July 29, 2001
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from our Gospel lesson (Luke 10: 25-37)read earlier.
The Story of the Good Samaritan. We've all heard it so often that the very word Samaritan has come to be a synonym for "nice person", a "humanitarian." We think of this story when we consider whether or not t o stop and help someone whose car seems to have quit them alongside the road. But this story is more than it seems on the surface. Jesus chose his words carefully, and crafted a story to challenge the "Expert in the Torah", one that still challenges and strengthens us when we are able to hear its full force.
Easily overlooked around this story of the Good Samaritan are the four critical questions surrounding it. "What must I do to inherit eternal life? tests the Torah expert. "What is written in the Torah?" asks Jesus. "Who is my neighbor?" retorts the Expert. "Who was a neighbor to the man?" responds Jesus. At the heart and soul of the Expert's questions were his attempts to earn eternal life with God, his attempts to dispute with, not follow Jesus and his words. At the heart and soul of Jesus' questions and teaching were the mercy and love of God, for the Torah Expert and for us.
First, some necessary background information. The "Torah" is the first five books of the Bible, written by Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. At the heart and soul of these books is the message of God's love and mercy for his people. The 8:00 AM Bible Study group just finished studying Genesis for the past several months. I was covering for Norma, the study leader, once when she was out of town. I asked the class members what surprised them the most about their study of Genesis. They seemed unanimous in saying that they were amazed at how frequently the Genesis characters seriously messed up.
Characters we think of as faithful, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob repeatedly sinned before God, yet the LORD continued to be merciful and loving toward them. Again and again God's people distrusted him and disobeyed him, yet He continued to return to them with his lovingkindness. The other books of the Torah and the rest of the Old Testament all have that same basic theme, the mercy of God toward people who constantly challenged him and really needed His mercy. Our Old Testament text today, Deuteronomy 30 has the same basic message: Trust and follow my words and I will have mercy on you and bless you.
But the religious leaders of the Jews at Jesus' time, like this expert in the Torah, did not see God's mercy as the center of God's Word about Himself. They believed that God had chosen them, singled them out from among the peoples of the earth. This was true. He had. But they had come to believe that they were now responsible for justifying themselves before God, for making his selection of them look good. Like their Old Testament predecessors, they forgot that He had chosen them not because they deserved it, but because of His mercy, because of His promises.
This expert in the Torah was not terribly far off. He knew the content of God's Torah. But he was far enough off to be dangerous, especially to himself. He was testing, trying to outwit this itinerant teacher Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus is not outwitted. The master teacher, who wants this man to understand and trust in the mercy of God responds back with a question, a good teaching technique: "What is written in the Torah?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
The Torah Expert seems to be getting there; he knew the right answers. He quotes the two verses from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19 that summarize the heart and soul of the Torah: "Love the LORD with all your heart and soul and your neighbor as yourself." But his next question belies how far off he was from understanding this Torah. He becomes defensive, "wishing to justify himself." He asks "Who is my neighbor?"
In what ways do we challenge Jesus with our questions? Wishing to justify ourselves, how do we dispute with Jesus about his control over our lives, his desire to give us the new life in him? Now don't get me wrong, it is very proper to ask questions about Jesus and his word. It's even very proper for you to challenge your pastor-to-be with questions like "Can you show me in the Bible why we teach this?" I relish the opportunity to answer questions like that. But we must be careful of the defensive, self-justifying questions like those of the Torah expert. Each of us probably have different defensive questions at different stages of our lives. Maybe yours is one of these: "Do I really need to show respect to my parents all the time?" "Do I really have to put the best construction on what my neighbor says all the time?" "Do I really need to be that regular in my church attendance, regular in how much I expose myself to God's Word?" Do I really need to avoid sexual temptations on TV and in magazines and on the Internet? Do I really need to love that person in my life who really frustrates me? I may not know what challenging question you last posed to Jesus, but I do know that we all, because of our sinful natures, do so at times.
The Torah Expert challenged Jesus with the question "Who really is my neighbor?" If this Torah expert was following typical Jewish teachings of the day, his definition of neighbor was probably narrow, not including many people, like "sinners" who neglected the Torah, Samaritans, and all non-Jewish people. The Messiah they expected would not associate with "sinners." Samaritans were especially despised, Israelite half-breeds who lived in the area north of Jerusalem but south of Galilee. Jews despised Samaritans so much that they would walk scores of miles out of their way just to avoid passing through Samaria.
Jesus didn't give this man a short, direct answer to his query. Jesus told a story to shock him. Jesus' choice of a Samaritan as merciful to some injured Judean traveler would have been a shock to the Torah Expert. It would be akin to a current Israelite being helped by merciful Palestinian PLO member, or vice versa. And the Samaritans were not simply victims of irrational prejudice. They were culprits as well. Less than a chapter before Luke reports (9: 53) that Jesus and his disciples were rejected from a Samaritan village simply because they were traveling to Jerusalem.
The Expert in the Torah would have been shocked that Jesus chose a hated Samaritan as an example of mercy. The Expert expressed a desire to love God and neighbor, but he didn't recognize his own inability to do so. He didn't recognize his need for a God who would be merciful to him a sinner. Despite the all the evidence, he did not yet feel it necessary to turn to God's mercy in Jesus Christ for his eternal life. The Torah Expert would not have felt it necessary to confess the confession we all spoke at the beginning of this service. Listen to those words again, especially on their emphasis on our need for His mercy and grace. Notice how there are no hints of self-justifying questions in the words you read and heard earlier.
"Almighty God, we poor sinners confess to you that we are by nature sinful and unclean and that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed. Therefore we flee for refuge to your boundless mercy, seeking and imploring your grace for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. O Most merciful God, since you have given your only-begotten Son to die for us, have mercy on us and for his sake grant us forgiveness of all our sins. And by your Holy Spirit increase in us true knowledge of you and of your will and true obedience to your word, to the end that by your grace we may come to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
When we challenge Jesus with self-justifying questions we make no progress toward faith, toward truly loving God and neighbor, until we recognize that we are like the man who is half-dead along the road. Then, and only then, do we realize our need for someone to be merciful to us. Only then do we realize our need to be bandaged and carried to safety.
In essence, the Torah expert says, "I will act to love my neighbor as myself; tell me who he is." But Jesus answers, "You cannot act, for you are half-dead and dying, like your ancestors in the Torah. You need someone to love you, to show mercy to you, heal you, pay for you, give you lodging, revive you" (Just, 1997). In essence, the Torah expert says, "I will love my neighbor if you define neighbor comfortably enough for me, not sinners, tax collectors and others who I despise." But Jesus answers, "I came to seek and save lost sinners. I am the one you challenge and despise because I associate with those sinners. Even though you despise me, I am the one who brings fulfillment to the Torah. I am the one who finally and completely brings God's mercy to you."
God's first written words to his people, the Torah, were about God's patience and mercy to his people. Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan poignantly re-proclaims that mercy of God. The ultimate Good Samaritan is Jesus himself. He is the man that the world and its legalists despise. At great risk to himself he paid the expense for our healing, on the cross. Because, and only because, he did so are we empowered to have mercy on others in ways that mimic his great love and mercy.
The grace, mercy, and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us always. Amen.