Grace, mercy, and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
You’ve
seen it before; someone said something and somebody got upset. What happens
next? In this case, instead of a rant and rave the upset guy wanted to find out
what the other person really meant, while hedging his bets. Being clever, he
set a trap to put the other fellow in his place if what he heard was what that
guy named Jesus actually meant. Jesus
upset an attorney, a religious lawyer who interpreted the books, a huge pile of
religious and civil laws, that interpreted the Torah. The attorney worked for
the temple, which was both church and state in that day (not counting the Roman
overlords). He now puts Jesus to the test because something bothered that
attorney.
The context of today’s reading tells
you the problem. Jesus greeted the 72 disciple who just returned from their
preaching assignment. They were commissioned to declare that the kingdom of God 10:22 )
That’s a mighty big claim, that Jesus
is the Son of God, and that only in and from Him is salvation, and only those
who believe Him are saved. Throughout His ministry, Jesus taught that salvation
is through faith alone, faith in Him. This bothers the attorney on more than
one front. That’s why he puts Jesus to the test. He asks, “Did I hear you
correctly? Is salvation really God’s doing, and received by faith, really faith
alone? Isn’t it at least faith with works?”
Consider that question from a historical point of view. We read in Acts
how some in the early church said to be saved you have to do the law. Unless you are circumcised forget about getting into
heaven. That claim was soundly rebuked by Peter and Paul, as in today’s Epistle
reading.
Later on some said Jesus’ cross isn’t
enough to be completely forgiven. You have to earn some of it by loving God and
by doing good works. Now and then somebody stood up and said, it’s not what we
do… it is grace through faith alone (as in the Reformation). Nevertheless, our
sinful inclination wants to earn something before God. We still want to earn
enough frequent flier miles to get the heaven. So
some churches teach that although Jesus saved you, now it’s up to you. Some
churches say “Grace? What we need is a social agenda.” Some churches just toss the revealed God out
the window. It’s up to you to create a god or goddess that does the trick.
These are all tyrannies. They’re about what you must do. They will, as the
Apostle Paul reminds us, point out transgression. The attorney’s test is
relevant to today’s mindset: And behold,
a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to
inherit eternal life?”
Do you see the trap? The question
assumes the answer. In legal terms, the question shows prejudice, that is,
pre-justice. He asks, “What shall I do
to inherit eternal life?” The question
requires doing as necessary. Oh, Jesus
died for sinners, but I need to add something. The problem is, either you are
saved by faith or works, there’s no middle ground. As in Gal. 3:1-3, O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?
It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by
hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now
being perfected by the flesh?
It’s all or nothing. Either saved by
faith or saved by works and that’s what disturbed the attorney. He wants to be
a good man all by himself. Folks say he’s a good man, and by our common
standards no doubt he was. He wants God to agree… by the same standards.
Working on call as a mortuary assistant, every service I’ve ushered, someone
said the deceased was such a good person. Therefore he’s in heaven, in a better
place. Grace is foreign to our Adamic
nature. We want to count on our works. We want to do something to be proud of,
even if it mocks Christ’s work for us.
Two men watch their boys swim in the
surf. One gets in real trouble. The other boy, sent by his father, swims to
rescue him and does, but drowns. The father of the rescued boy says to the
other Father, let me make amends. Would $10 help pay a percentage of the death
of your son? So we ridicule God the
Father when we expect to be accepted for something we do. To depend on our
works is to reject the Father’s love through Jesus Christ the Son. It’s not
that Christians should lack good works, quite the opposite. It is how we value
who we are in Christ compared to what we do. Jesus doesn’t fall into the
attorney’s trap. Instead, He traps the attorney. He gives the attorney what he
wants. “You want to be saved by the law? OK.”
He said to him, “What is written
in the Law? How do you read it?” And 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.” And he said to him, “You
have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
Jesus asked “how do you read it?”
Literally, “How do you recite it?” “Recite” is the
liturgical language of the Synagogue. With this word Jesus leads the attorney
to recite the Shema. “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, and your neighbor
as yourself.” This quotation was recited in the liturgy twice daily by
every pious Jew. It is the biblical summary of the law. The thorn in the Shema
is simple: Do this and you will live.
Even now the attorney fails. When he quotes the Shema he adds a phrase, “with
all your mind.” He adds to God’s Word like Eve did when she replied to the
tempter, “and do not touch it.” Maybe he
added an extra command thinking his piety would impress Jesus. But by adding to
God’s word the lawyer made himself ruler over God’s word. He just broke the
first commandment.
