Sermon - Trinity XIII 2020 - Luke 10:23-37

 In an era devoid of the spiritual, the church of Christ now wanes, yet the church of science and medicine reigns. In this new church our Lord isn’t the Good Physician, but physicians are the lords. Pastors and scriptures are filled with myths and opinions, while doctors and medical journals are filled with facts and truths. 

While hospitals are indeed a godly endeavor, as evidenced by today’s parable commanding us to show mercy and the fact that Christians started the first hospitals and funded and ran most of them up until the past century, there is still a greater need than the physical and a greater hospital than the ones filled with needles and beds. St. John Chrysostom preached, saying: “Enter into the church and wash away your sins. For there is a hospital for sinners.” And so, Christ is the Samaritan binding up half-dead sinners in this hospital of the church. 

There is a greater malady in this life than can be treated with ordinary medicine. There is a sickness not prevented with masks and vaccines, not treated with ventilators and hydroxycloroquine. It’s a disease passed down to us from our first grandparents, Adam and Eve. Adam, like the man in our parable, went from paradise to worldliness, from Jerusalem and the temple to Jericho. From life to death.

As he was going, “he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.” Thus Adam fell among Satan and his demons, stripping him of righteousness and leaving him as good as dead in his trespasses. So too, you and me, and all of Adam’s descendents. We fall prey to Satan’s wiles and suffer the blows and injuries of our many sins. 

On the side of the road, naked and alone, robbed of our treasure, we lay there beaten and helpless. It’s a foolish proposition to ask Christ: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s as ridiculous as a dead man trying to do something to not be dead! It’s just not possible! All of our efforts are like that of the Priest’s and Levite’s; the best we can do is try to keep ourselves clean and walk by on the other side of the road. Ultimately, all of our efforts fall short of salvation.

What we need is a Savior who’s not afraid of getting Himself dirty, whose pride and vanity don’t get in the way of mercy. We need someone mockingly accused of being a heretical Samaritan, and then alludes to Himself as one in His own parable. We need Jesus. 

We bruised sinners need that journeying Samaritan, He who journeys from heaven to earth, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from the manger to the cross. Your Savior on His journey comes to you, lying on the side of the road, and He looks upon you with compassion. His mercy and compassion compel Him to sacrifice everything He has for the sake of healing your grievous wounds.

What a miracle! Though the world passes you by and avoids you like you have Covid, now you’ve been found by the merciful Samaritan. He kneels down beside you, binding your wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Here is your Surgeon, your Great Physician, treating not your body but your soul. He binds up not fleshly wounds, but errors of the mind. 

His medicine isn’t compounded in a laboratory, but flows freely as words from His lips and as His body and blood from the cross. This medicine isn’t prescribed by a doctor in an office, but by a preacher in a pulpit or a pastor at the font and the altar. He binds your injuries, setting the bones, by preaching you His Word  that corrects your errors. He pours upon your wounds, like wine, a sanitizing solution, the holy waters of Baptism that cleanse you of your filth. He pours upon you like oil, a healing and soothing salve, His precious sacrament from the altar. 

This Physician’s treatment is like none other you’ll ever find. On earth medicines can be impotent, losing their effectiveness over time. Medicines can be poisonous, with as many or more negative side-effects as the original ailment being treated. But the medicine from our Good Samaritan is eternally powerful since it saves unto eternity. “What God ordains is always good: His loving thought attends me; no poison can be in the cup that my Physician sends me.”

Upon treating you, your Physician doesn’t leave you to recover on your own. He sets you on His own animal and brings you to an inn and continues caring for you. You have been brought to this inn and you are being cured in the church. This is crucial to understand, our Lord doesn’t heal us and then just leave us alone on the road! Rather He takes care of us by bringing us into the inn, the hospital, the church where we may continue to be treated.

Sometimes people go to the hospital and they’re in and out right away, and everything’s fixed. Other times treatment requires long-term care. Such is the case with our injuries; the treatment here required isn’t just an in and out deal, but we require care for the rest of our lives. Thus our Samaritan has placed us inside of this inn so that we may continue treatments with others who have also been beaten by sin and left half-dead on the side of the road. 

Christ doesn’t make any Christan a lone ranger, a hermit living apart from the rest of the Christians. He places us squarely within the church. Christ has placed you inside of this inn for two reasons, but both of those reasons have to do with what Christ says at the end of this parable. “You go, and show mercy likewise.” He sets us in the church for the sake of mercy.

Firstly, you’re here so that others may show mercy to you and care for you in your weaknesses. You need to be here because you need help and you can’t do this on your own. Secondly, you’re here so that you may show mercy to others by caring for them in their weaknesses. You need to be here because others need you and they can’t do this without you.

Not only does Christ care for you by giving you one another, but He cares for you by means of curates. “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.’” This is why I’m standing here speaking to you today from this pulpit. Since Christ ascended to heaven, He set within His church innkeepers, curates, to continue the Good Physician’s cure of souls. I am standing here as one also beaten half-dead by satan, but in the place of Christ to continue curing you.

To pastors has been given the Word of God, by which they bind up the weak and injured. They must preach the Word of God in season and out of season, calling sinners to repentance and forgiving the repentant, encouraging the weak and humbling the proud, and making sure the inn remains a safe haven against robbers.

Sometimes pastors have to use wine, cleaning the infection out of an injury. They rebuke our sinful desires and bind stubborn sinners to their sin. Other times pastors have to use oil, rubbing a warm soothing salve upon the injuries. They Comfort the frightened and scared, encourage the lonely and forlorn with the sweet news of God’s forgiveness.

Ultimately, the work of innkeepers is to take care of injured sinners using what Christ has entrusted to them. To pastors has been given the Word and the Sacraments. It is my responsibility and privilege to care for you by preaching and distributing the sacraments. Since Christ has given all for the care of injured sinners such as us, we find within the preaching and the sacraments everything that we need for eternal life.

Here in this hospital Christ shows you mercy by curing your injuries and gaining your eternal salvation. In this place Christ gives you what is His so that the treasure stolen from you by the robber Satan may be restored. Are you weak? Then Christ is strong. Are you tired? Then Christ is vigorous. Are you foolish? Then Christ is wise. Are you scared? Then Christ is courageous. Are you anxious? Then Christ is hopeful. Are you full of sin? Then Christ is full of righteousness. In Christ your injuries are healed and all that is His is now yours in this inn.

As glorious as it is to be in this inn and cared for with our Good Physician’s medicine, as usual, there is something even more joyous yet. Our Samaritan promises to come back. When He returns He will repay everyone what is owed. To the unrighteous who refused His care and tried their hand at self-medication, they’ll receive the unquenchable fires of hell. But to the righteous who have been bound up by the Good Physician and cured with the medicine of immortality, they shall receive the inheritance of eternal life. 

May God preserve us to be numbered among those bound up in the inn of Christ’s Church forevermore. Amen.