Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Last Sunday, the sermon told us how Jesus opened the ears of the deaf and mute man and loosed his tongue so that he could speak, just as He also opened the eyes of the blind. Today’s Gospel reading begins with Jesus telling His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Luke 10:23-24).

 

The Old Testament faithful desired to see the fulfillment of God’s promises to them in the person of the Messiah, the one whom God would send to open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf, and cause the lame to walk, and even raise the dead. They longed to see the Messiah who would establish and rule an everlasting kingdom, putting an end to the enemies of God’s people once and for all.

 

The disciples of Jesus saw Him doing these very things. And they heard His gracious words of forgiveness, life, and peace. They saw in Jesus what Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, David and Solomon, Hezekiah and Josiah desired to see and did not see. The disciples heard with their own ears the preaching of the Messiah. They saw with their own eyes the promised Saviour.

 

Not everyone’s eyesight is so good. I went to the optometrist last week and was told I need another prescription for stronger lenses to see better both far away and close up. Sometimes we cannot see very well what is up ahead and coming our way. Sometimes we cannot see very well the things that are right in front of us. The prophets and kings of old who desired to see the Messiah did not see with their eyes the Saviour who was so far away. But there were people who came into contact with Jesus who could not see what was so very close to them.

 

A lawyer came up to Jesus asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25). Many lawyers have bad eyesight from staring at law books for years and years and years. This lawyer’s question about ‘doing’ requires us to look into the Law of God. What does God tell us to do? What is necessary for us to inherit the kingdom of God by ‘doing’? The answer is simple enough, and the lawyer knew it. It was kind of a no-brainer. He recited to Jesus what all Jews knew by heart. “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 neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

 

Jesus Himself had said that these two commandments sum up the whole of God’s holy Law. We use them also in our teaching of the Ten Commandments. The first three commandments tell us how to love the LORD our God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. The rest of the commandments tell us how to love our neighbour as ourselves, including the Fifth Commandment, which seems particularly in focus for today: “You shall not murder.” Our catechism explains: “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbour in his body, but help and support him in every physical need” (Luther’s Small Catechism).

 

The lawyer, concerned about what to ‘do’ to inherit eternal life, needed specifics. That is necessary when we are looking to measure our doing. We need some standard or description so that we will know whether or not we have truly done it. Did we meet the mark or miss it? Did we clear the bar? How close are we? How much extra effort is required? Without the specifics there will always be doubt about whether or not we have done it. In seeking the necessary knowledge to fulfill the requirement, the lawyer wanted a proper definition of the law. In this case not so much what to do, but to whom it must be done. “Who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29).

 

Jesus has no aversion to the Law. It is His Law, after all. He is quite happy to explain it to the lawyer. And He does so, in what we have come to call the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We have heard it many times and you could probably tell it to me if I asked you to. It is not a long parable and the details are fairly simple.

 

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ (Luke 130-35).

 

The answer to the lawyer’s question is simple enough. But you have to pay attention, because Jesus did something tricky here. The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbour?” The answer is: the person lying at the side of the road who needed help. The law says that you must help him. You must not do what the robbers did, hurting and harming him in his body. You must do what the priest and the Levite neglected to do and only the Samaritan did: help and support him in every physical need. Jesus didn’t spell out the answer to the lawyer’s question at the end of the parable. It was obvious.

 

What did Jesus do instead? He changed the question. The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbour?” The man who fell among the robbers. Jesus asked, “Who do you think proved to be a neighor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The obvious answer is, the Samaritan. The implicated answer is, not me. The lawyer asked, “Who do I need to help?” Jesus asked, “Who is the one who gives the help?”

 

It wasn’t the priest, the ordained minister of the temple. It wasn’t the Levite, the professional church worker. These were the two people that the lawyer would have aspired to be like. They were the ones whom he would have expected to have the highest responsibility, and if they didn’t have to help this guy, then he shouldn’t have to either. If the pastor or the seminarian aren’t going to do it, why should I? If they don’t have to stop and help this half-dead man, then God cannot get too angry at me if I don’t do it either.

