“JESUS, JESUS, ONLY JESUS”
Saint Luke 10. 23-37
Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity: 29 August Anno Domini 2010
JW Watson
It's clear that according to God, your Creator and Judge, your "neighbor" is everyone else on the planet! You don't get to pick and chose. You too try to justify yourselves in a couple of different, yet sinfully related ways. You are Levites. You are Priests. The Christ wishes you to be Samaritans.
This is not a story this is a reality. The events are not about foreign missions or about sending money and resources "over there" to help people come to "know" Jesus. The Law is clear. Love the Lord perfectly. Love your neighbor as yourself; perfectly. The Lord is clear-everyone is your neighbor. The member of Al Qaeda is your neighbor. The socialist member of the House of Representatives who would like to keep you from owning firearms and who thinks your tax rates should be 70% is your neighbor. The Christians of other denominations, and yes, even some within the LC-MS, along with American citizens who are Muslims, and who all favor property rights being respected in New York City, and who believe in the right to worship under the Constitution in houses of worship that conform to their religious tenants, THEY ARE YOUR NEIGHBOR. You are not to hate your neighbor or punish him, you are to love him. When your neighbor is in danger of losing property or life, you are to help him.
The Law says that those you come into contact with, those whom you meet in your daily walk, conversation, vocation and life, are the ones that you are to love as yourself. The Law says that the homeless man outside the Quik Trip who asks for money to buy some food is your neighbor. The Law says that the family member you just can't stand who treats you badly is your neighbor. The Law says the friend whom you've helped and been kind to, and who has subsequently not followed through on some preconceived self-improvements that you deem beneficial, who has not done things your way, is still your neighbor deserving all your forgiveness, love and assistance.
But you, you turn up your self-righteous noses, sniff the air with pharisaical sanctimony, and scuttle "roach-like" by the "loser" laying on the other side of the road. You refuse to get dirty and messy and involved with the "Other." If the "victims" are like you, and if they're in your own self-image, than you might consider assisting them. But if they're different: color, creed, background, nationality, religion, social status, political views, etc. etc. you will be them not friend, but Levite!
Historian, Anthropologist, Biblical Scholar, and Theologian, Kenneth Bailey writes convincingly that one of the major "points" of the Lord's parable is the total "otherness" of the Samaritan in Judean society. That for the Samaritan to pick up the dying Jew, to place him on his own donkey and then to take him into a Jewish village to a Jewish Inn, was incredibly brave and incredibly foolish. The Samaritan was placing his own life into the hands of a Samaritan-hating group/mob of xenophobic sinners. Bailey says this would have been akin to a Black Man picking up a wounded teen-aged white girl and carrying her in to an upscale hotel in downtown Selma in 1935…. or maybe even 1965. But to love your neighbor as yourself means to love your neighbor as you would want to be loved. Perfect love casts out fear. Repent that you disobey not that your student has disobeyed. Be contrite over your failure to forgive and assist not over your sister or brothers inability to validate your own self-worth. Drown your own "old Adam," and stop straining to dunk all those other "witches" that you're so quick to discover.
Jesus "THY Blood and Righteousness" is the glorious dressings on your fatal wounds of sin and self. The Lord is both characters in the story. Jesus is the Samaritan, the "other," come to a people (who in reality WERE His own, the Lord was a true 100% Jew because His Mother was a true 100% Jew) who did not accept Him. Jesus was treated by the "Conservative. Republican, White, 'Tea-Drinking,' Religious, 'Good'" people of His day and time (i.e. the Pharisees) like some "wet-back" from that Foreign Speaking backward country (Galilee). By talking to women; by touching cripples; by healing on the Sabbath; by visiting Samaritan villages; by touching caskets and dead people; by appearing to His enemies to be an illegitimate bastard Child; by eating at table with Tax Collectors; and by letting the Sanhedrin think he came from Nazareth (and not Bethlehem) Christ was the "other." In fact did not on one occasion His enemies even call Christ a "Samaritan?" (And one who had a demon?) If one Who is truly "other" can help you and yours, does not the Holy Spirit constrain you as well to help others as well-both those like you and those unlike you; the other "others?"
But even in your sin and your inability to obey, the Lord goes right on loving you and rescuing you when you fall prey to bandits, robbers and thieves, i.e. Satan, the World, and your own Sinful Nature. When you daily commit spiritual adultery, He does not cluck His tongue, but uses it to speak forgiveness and restoration as He did to the Woman in John's Evangel. He does brand you with a Scarlet "A" but lets His own body be branded with Scarlet punctures and tears. For Jesus is not only the "Samaritan," the One who is both "Other" and good, but Jesus is also the victim in the story.
The Son of the Father left His home and came to His Father's vineyard to see why the husbandmen were producing no crops, no fruit, and no harvest. The Son came in Peace and Love to inquire why the other servants who had been sent had been ignored, tossed out, persecuted and killed. The son ran afoul of men and women (parishioners, kinsfolk, and everyday people, hardened in sin) who under the thralldom of Satan are nothing more than robbers and outlaws. Your sins not only strips Jesus of His tunic, not only beats Him half to death (scourges Him, slaps Him, mocks Him and hurtles insults upon Him), but your sin nails Him to the tree.
In one parable the Lord of Life portrays both characters and shows you both His passive obedience-His suffering and humiliation to come and save you from your sins, to satisfy Justice on your behalf; but also His active obedience-His loving His Father and His neighbor perfectly to satisfy the Law on your behalf.
Do Missions! Yes, send money and resources to all those you can. Buy a warm meal for the bum and vagrant! Forgive and physically help that brother of yours, that cousin, who has treated you so abominably for the past 25 years! Protect and aid all of the "others" who are having a hard time in this so-called "land of the free" by being the type of person who lives in a so-called "home of the brave." Be brave; freely give! Of course love your neighbor and love your Lord.
But let it be done to you by His Word and His Will and His Way. The Holy Ghost now draws you like hungry children to the evening dinner table. The Spirit now constrains you like honored Princes and Princesses, like Royal Priests and Honored Family Members, to the high table at the Wedding Banquet. He carry you on His donkey of preaching, teaching, absolution and atonement (His very Self). He washes your wounds with Baptismal Water and anoints them with the Oil of Absolution and the Eucharistic Wine. He carries you to the only true Inn, the last "homely" House: the Church Catholic. He provides for your lasting recovery and Cross-filled journey with the twin denarii of Word and Sacrament. He does all things well.
This Good Samaritan is your God Samaritan. Your Savior has saved you.
In the Name of The + Father and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost