Sermon - Trinity XIII 2022 - Luke 10:23-37

The Good Samaritan, Joseph Highmore, 1744

Faith in God and love towards neighbor

1. Works serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living.

2. Who is my neighbor?

3. How should I treat my neighbor?

“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” As soon as we Lutherans hear those words our spidey senses go off and we go on alert! It’s the wrong question, right?! We cannot do anything to earn our salvation, it’s all a gift! We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ Jesus alone! We can’t merit eternal life!

That’s all true. However, did you notice that Jesus doesn’t correct the lawyer about that? He doesn’t rebuke him for work’s righteousness. He doesn’t tell him that he can’t earn his salvation, because that’s not the problem this lawyer has. The lawyer is merely rightly confessing what is written in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. In fact, Jesus Himself says this exact same thing elsewhere: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus even affirms the lawyer: “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind is just another way to talk about faith. The lawyer understands faith in God, what he falters at is putting his faith into action, namely loving his neighbor as himself. “Desiring to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”” So long as he could strictly and narrowly define his neighbor as the people he liked, he thought he did a pretty good job at loving his neigbor. But that’s where he was mistaken.

So today we learn about faith in God and love toward our neighbor. We learn the important point that Works serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living, and we also learn how to properly answer the questions: Who is my neighbor? and How should I treat my neighbor?

So again, Jesus teaches us today a significant point that our works serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living. It’s true that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works. Nevertheless, our works are the fruits of faith. St. James says that “faith apart from works is dead.” The proof is in the pudding, or, put your money where your mouth is, are both sayings that emphasize that without works what we say means nothing. For example, we all know people who talk a good talk, but when it comes down to getting the job done they don’t do it; they’re hypocrites. So as Christians, instead of behaving like hypocrites who talk the talk but can’t walk the walk, we are to walk according to our faith.

If you honestly believe the Bible is true and that it is God’s revealed word, then your life must reflect what you read in the Bible. But if you live in contradiction to the Bible, then that’s proof that you don’t really believe what the Bible says and you don’t truly have faith in God. Now of course we Christians still sin since the sinful flesh still clings to us. But Christians realize that sin is bad, and therefore when Christians sin they repent and amend their ways and are forgiven by Jesus. We don’t try to justify ourselves and redefine the Bible so that we can make it appear as if we’re good people. We simply repent and are forgiven and change our ways.

So the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us one particular example of faith in action, and an important one at that. Our faith in God flows forth in love toward our neighbor. And who is our neighbor? “Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion… Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” ”

Who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is the one right in front of us. Sometimes we like to say that everyone is our neighbor, but that’s not a very good answer because it’s too broad. God calls us to love the people around us in our lives. This means that our love for others is going to be specific and directed at individuals whom we know face to face. This is hard to do because it means we have to actually have compassion for our neighbor and sacrifice for them. It’s easy to act like we love our neighbor if we define that term too broadly or too narrowly.

When we define neighbor too broadly to be everyone, then we fall into the problem of toxic charity. For example, rich Americans love to give stuff to poor people in Africa or Haiti, so we tend to just throw money or stuff at them, without knowing specific people and individual needs. It makes us feel good, but it doesn’t necessarily help those poor Africans or Haitians, and sometimes it hurts them. If we send over a shipment of a million free shirts, the dozens of local guys there who make and sell shirts go out of business because their market was just flooded with free shirts so they can’t sell anymore, and now their families don’t have an income, and that whole region ends up more economically depressed than before. Thus if we define our neighbor too broadly to include people whose actual needs we don’t know, we often end up unwittingly hurting people.

The other ditch we can fall into is the same one seen in our parable, namely defining neighbor too narrowly to only include people who are convenient to help. In the parable it wasn’t convenient for the priest or Levite to help the half-dead man on the side of the road. Touching him and his blood would make them temporarily unclean and unfit for service in the temple. So they walk by on the other side, assuming someone else will help them. If we define our neighbor too narrowly to only include people we want to help, we end up completely failing to love our neighbor.

Instead of defining our neighbor too broadly or too narrowly, Jesus defines our neighbor as the one right in front of us. “By chance…” a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan walked by this man. Perhaps rather than chance, we might say that God placed those people by this fallen man. God has placed us into various capacities and duties in this life, and those people around us are our neighbors. Think about the various spheres and stations in life you have: consider your household and your extended family, your church family, your place of work or clubs you belong to, your friend group, and the people who live geographically close to you. Those people are all your neighbors. This isn’t broad, because these are all people whom you know or may know face to face, and you can give them specific help. This isn’t too narrow, because it’s not always convenient to help all of these people nor do you necessarily like all of these people, but all of them are your neighbors.

But knowing who your neighbor is is only part of the question, the other question we must answer is how should I treat my neighbor? The lawyer defined the Samaritan as “the one who showed him mercy.” Jesus confirmed that was right and gave a directive, “You go, and do likewise.” We are to treat our neighbor with merciful compassion. The Samaritan “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 come back.’” That’s a ton of sacrifice and compassion!

Why in the world should we be expected to show such mercy and compassion to our neighbors? Because God shows it to us. That’s what the leaders of the Israelites realized in the Old Testament reading. Both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were wicked with wicked kings. God used Israel to punish Judah, and then the prophet Oded commanded Israel to be merciful to Judah. Israelite leaders realized this and said to their compatriots: “For our guilt is already great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.” Israel deserved the same thing that Judah received. Likewise, all of us are sinners, we and our neighbors all deserve God’s wrath, yet God has shown us mercy. Christ Jesus died for us while we were still His enemies. He has forgiven us our many trespasses against Him. Therefore, we should love our neighbor who needs mercy and compassion just as much as we do. 

Our faith in God who has mercy upon us compels us to love our neighbor. This especially means we are to love the people right in front of us, showing them compassion and mercy according to their very specific and individual needs. We’ve got to get away from cliches, this isn’t just about someone broke down on the side of the road or panhandlers, this is about the very real people whom we know with very particular needs right around us. Afterall, Jesus didn’t just generically die for sinners, but He died for individuals each with unique sins and personalized guilt, struggling with their own challenges. Jesus died for you. So likewise we love our neighbors by showing them specific and personalized compassion and mercy.