How kind the Good Samaritan

Sermon for Trinity 13

Galatians 3:15-22  +  Luke 10:23-37

This was only the second time we sang that last hymn, “How Kind the Good Samaritan.” I found the words to it just last year, right after we celebrated the 13th Sunday after Trinity, and I liked it so much that I composed this little tune for it. We first sang it as Vespers last year. The composer of the text was John Newton, more famous for the hymn “Amazing Grace.” I was really very impressed with how well he understood today’s Gospel, which includes Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. That parable is so poorly understood by so many people, but over 200 years ago Newton captured the main idea very well in that hymn, which depicts us, not as the Samaritan going around doing good to strangers, but as the dying man who is passed by by the teachers of the Law and rescued by the Samaritan, who represents Jesus.

You have to read this parable in context, of course, as with all of Scripture. You see, the point of this parable is to show the expert in the Law who was testing Jesus, and to show all who hear this parable, that they’re doomed if they rely on doing good to earn them a place in heaven. The Good Samaritan gives us just a glimpse, a tiny picture and example of the mercy and love God demands from each of us for our neighbor—not to even mention the love and commitment we owe to God directly! That’s the degree of love that God’s Law demands, if we are to earn a place in heaven by keeping the Law. But He hasn’t found it in us. And so each of us, like a beaten and bloodied man lying half dead on the side of the road, is in dire need of a heavenly Good Samaritan to come to our aid. Because no one else can or will, especially the Law of Moses!

An expert in the Law—that is, the Old Testament Law—stood up, not to ask an innocent question, but to test Jesus. What must I do to inherit eternal life? And right away, if you’re paying attention, you see the problem with his question. What must you do to inherit anything? An inheritance isn’t given for doing things. It’s given because of the relationship that exists between people, usually family, so that when the one dies, the other receives what the deceased has left to him as an “inheritance.”

Now, the expert in the Law was right to use the word “inheritance,” which he got from his own Law, from the book of Genesis, where, as St. Paul also makes clear in today’s Epistle, it was an inheritance that God promised to Abraham and his Seed, which is Christ. It was a Testament God made with Abraham, like a Last Will and Testament, where one party promises to give something away to another. Eternal life is part of that Testament God made with Abraham, the promise to be God to Abraham and his Seed forever, even after death. And Scripture says that Abraham didn’t “do” anything to be justified by God. “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.”

But the expert in the Law got confused, as many people do. He confused the promise God made to Abraham of an inheritance, which a person can’t work to earn—it has to be simply received by faith—with the Law-covenant God made with Israel on Mount Sinai, which was established as more of a bargain, where each party agreed to “do” their part.

Jesus asked him, What is written in the Law? How do you read it? Jesus was giving the man the opportunity to cite the promise God made to Abraham and his Seed in the book of Genesis. But instead, the man cited a portion of the covenant from Mt. Sinai: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself. That’s a good summary of the whole moral Law. Complete and utter devotion to God, from the heart, and devotion to one’s neighbor—doing to others what you would have them do to you—has always been God’s will for mankind. And that will of God was codified, written down, and agreed upon by the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai, where they all agreed: (1) This is what is good and right, and (2) we will do it. All the other laws proclaimed by Moses were examples of putting this law of love into practice.

So, since the expert in the Law wanted to focus on God’s moral commands, and since he believed that keeping those commands was the way to inherit eternal life, Jesus went along with him. You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. Love God with your whole heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. That’s your end of the bargain. That’s what you have to “do” to inherit eternal life—if you get it by “doing something.”

But if you do—if you gain eternal life by doing—then there’s always a follow-up question: “And how do I know I’ve done enough?” How do I know if I’ve loved the Lord enough, or if I’ve loved my neighbor as myself? You see, the expert in the Law was left in doubt. He understood that his own law, the law he loved so much, only made his hope of eternal life more doubtful. And so he tried to “justify himself.” He asked, “And who is my neighbor?” You see what he was getting at, don’t you? If he can narrow down the list of people he’s commanded to love as himself, maybe he can at least pretend he’s done it. But if “his neighbor” includes too many other people, he knows he’s doomed.