He fails the law and that’s why Jesus
said, “Do this.” Jesus said “Do this” because He knows the law will convict us
of what we do not do. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to
Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Houston
It’s too bad self-righteousness is a
lie. It’s more then that, it is a prison. It’s a prison if we must keep telling
ourselves we’re OK. Here there is no peace. The law always pushes, pushing for
more good deeds than we have at any given time, so we look for excuses. The
attorney scrambles for a defense. He needs a loophole and thinks he found it in
the word “neighbor.” (He’s
an attorney after all!) Loopholes
mean he can ignore his failures. Sadly, he will then ignore his need for a
Saviour. But Jesus does not let the attorney off the law’s hook. Jesus tells a
parable, and it is not a lawyer joke starting out, “there was a priest, a Levite
and an attorney.”
Although Jesus throws the priest and
Levite under the wheel too, because they taught the same mix of law and grace,
the star of the show is the Samaritan. The wounded traveler expected help from
the religious professionals, everyone knows they should help. But they did not.
Did they justifying it too? But the Samaritan helped; a person who was
considered unclean, and couldn’t enter the temple courts. He medicated the hurt
man, pouring out the oil and wine. That
expression is also liturgical language suggestive of God’s gifts. So Jesus reminds the attorney that love for God
and neighbor goes together. But it is
more than helping. The Samaritan took a terrible risk to care for his neighbor.
Remember
the severe beating the robbed man got, and the loss of all his goods? Those
dirty robbers should eat the same medicine! And there was a medicine to make
somebody pay, a legal remedy attorneys knew. By helping, the Samaritan opened
himself up to an injury-accident lawsuit. In that day’s Middle Eastern culture
the Samaritan opened himself for blood-retaliation. The principle of retaliation was: if the robbers couldn’t be
found the next person who did something to the victim could be, even if he was
the one who helped. It’s irrational, but
that’s the way the law worked, and still does in liability suits. How many
stories do you know someone helping wasn’t thanked? The trucker who stopped for
an accident and pinched the artery to save the man’s life had dirty hands, so
got sued for causing an infection.
Yet a Samaritan helped! If the relatives of the hurt man wanted to get
even, a Samaritan would make a satisfying target. Jews hated them. Samaritans
were cut off from the people of God, defiled by marrying foreigners, and
enemies of the Jews over 600 years. (Our Old Testament text is pre-Samaritan
days, but suggests the growing animosity between Judah territory of Northern
Israel
Remember the context, remember why the
attorney put Jesus to the test? Do you really want to be saved by your own
works when God has mercy? Don’t you want Him to justify you? God’s Son bore the cost of the law Himself,
and on that basis declares you righteous before Him. That’s what God did. Jesus had compassion on
His enemies. Jesus became the Samaritan. Jesus bore the Middle-Eastern custom
of retaliation. Those he helped did to
him what they deserved. He was beaten, whipped, and executed. Yet knowing what
would come of mercy, Jesus laid down His life. Did the clever attorney
understand the message of this parable?
The point is not “everyone must love his neighbor.” It says that, but
that’s not the point. The point is: God so loves the world that He sent His Son
to become the Samaritan for our sake, to pay the price of retaliation.
The point is, although we fail to love
our neighbor as the law demands, God’s Son justified sinners. Alleluia! That’s
the end of the story. Now what? Shall we love our neighbor? The law does demand it, although we fall
short. But what if we are declared righteous? Jesus justified the ungodly.
Obeying the law doesn’t figure even one percent of our salvation. We are saved
by grace through faith. You don’t have to do a single good work to pay the
Father for sending His Son to His death. What about the wounded traveler
though? Shall we pass by? No, those who receive God’s grace discover faith
bears fruit. Just as Christ rose from the dead, He gives us His life. His love
grows in us as the fruit of justification, for Christ now lives in us.
We begin to do what is impossible
under the law. By the work of the Holy Spirit we love God and neighbor, even if
not in order to be saved. None of our love is perfect. It’s a rather soiled
thing. Just ask those nearest you. However, because of faith, the Father
accepts it and you, for Christ’s sake. Since you are justified, your works are
accepted as good. Since you are justified by God through Christ, the Father
sees what we do in faith as good, for the sake of His Son. You are freed from
the burden of the law, and freed to love your neighbor. Jesus meant what He
said, revealing and giving His grace to you for salvation.
The Peace of God which
passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Amen)
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