“SAVIOR/SAMARITAN”
Saint Luke 10: 23-37
13th Sunday after Trinity: 26 August Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
Blessed are you that the words Christ spoke “privately” to His Disciples did not stay private. Blessed are you that Saint Luke’s Evangel, the 10th chapter did not stay in a book, which you may or may not open at home, or read, but is proclaimed in your ears—Now!
Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Elijah never got to see the face, the countenance, of Christ, or hear His voice, or touch His wounds, or eat and drink His actual Body and Blood. The “12” did. And now this morning you too get to hear His actual words, though not from His personal vocal chords. And now this morning you too get to drink His Blood and eat His Body in the exact same way at did Peter, Paul, and the rest. This is good news…but only if you believe you need His words and sacraments. And you will only recognize that need if you first experience the dying of self and the death of your own will. You are condemned as sinner. You will die.
Christ tells the famous parable because a “certain lawyer,” that is, an expert in the Bible—the Hebrew Scriptures, Genesis through Deuteronomy, knew all about the Ten Commandments and all about God’s demand for obedience. Just like you do. Apparently the “lawyer” was not particularly scared, worried, or in a case of contrite struggle over his total, 100% failure to do what God had told him to do. How about you? Do you even ruminate on the Ten Commandments during the week? Do you, with the aid of The Holy Ghost, struggle to curb your sinful flesh and then constantly, daily, repent, “drown the old Adam,” and receive Holy Absolution?
All, ALL the fault, the blame, the cause, the problem, the failure, ALL is your fault. Not your corporate “we’re all in this together” fault, but your fault!
Don’t be a Calvinist or “Bible-camp” student with this sacred text. None of it is about what the “lawyer” or you can do—not even what you can do a little bit. And even Christ’s words at the end: “go and do thou likewise” are not meant to be your super-sanctified “marching orders,” but rather a stern double-downing of The Law! The “lawyer” can’t do likewise and he still doesn’t know it. Jesus doesn’t save you so that you can do things for Him, as if He needed them done by you. Jesus saves you—full stop! As the Saved, as the newly born, called back from the dead brothers and sisters of Jesus, you just naturally do “Jesus things” even though they will be flawed, not perfect, and constantly under attack from your sinful nature which still adheres. So, don’t try to compare yourself to the certain Samaritan who does the rescuing in Christ’s story. Don’t even try and be the “certain man” who fell among thieves and was rescued. All though to be sure, you were rescued. The man in the parable was “seemingly” innocent and didn’t deserve what he got. It was tragic, horrible, and tugs at our heartstrings. You, on the other hand, are thieves and murderers and you on a dark road, away from the King’s Highway of light and life, deserve what you get. The Law crushes you down into the dirt from whence you came…don’t look now at your own dirty heart for the answer to the question.
Jesus is the answer. Jesus’ person is the answer. Jesus’ work is the answer.
It’s not the man who went down from the city of Peace to Jericho, a city once razed to the ground by The Word of The Lord. It was the God/Man Who went down from Heaven, the real City of Peace, having its Prince of Peace go not to a city but to a world, an earth and all its people razed by the lies of Satan and their own, your own, acquiescence in ignoring God’s Word, God’s warning. Not a wayfarer left “half dead,” but a sinless, innocent, and perfect Man, The Son of Man, left suffering, bleeding on a cross, and then full-dead, total-dead, “it is finished”-dead! The God that loves you so much that He comes to be with you, with thieves, robbers, murderers, and all the criminal cut-throats.
The works righteousness of the Levite class, the synergist and the Arminian won’t save because they can’t save. The head-knowledge and Brainiac comprehension of the Protestant-Priest with tons of Bible quotations at the fingertips won’t save because the Bible doesn’t save. Jesus is The Good Samaritan.
The Samaritan meant a half-breed, foreign, and despised outsider as far as the Pharisees were concerned. The same hypocrites who did not refer to Christ by His Name or even by the title Rabbi. They dismissively called him “this man.” And He was called “the man” by Pontius Pilate as well. Well, He was. Jesus is the only True Man, the perfect and obedient Second & Final Adam. Not with spiritual “God as God” hands did He reach down to rescue you; pick you up and carry you on His beast of burden to the Inn of the Church; but with fleshly Man’s hands…the very hands which were crucified for you—The God/Mans hands. He now calls you back from death to life. He has poured oil on your heads in your Baptismal Anointing and soon He will pour His precious Blood, the wine of Righteousness, into your mouths.
Jesus has shown mercy to all the world and specifically Jesus has chosen you to receive His Mercy.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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