Three things the Good Samaritan teaches

Sermon for Trinity 13

Galatians 3:15-22  +  Luke 10:23-37

Everyone knows what a “good Samaritan” is. It’s a person who shows kindness to a stranger in need. This is what most people take away from Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, if they even know anymore that the Bible is where we get the term from. It is one of the lessons Jesus was teaching, that His Christians should “go and do likewise,” as the Samaritan in the parable did. But it isn’t the only thing Jesus was teaching, and it’s far from the most important thing He was teaching, as the Epistle from Galatians 3 makes perfectly clear. There’s a beautiful harmony between today’s Epistle and Gospel, and so we’ll blend them together a little bit in today’s sermon as well. With the help of the Epistle, we’ll see that the parable of the Good Samaritan does three things: First, it shows our sins. Then it shows our Savior. And finally, it guides our behavior.

Let’s turn first to the Epistle from Galatians 3, where St. Paul does an outstanding job explaining the Gospel and its relationship to the Old Testament Law. He reminds us that, long before the Ten Commandments were given through Moses on Mount Sinai—430 years earlier, to be exact— God had already made a covenant or a testament with Abraham and with his Seed. First, Paul clarifies that the “seed” or “offspring” back in Genesis 17 referred to one specific offspring of Abraham; it referred to the Christ. The Christ, the true Seed of Abraham, was to receive all things as an inheritance, on the basis of God’s promise. God promised to be God to Abraham and to his Seed, and to give all things to his Seed. There were no strings attached, no conditions to be met. The Christ would receive God’s favor and all things as an inheritance, because of who His father was, and in the case of the Christ, that means both his father Abraham according to His human nature, and God the Father Himself according to His divine nature. God’s favor and eternal life were an inheritance to be given to the Christ and to be received by the Christ, and then to be passed on as an inheritance to those who are beneficiaries of Christ.

But the Old Testament Jews were then placed under the Law at Mt. Sinai until the coming of Christ. St. Paul writes later in Galatians 3, the Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. For 1500 years the Israelites had been under that Law, waiting for the Christ to come. Finally, Jesus the Christ, the Seed of Abraham, arrived in Israel and was in the process of calling people into fellowship with Him by faith. Finally the promised Heir had arrived and was passing on that promised inheritance to all who believed in Him. That’s why Jesus burst forth with joy in the first words of our Gospel, saying to His disciples, Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see! For I tell you, many prophets and kings desired to see the things you are seeing and did not see them, and to hear the things you are hearing, and did not hear them.

Understanding the concept of “inheritance” and “promise,” you can see the inconsistency in the lawyer’s question in our text. What must I do to inherit eternal life? It’s an absurd question. You don’t “do” anything to “inherit” something. Again, an inheritance is given to you because of your relationship to someone, not as a prize to be earned or achieved.

But instead of explaining something that the expert in the law should have already known, Jesus played along with him. What is written in the Law? How do you read it? He answered, 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. Yes, Jesus says, that is a very good summary of the Law. You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. It’s worth pointing out that this summary—love for God, love for your neighbor—isn’t in opposition to the Ten Commandments, as if the Ten Commandments demand loveless behavior, while this “law of love” demands something else. No, the Ten Commandments are the Law of perfect love. Love for God. Love for the neighbor. Love that has been defined by God in the Ten Commandments.

But that law of love wasn’t part of the testament God made with Abraham, was it? God didn’t tell Abraham, if you love Me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and if you love your neighbor as yourself, then I will be your God and give you this land and eternal life and everything else. No, that testament was based on the promise of an inheritance.

So why was the Law added 430 years at the time of Moses? Paul says in the Epistle that the Law was added for the sake of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise had been spoken. What does that mean, “for the sake of transgressions”? It means the same things Paul wrote in Romans 3 in different words, We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law comes the knowledge of sin. The law shows us our sin.

The lawyer understood that the Law had him dead to rights. He was caught red-handed. It’s one thing not to murder someone or not to steal. It’s a much bigger thing to have a heart of perfect love for God and for one’s neighbor. That’s a tall order, taller than the lawyer was capable of, taller than you or I are capable of.

