“HE GIVES YOU EARS TO HEAR HIM”
Saint Luke 10: 21-37
13th Sunday after Trinity: 15 September Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
Jesus says: “you are My disciples, you are My friends, you are My family,” you are + Baptized!
He who has ears to hear, let him hear: you are + Baptized! Last Sunday’s healing of the deaf mute, Ephphatha, be opened, isn’t just to show God’s power over decay, death, and damnation, but to literally open ears so that Saints can remain fortified and fed on His Word. The Word of God brings light and life and endures forever! Oh, how blessed are you that hear these things! Which things? Jesus things; Jesus’ things. The Person and Work of God. Emmanuel. Christ crucified, Christ at the right hand of The Father interceding for you, and shortly Christ coming to take you to the heavenly mansions His Body and Blood have prepared for you. And while The Lord tells you of His mercy and forgiveness to you, privately, when you read His love, it’s more important, normative, and simply The Church as it and you are meant to be, that, He tells you these things publicly in the family room—the wedding hall—the banquet table, in the public proclamation of The Holy Gospel: Now!
You are the “lawyer.” You are faux Bible expert that reads those parts of Holy Scripture that you think agree with your own preconceived notions, and that build you up. You ignore those pesky demands and troubling commands that convict you. You judge the homosexual but self-justify the adulterer in your own heart. You judge the tongue that criticizes you or that disagrees with your views, but all the while back-bite and gossip against that neighbor. You talk a “big talk” about Christian mission and world relief, but you hate the beggar, even if he is a scam-artist, asking for a couple of bucks outside the Wal-Mart. You think you know the Law, “Mr. Lawyer,” but you don’t. It kills you. Jesus gives you Gospel.
You are the “certain priest.” You have been called by God to proclaim His Word to your nuclear family and in your home—constantly, daily. You are to pray for, and forgive, your loved ones, your neighbors, and all you come into contact with. But you pass by on the other side---the side that is filled with you and your self-satisfied…self.
You too, are the “Levite.” Levites were a special tribe given the privilege to care for the “Holy Things” of God. You spend more time basking in the self-righteous “glow” of your Saxon, LCMS, Walther, Congregationalist, and Luther-worship, then with the real Holy Things of God.
And because of all your duplicitous and pompous and presumptuous sin, evasion, and pretense, you are ALSO the dying man who is stripped and wounded and bleeding out in the ditch…the ditch which is slanted down to hell and slippery with the blood of transgression greasing the slope.
Yes, the Law says EVERYONE is your neighbor.
Yes, The Christ says “go and do thou likewise.”
But He says that to the “lawyer” who even after the parable apparently doesn’t understand either law or gospel, his own sin or Jesus’ forgiveness.
You can’t love your neighbor perfectly. Yes, try, work at it, but know that you still fail. Yes, try and be a good Samaritan to those in need, but know that you still fail.
Jesus is all in all. Jesus is the only hope and your only hope.
Jesus made you and gave you your eyes, ears, and all your members; and still preserves them. That’s good news. Jesus as the pre-incarnate Messenger of the Godhead, the Logos, gave Moses the tablets…the Law. Moses was the deliverer. The Lord was the Law Giver—the “Lawyer.” Only Jesus answers the question “what shall I do to inherit eternal life,” by Himself BEING eternal life. You don’t do anything to gain life-everlasting in all its abundance. Jesus does everything…and then gives it to you. Jesus did all the perfect loving of The Father and gives that to you. Jesus did all the perfect loving of all neighbors…and then gives it to you. Jesus obeyed. Jesus suffered and died in your stead. Jesus did not go down from Jerusalem to Jericho but rather came down from heaven. Jesus went up from Galilee to Jerusalem; He went up to Calvary; He went up that bloody crucifix, stripped of His raiment, wounded so severely, and became for you, NOT “half dead” but full dead, and buried!
Jesus was the Levite, the priestly Son in the flesh not of Moses and Levi, but rather of David, Judah, Jacob, Abraham, and the loving and forgiving Father. The Lord was the Priest; in that Jesus sacrificed the paschal lamb by offering up His own Body and Blood for propitiation. He the victim He the priest—hallelujah.
Jesus, accused of being a Samaritan, a half-breed sub-human, by Pharisaical Jews, isn’t less, but more; isn’t half of anything but full everything—fully Human and fully Divine. This God/Man in the flesh is the Second and Perfect Adam and the eternal Son, begotten of The Father before eternity.
None of the parable is about you doing Samaritan-like service to those you meet; though you should; though you will, BECAUSE you are IN Christ Jesus and He is IN YOU. The parable is about finding The healing for all your wounds by being found by Christ. The story is about finding all the food, nourishment, clothing, and care, by receiving Jesus’ + washing, feeding, and lodging by Jesus carrying you to His sheepfold, the Church.
You don’t have peace and rest and joy in your Heavenly Father by doing anything. You have The Father rather by having The Son. You have The Son here in his mercy of sweet release and in His precious Body and Blood.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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