the law.  It will leave you beaten and bloodied, as good as dead.  But look to Jesus, the Good Samaritan, and having been pulled out of the ditch by his grace, now go and likewise show mercy.  Be the good neighbor to others that he has been, and always is, to you. 

 

Sermon - Pentecost 4 - Luke 10:1-20

Today we have an account from Luke’s Gospel in which Jesus sends out the 72.  He’s on his way to Jerusalem, and he knows what that means – arrest, trial, suffering and death.  But his face is set, he won’t be deterred from his mission.

Nevertheless, along the way, he sends out these 72 disciples, in a sort of preparatory preaching of the kingdom.  They are to prepare the way before him, everywhere he was about to go, and simply share the message that the “kingdom of God has come near to you.”  That is, to say, Jesus himself, the king, is coming near.  It’s sort of like 72 little John the Baptists, preparing the way, or an auxiliary band of apostles – for though not the 12, per se, these are also “sent ones”.

There is much for us to learn from this sending.  There is much here that also applies to us in the church, in this day, in which the harvest remains plentiful and the workers remain few.  In which the kingdom of God still comes near to people in Jesus Christ.  And in which he’s still writing names in the book of heaven.

But right out of the gate, let’s get one thing straight.  Jesus doesn’t send most of us to preach to villages in Samaria and Judea.  He doesn’t even call most of us to be preachers of the Gospel at all.  And here is moment for us Lutherans to stop and reflect, for evangelicalism tends to blur this line between called and ordained pastor, and layperson.  If you talk to some Christians, they seem to think that they should always be preaching, trying to shoehorn Jesus into every conversation, trying to personally evangelize and save every non-believer in their path.  But in addition to usually not being very effective, this is simply not what every Christian is called to do.  Indeed, our Lutheran confessions make it clear, “no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called.”

Ah, but that doesn’t mean that we have no calling at all.  For we are all called by the Gospel to be Christians.  And all Christians are called as priests, holy people, living holy lives and praying for others, even our enemies, even unbelievers, that God’s will would be done. 

We are also called into various stations and roles in life in which we are to give witness to the hope within us – to share your faith in Christ as you have opportunity.  You’re not called to drop everything you’re doing, like these 72 were, but you are called to be a Christian, and to conduct yourself as a Christian in various other vocations – parent, friend, citizen, employee, etc.

And yet, even though not all are called to preach publicly, the whole church is involved in this effort, you see, the making of disciples.  Though we may have different roles and places.  One of those is to be a witness, to give a word of answer when asked for the hope within you.  A private word when called upon is often a very powerful testimony. 

Furthermore, our lives as a whole serve as a witness, especially when people see Christians exercising love, “by this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  Not all are pastors, public ministers of word and sacrament, for the church is also orderly and God sets an office in our midst with a special calling to handle these things for our good.  But all are members of the body with important and necessary functions, no member less valuable than another, all bought with the blood of Christ.

Well here’s one universal function or calling for all members of the church:  pray.  Pray especially that the Lord would raise up workers for the harvest.  For these words still stand:  The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

This doesn’t mean just pastors, either.  We should be praying for all manner of workers, including pastors, teachers, professional church workers, volunteer church workers, young and old, public and private, here and abroad.  The church needs all manner of work, for the harvest is plentiful.

We ought not burden people with the false idea that every Christian is a preacher.  For there’s plenty enough for us to do in our own vocations, and if we are honest, we all fail quite enough at those.  Nor ought we think that the work of the church should be just left up to the pastors, “the professionals”, and that regular Christians are mere customers or consumers of religion as if we were going to Walmart to get the week’s groceries.

We, too, need to hear the preaching of repentance for our own sins and failures, for our failure to pray, our failure to love, our failure to hear and listen and believe.  And we need to hear that in Christ, the kingdom has come near to us, the good news of the Gospel.

For Jesus, the whole world is his harvest field.  You get a picture of this when you look at his parables overall – stories about sowing the word of God, which falls on different kinds of soil.  Stories about wheat and tares, growing together, only separated at the final harvest.  A story about a struggling fig tree and a patient farmer who wants to give one more chance for it to produce fruit.  Or the illustration of the mustard seed, which shows the powerful effects of even the smallest faith.  Life and growth and fruit and harvest run throughout Jesus’ preaching.  He’s always looking for people to repent and believe, that is, to have life and have it abundantly, this is what he means by the harvest.

And He’s the one who does it, of course, but he does it through his church.  Through the preaching of repentance and the gospel.  Through the sacramental gifts of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the kingdom is also expanded.  And through the ongoing sending of the church into the world.  And even if you’re not a preacher, you have a part in that – through prayer, through generosity, through your time and your talents.  And through your own personal life of love and witness.

Now, another thing we learn from this passage is that sometimes, perhaps even quite often, the message of the kingdom is rejected.  And Jesus’ answer to that is not that we should worry.  It’s not a time to be discouraged or despair.  It is a serious matter, and worse for those who reject the Gospel than it will be for Sodom and Gomorrah.  But they’re not rejecting you, or your pastor, or the church, even.  They’re rejecting Christ.  But by the same token, we take no credit for those who come to Christ, for they really aren’t hearing you, receiving you, but Jesus, and him who sent Jesus.

There’s plenty of work to do in this kingdom, and no time for despair.  But there is a place for rejoicing.  Rejoice not in the outward trappings of success, the victories that we see, though we may see many failures, too.  Jesus points us to the true cause of rejoicing, the eternal destiny that we share with all who receive the kingdom – names written in the book of heaven.  Which is a picturesque way to say, no matter what happens here, good or bad, ups or downs.  Keep your ultimate hope in your ultimate destination.  Yes, some will hear and believe, some will reject.  Some will receive you, and so receive Jesus.  You may even see demons quivering at the power of his word.   But our ultimate hope isn’t governed by the skirmishes we see, the ups and downs of life in the kingdom, but by the final victory that is ours in Jesus Christ our Lord.

For Jesus is going to Jerusalem.  The kingdom of God is about to reach its goal in him.  He has a cross to endure.  He has a grave to defeat.  And with his mission complete, our mission cannot fail.

So repent, again, and daily, for the kingdom of God is ever at hand.  Serve where you are called.  Pray, love, and witness.  Don’t despair. But rejoice, especially in the promise of abundant and eternal life in Christ.  Your names are written in heaven, through the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.