Today’s Gospel lesson is a very
special one.
Most
Christians who have been reading their Bibles for any amount of time
know the story.
Luke
set this parable among Jesus’ parables of grace, yet it’s a
little hard to find the grace in it.
Let’s see ourselves in light of
what Jesus and this lawyer talk about.
The question - How can I earn an
inheritance?
How
can you earn an inheritance? Jesus turns the question around.
ignore
the impossible - an inheritance can’t be earned
Love
the Lord with all your...
Love
your neighbor as yourself.
How are we doing on that?
Our
lives show that we don’t love God.
What
is more enticing? The Bible or the television?
What
do we know better? Sports statistics or God’s word?
What
do we care more about? When we can hear God’s words of grace or
when we can eat?
How
about God’s priorities - to seek and to save the lost? Yet one of
our great fears is sharing the Gospel with our family, friends,
neighbors, and associates.
Our world cries out for
authenticity. And here we claim that Jesus is the only savior, the
only one who will ever rescue anyone from certain doom. And we don’t
tell about him. We don’t look to him in hope. We don’t love God.
Yes, lawyer, you are right. Love
God with all your heart. Do that. Please.
And the lawyer thinks he’s doing
well. How is it that we look into God’s Word and don’t see
ourselves reflected? How do we see the speck in our neighbor’s eye
and overlook the plank in our own?
But he goes on, and Jesus lets
him. Love your neighbor as yourself.
NOW he sees something wrong. Who
is my neighbor?
Chilling words I read this week.
An acquaintance on the Internet posted a plea especially for pastors.
What do you say to someone who is dealing with depression, fear, or
other troubles and says, “I can’t come to church for a while. I
can’t seem to put on my mask that says everything’s all right.”
What will happen to us if we come
to church without our masks on?
What if our neighbors in the pews
see us for who we are - people who are hurting, people for whom
everything isn’t really all right, people who are crying out to the
Lord to rescue us from this painful world? What if our neighbors in
the pews see us as people who really are confessing real sins and
really asking that the Lord would take them away because if he
doesn’t we will be crushed?
Do we love our neighbor?
Wait a minute, says the lawyer.
You’re thinking of someone who isn’t my neighbor.
Jesus tells him a story, and in
the story, Jesus is there.
Rejected, beaten, disfigured,
unable to help himself, scorned, the priest and Levite may even have
wondered if he was actually alive. All this happening on his journey
down from Jerusalem, the place of worship and forgiveness, to
Jericho, not only a city most famous for being sacked, but also a
place some 3500 feet below Jerusalem. It’s almost a thousand feet
below sea level. This man is descending into the earth from the
mountaintop. And he is captured, attacked, everything he has is taken
away from him.
Who is this man? It is surely
Jesus, your neighbor and mine, the one who seems to have nothing to
offer, the one who is unloved and who, in his humiliation has nothing
to give us.
last, lost, least, lonely
stricken, smitten and afflicted,
‘tis he
How do we love Jesus? How does
this foreigner, the one who was at enmity with God, the Samaritan,
someone called from afar, like you and like me, love the man of
sorrows?
interrupts life
risks time - cares for him and
puts him on his animal so the Samaritan has to walk
risks credit - gives him all he
needs
risks attack - there are enemies
in the area, remember?
loves his neighbor
If this is all the parable says,
we leave you short. We have left you with the Law. We’ve already
established that we don’t love God well enough and that we don’t
love our neighbor as ourself. As we’ve described the neighbor it
looks worse and worse. There are three responses we can have.
1) God didn’t really intend that
high of a standard. We can decide that really we love God quite well
and that we are loving our neighbor as well as he could expect.
Be perfect as I am perfect
Be conformed into the image of
Christ
Seek and save the lost
Pray without ceasing
Lord give us repentance of our
arrogant attitude that says we keep Your Law! Change our hearts!
2) God does have that high of a
standard. I can’t keep God’s standard. Therefore I despair.
There’s no hope at all.
If we confess our sins
Jesus loved us while we were yet
sinners
The Father made the Son to become
sin for us so we could be the righteousness of God in Christ.
He forgives us each and every sin.
Despair won’t cut it, then.
Arrogance and despair are out. We need our third possible response.
3) Jesus, the man of sorrows, the
one who suffered and died, did it all for you. He is the only one who
has ever loved God perfectly and he is the only one who has ever
loved his neighbor as himself. He has done this. He died doing it.
And he rose from the dead so that all who believe his promises may
have his perfect life.
Trust that Jesus is the savior of
the world.
Trust that Jesus is your savior.
Come to him again and again,
receiving his forgiveness, which we can never earn ourselves.
The Lord’s table is a time of
repentance and restoration. It’s a time when Jesus gives himself in
a very concrete way, in true body and blood for you, for your
forgiveness. It’s a means of receiving the forgiveness we need. As
we prepare for the Lord’s table, may he create in us a clean and
new heart, filling us with repentance and pouring out his grace upon
us. Jesus has loved you, his neighbor, as he loves himself. He will
rescue you.