But he was still fixated on the Law, still ignoring the testament God made with the Seed of Abraham, still wanting to justify himself by his obedience to the Law. So his last hope is to narrow down the law’s application. Who is my neighbor? If my neighbor is my mother or my father or my children or my wife or the guy next door who treats me really well, then maybe, just maybe, I can love him as I love myself. But does it include the one who mistreats me? The one who hates me? Does it include a total stranger whom I just happen to encounter walking along the road?

So Jesus tells this parable of a Jewish man who was attacked by robbers on the road leading away from Jerusalem, beaten, robbed, and left half-dead on the side of the road. A priest and a Levite happen to see him lying there, but instead of helping, they both pass by on the other side of the road. It’s a man from Samaria who stops to help, a foreigner from that half-Jewish, half-Gentile territory to the north of Judea. Remember that there was an ethnic and a religious animosity between Jews and Samaritans. Still, the Samaritan stops to investigate. He performs triage on the man’s wounds, sets him on his own animal and walks him to the nearest inn, where he cares for him and then provides for his care until he returns from his journey.

And so Jesus teaches the lawyer that the right question isn’t, who is my neighbor?, but to whom should I show mercy as a neighbor? Who was a neighbor to the man who was robbed? The one who showed him mercy. Then Jesus adds the requirement of the Law: Go and do likewise!

That is what the Law requires, what it demands. Not that you love people who love you, not that you love only the people you feel close to; God’s commandment to love your neighbor has nothing at all to do with how another person treats you or who that person is. Your neighbor is the person whom God has placed on your path who needs your love, who needs your mercy, regardless of who that person is or how that person has treated you.

When we look at ourselves in the mirror of that perfect law of selfless love, what we see is transgressions. The law was added for the sake of transgressions. What we see are hearts that are not eager to go out of our way to show love to everyone in our path, but only certain ones, if that. The chief purpose of the Law was not to control Israelite behavior, nor was it to give the Israelites a way to earn God’s favor and the inheritance of eternal life. The chief purpose of the Law was to show them, as they lived their daily lives, how sinful they were at heart. And so the Good Samaritan shows the sin in each one of us, reveals us as the ones who have been beaten up by the devil and left on the side of the road, reveals us as the ones whom the Old Testament priest and Levite refused to help because we’re sinners, reveals us as the ones in need of a good Samaritan to come along and save us, a Savior who would be the very Seed of Abraham promised in the original testament, a Savior who would be the named heir of eternal life, a Savior who would come to our aid and share His life with all who are brought into His New Testament.

The genius of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that in the very good Samaritan whose actions show us our transgressions against God’s holy law of love, whose behavior shows us how far short we fall of God’s holy requirements, we also see our Savior depicted. And in His behavior toward the dying man, we see His behavior toward us.

We did nothing to save ourselves. We couldn’t. But He came down to earth, a foreigner from heaven, the very God against whom we had sinned, made one of us in order to become a neighbor to us. He applied forgiveness to our wounds in Holy Baptism, brought us into the inn of His holy Christian Church, and has now left His ministers in charge of caring for our souls until He returns at the Last Day. The Good Samaritan shows us our Savior, Jesus, who has brought us into the New Testament in His blood, and has made us heirs of eternal life, by grace, through faith.

And now, finally, having shown us the purpose of the Law—to show us our sins—and having shown us also our Savior, the Good Samaritan also guides our behavior.

Was God serious when He gave Israel the Ten Commandments? Was He serious when He called upon them to love God with all their heart and to love their neighbor? Of course He was! Just because the Law can’t save us or help us to inherit eternal life doesn’t mean it’s useless. It guides us to walk in the new life of God’s redeemed children. It shows us, as Paul writes in Ephesians 5, how to be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and to live a life of love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. “As Christ also has loved us.” Or, “As the Good Samaritan has loved us.” That is how we are to live, with selfless love to those around us, being merciful neighbors to the ones whom God places along our path, not in order to inherit eternal life, but as those who have been made heirs of eternal life through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.