So Jesus answers the man’s question with the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man was beaten and robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest (a servant of the Law) came along and offered no help. A Levite (another servant of the Law) came along and offered no help. But then a Samaritan came by. Samaritans lived in Samaria, north of Jerusalem. They had a little Jewish blood left in them and some Jewish practices and beliefs, mixed with pagan practices and beliefs. The Jews generally despised them. But this Samaritan came along and, when he saw the injured man, went right over to help him and offered every sort of help you could think of, including caring for his wounds, taking him to an inn, caring for him there, and then paying the innkeeper to keep looking after him while he was away on his journey. How kind the good Samaritan!

Then Jesus turns to the expert in the Law and asks: Now which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “The one who showed mercy to him.” Mercy, which is nothing but a form of love. Mercy and love were at the heart of all God’s commandments. And if you read the Gospels, you know that the Pharisees and experts in the Law were characteristically low on mercy. They may have kept the commandments externally and performed all the rites and rituals they were supposed to perform. But they were cruel and condescending to their fellow Israelites, not merciful. And so, with one parable, Jesus turned this man’s religion upside down, forcing him to look at what his Law really demanded of him: mercy and love toward everyone he encountered on his earthly journey.

And then Jesus spoke those terrifying words: Go and do likewise. What must you “do” to inherit eternal life? This is what the Law of God demands. If you would be saved by that Law-covenant, by doing your part to obey God’s commands, while God does His part to pay you the wages of eternal life, then you must do as the Good Samaritan did, showing genuine mercy at every turn, in every way, with every person, at every opportunity. Not just for injured strangers you come across, but for your parents, for your children, for your husband or wife, for your coworkers, for your friends and acquaintances, for your fellow citizens whom you encounter day after day after day, and also for your enemies. Mercy. Self-less love, love that’s just like the kind of love you would have others show to you. And that’s just what God’s Law requires that you do toward your neighbor. We haven’t even touched on all the things you owe to God directly, to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, to honor His name, to worship Him, and to cherish His Word above all things.

Terrifying, isn’t it? It should be, if you’re honest with yourself. And that’s the point. In fact, that was always the point of the Law, to reveal the sin that already lives inside each of us. As Paul wrote in today’s Epistle, “The Law was added for the sake of transgressions,” that is, that the Israelites and that all people might have God’s will spelled out for them so that they could see just how much they transgress it. Because sin is there in your heart and in your being, whether you can see it or not. The Law simply reveals it for what it is.

And then, once you’ve been beaten to a pulp by the Law, once it’s left you for dead on the side of the road, unable to lift a finger to save yourself, along comes this Samaritan—the Son of God, true God and true man, though despised by men. He comes along with the very, genuine, heartfelt mercy and compassion that He demands of us, because He made us originally in His image and wanted us to be like Him. But now, having come as a man, the Lord Jesus shows this mercy, not only as our example, but as our Substitute. He gave His life on the cross for us out of mercy, as the payment for our sins. He began to heal us through Holy Baptism, where He forgave us our sins and gave us His Holy Spirit and made us heirs of eternal life—heirs who will inherit eternal life, not by doing the right things, but by believing in the Lord Jesus, who did everything we were supposed to for us, because we couldn’t. How kind the Good Samaritan!

And then, before He ascended to heaven, He put believers into the charge of the “innkeepers,” the ministers whom He has called into His Church, to keep tending to the spiritually wounded, to keep us on the narrow path that leads to life, to spur us on to love and good works, because while we received the forgiveness of our sins in Baptism and live now under God’s grace, we are not yet what we should be, what God is healing us to become: truly good Samaritans whose hearts are as full of mercy for our neighbor as the heart of Jesus Himself was and is.

We call that aspect of healing “sanctification,” the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of turning believers into the image of Jesus in how we think and in how we live. So the same “go and do likewise” that first was intended to strike terror into the heart of secure sinners becomes, for the believer, our marching orders, to go and be like Jesus. It begins in the heart—hearts that have been renewed and recreated by God’s mercy and grace toward us. And then it extends to our hands and to our whole life. “Go and do likewise.” Go and walk in the footsteps of Christ, with mercy toward your neighbor, toward everyone whom God places next to you on your path through life, until He determines that your time here is done, or until He returns from His “journey,” and He brings you at last into the eternal life that all who persevere in the faith will inherit, not by doing good works under the Old Testament, but by believing in Christ Jesus, who has made us coheirs with Him in the New Testament in His blood. Amen.