 

But a Samaritan stopped to help and that blows this logic out of the water. It was foreigner, a member of a different religion. It was like an immigrant Muslim stopping to help a half-dead 5th generation Canadian of North European descent. Instead of the priest and Levite providing the excuse for not stopping to help, now we have the Samaritan showing that we have no excuse at all.

 

There are a couple of different reactions we could have to this. One would be to get angry at Jesus for putting such a scandalous ending to the parable. Who does He think He is suggesting that a Muslim or a Samaritan would be more compassionate than a Christian or a Jew? It’s an insult. He’s saying that our pastors and church workers and all of us are worse than this Samaritan.

 

Or we might react differently by congratulating Jesus on making such an effective emotional plea at the end of His sermon. Boy, He really hit it home. That’s going to get us all thinking about how, from now on, we will take every opportunity to help anyone who is in need. I hope that on the way home from church I come across someone half-dead so that I can do what Jesus wants me to do. I will happily be the Samaritan because I sure don’t want to be like that priest or Levite.

 

So, off you go toward home and who will you see at the first busy street corner, holding a cardboad sign? Don’t worry, they don’t count. They are not half-dead yet, only a quarter or three-eighths dead.

 

You can’t do it. You can’t be the neighbour that God commands you to be to everyone who needs a neighbour like that Samaritan. You don’t even want to do it. It is already too hard to be the one who has compassion on your friends, and your family members. They are taking all you’ve got to give and more. If you help the occasional stranger or extreme emergency, well that is good and commendable, but it still falls well short of the holy Law of God, because for every one that you help, how many do you pass by? There are too many neighbours in need of your love.

 

This is why Jesus changed the question at the end of the parable. If our eternal life depends on us helping every neighbour who is need, then we might as well give up now. The Law cannot help us. Our ‘doing’ for eternal life will come up short.

 

So Jesus asks, who has proved to be a neighbour to everyone in need around him? It is not you. It is not the best of you, the greatest pastor you ever had, or the most tireless volunteer. It is a stranger. One who is among you yet one you dare not claim as one of your own. Someone who came from far away, who is a stranger and foreigner to this land, like a Samaritan.

 

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” Last Sunday you saw Jesus heal the deaf man with the speech impediment. The lawyer’s eyes were bad. He had trouble seeing what was right in front of him. He asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” and there He was looking him in the eye, not a neighbour you have to save, but a neighbour who is a Saviour for you.

 

Jesus is the one who proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers. He opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped the ears of the deaf, loosed the tongue of the mute, made the lame to walk, and even raised the dead. “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.” Jesus is the neighbour who saves you. The eternal, holy, Son of God came down from heaven to rescue you. He became man, with all of our frailties and temptations, not so that we could somehow come to His aid, but so that He could be the neighbour who saves us.

 

We have been beaten and robbed by the work of God’s holy Law. You thought you might be able to ‘do’ it, but the Law has stolen away all your merit. You were standing on the strength of the help that you’ve offered to others, but God’s requirements have still beaten you down. You were covering your imperfections with excuses and rationales of why this law should not apply to you at this time, but the commandments have stripped you and left you half-dead in your trespasses and sins. Actually, St. Paul tells us “You were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

 

You are going to die in those sins, void of eternal life, destined to the punishment of hell for passing by all those you have failed to help. But someone has had compassion on you. A neighbour has come to your aid. God became man to walk the road that you are on and He came to you and bound up your wounds with His forgiving grace and mercy.

 

He poured on oil and wine in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, cleansing you of your impurity, disinfecting you of your sins, healing and strengthening you for a new life. He bore your sins in His own body on the cross and brought you safely into the inn of the Church to care for you. He even made up for what the robbers stole away from you, paying the full price so that you might rest and recover and be restored. And He is coming again to set all things right, to see that you are fully healed and resurrected (body and soul) to inherit the eternal life that He has secured for you.

 

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” See that your neighbour is Jesus. Let your ears be opened to hear His words which tell you what He has done for you through His suffering and death upon the cross. That is what He did so that you might inherit eternal life. You are His neighbour for whom He has had compassion. He has loved God the Father with all His heart, soul, strength, and mind; and He did it by giving Himself in love for you.