Luke 10:25-37 (Pentecost 5C)

Luke 10:25-37 (Pentecost 5C)                                                      
St. John, Galveston 7/13/25
Rev. Alan Taylor
 
+ In Nomine Jesu +
 
Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    In the Gospel reading for this morning, Jesus told a parable in response to a man who was looking to justify himself before God. This is a common occurrence in the Bible. Essentially, the man was asking Jesus, what do I need to do to be good enough to get into heaven? Having agreed that the Law is fulfilled in loving God and in loving ones neighbor, the man asked Jesus, ‘then who is my neighbor?’ Jesus’ answer was in the form of the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is perhaps one of the most well known parables in the Bible, and yet, it’s meaning and it’s application is not easily discerned.

    A man traveled from Jericho to Jerusalem. Some robbers seized upon him and beat him and left him on the side of the road for dead. On different occasion's, two men saw him lying by the road and they stayed on the other side and went on their way. The first man was a priest. We are not told why he didn’t help the man. Perhaps he was on a mission and didn’t want entangle himself in other matters. The second man who passed the man by was a Levite. Like the priest, we aren’t told specifically why the Levite didn’t help the man, but since he held to strict laws of cleanness and uncleanness, he may have passed him by for fear that he might be unclean. If the injured man were unclean, the Levite himself would become unclean if he were to touch him.

    For whatever reason, the priest and the Levite both failed to render aid to the man. The next person to come along was a Samaritan. Of all people, the Samaritan, because of an age old conflict between Jews and his people, had a reason to not help the man, who was a Jew. As the Scriptures say elsewhere, “Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with each other.” Nonetheless, it was the Samaritan who stopped and helped the man. “When he saw him, he had compassion. 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. 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 return.” At the end of the parable, Jesus said, “Go, and do likewise.”

    So, what does the parable that Jesus told mean and how should we apply it to our lives? Well, as to the man’s question of “who is my neighbor,” the parable teaches us that anyone who is in need of our help is, in fact, our neighbor. The man who asked the question was, no doubt, hoping to narrow the definition of ‘neighbor,’ so that he might have a fighting chance at keeping the Law. Jesus though broadened the meaning of ‘neighbor’ in such a way that the righteous requirement of the Law includes everyone. As such, the demands of God’s Law are impossible for us to fulfill. And so, for anyone who desires to justify himself before God, he or she, must know that the demands of the Law will always be outside of your reach. Ultimately, that’s the meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Your salvation cannot earned. Rather, it is given to you as a gracious gift of God, who is merciful and compassionate.

    In terms of it’s application, some would say, it’s really quite simple. You should be like the Samaritan and not like the priest or the Levite! In other words, you should have compassion on your neighbor and help him in every way you can! In short, you should be a man or a woman of mercy! If that is the only application of the parable, it begs the question, am I, are you, a person a mercy?  More importantly, it begs the question, what if your salvation depended on the mercy you have showed to others? If God kept a record of every encounter you have had with a person in need, would that record bear witness to a life of mercy, or to something else?    
 
    At this point, it is good for us to remember that the stern meaning and application of the parable are the result of the question posed by the man who approached Jesus. More than that, the stern meaning and application results from the intent of the man’s heart. “What must I do (he asked), to be saved?”

    Having been baptized into Christ, and knowing that our salvation is always in Him and not in our ourselves, we might wonder “where God is in this parable?” To put it another way, when I was at the seminary, one of my professors would often say, “if you are preaching on a particular passage in the Bible, and that passage appears to be void of any Gospel, you had better figure out where God and grace are in the passage.” His point was that we are not saved from sin and death by stern warnings of the Law. Rather, “we are saved by grace, through faith in Christ Jesus.”

    So, where is God in the parable of the Good Samaritan? Well, many fathers and those who came later, such as Luther, found God in the person of the Good Samaritan. And they found you and I in the person of the man who beaten and left for dead on the side of the road.

    “You were dead in your trespasses and sins,” the Bible says. More than “left for dead” you and I are described as “being dead” until God raises us to life in His Son, Jesus. The Law cast it’s sentence upon us the moment we were conceived. The wages of sin is death! There is none righteous. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.      
    
    But God, being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith.”

    In holy baptism, God came to you in water and His Word. He had compassion on you. “Compassion.” It’s beautiful word. It means, God’s inner being was poured out toward you. He was unsettled at heart to see you in your condition. And so, He lifted you up out of the mire of sin and death. He bound up your wounds, wounds that were terminal, wounds that He would ultimately bear in His body, the wounds of the curse of sin.

Perhaps the most beautiful expression of the Gospel, in the parable Good Samaritan, is in the Samaritan’s interaction with the Inn keeper. “He set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 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.” The last part of the last verse could also be translated in this way. ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, charge it to My account.” “Charge it to My account.” Therein is the Gospel itself. God charged your sin and your death to His Son’s account.

    “Thus (says Dr. Luther), when we now come before God, the Father, and are asked whether we have also believed and loved God, and have wholly fulfilled the law; then the Samaritan will step forth, Christ the Lord, who carries us lying on His beast, and say; Alas, Father, although they have not fulfilled Your law, yet I have done so. Let this be to their benefit because they believe in Me.”          

“Joyful, joyful we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love!
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,
Praising Thee, their sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness,
Drive the gloom of doubt away.
Giver of immortal gladness, 
Fill us with the light of day.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirits. Amen.
 
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.
 
+ Soli Deo Gloria +