Sermon - Trinity XIII 2024 - Luke 10:23-37

 Loving the Unlovable

1. Though our sins put us at enmity with God, He loves us.

2. We are likewise to love others, even if we’re at enmity.

In the course of life it’s a common occurrence that we meet people who are very difficult to love. Because we want to think of ourselves as good people who will go to heaven, we try very hard to justify ourselves and our unloving words and actions towards those people. Sometimes we sound a bit like the lawyer, who, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Because, if he could have a few people excluded from the list of those he has to love, he wouldn’t seem like such a terrible person.

Nevertheless, Jesus teaches us a lesson in loving the unlovable. I’m sure you’re all well enough acquainted with the dynamics between Israelites and Samaritans. To put it simply, they hated each other. That enmity between the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel went back centuries! So in the parable when the priest and Levite walked by on the other side of the road, leaving the injured Israelite to suffer alone, and the Samaritan helped the Isrealite instead, that was shocking! The injured Israelite and the Samaritan were at enmity, wouldn’t even talk to each other under normal circumstances, and now here the Samaritan, of all people, is helping the Israelite!

Because love for the neighbor isn’t just a matter of appearances or who you are, but it’s a matter of showing genuine love to whomever God places in your midst, even when you must love the unlovable! Because the clearest application of this parable is that Jesus loves us who are unlovable, who have been at enmity with Him.

Like the man who fell among robbers, was stripped, beaten, and left half-dead, so was our position on account of our sins. Satan, that robber, stripped us of our righteousness and left us dead in the trespasses of our sins. The priest and Levite could offer no help; indeed, the law of God gives us no aid to justify ourselves. We are too weak and feeble in our sins to offer anything to the Lord for our salvation. 

What’s more, we have not given God any reason to love us or rescue us. Like the Jews and Samaritans were at enmity, and the Samaritan had no reason to love the Jew, nothing to gain from giving the man help, likewise are we at enmity with God. He has nothing to gain from helping us, and we’ve given Him no reason to love us. Really, we’ve given Him abundant reasons to hate us! We are filled with pride, hatred of others, neglect God and His word, and typically behave opposite to what He says. Nevertheless, like the Samaritan, He comes upon us in our miserable state and rescues us.

Jesus, in His journey to the cross, comes to us. He doesn’t expect us to make the first contact, but He approaches us. He doesn’t avert His gaze, even though our sins make us hideous to look at. We don’t even like to look too deeply into the dark recesses of our hearts, we don’t like to dwell on our sins, we can’t fathom anyone knowing our deepest darkest secrets, and yet God does not look away from us. And when He sees us, He doesn’t look upon us in horror or disgust, but with compassion.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His tender compassion, dresses our self-inflicted, sin-infested wounds. From the cross Jesus treated our wounds, and from the cross Jesus bore all of our sins, and indeed upon the cross Jesus carries each of us. Upon the cross Jesus became like us: stripped naked and beaten to death, bearing our sins and suffering our punishment. From the cross our wounds are dressed. Just as Jesus’ clothes were divvied up while He hung there, so is the robe of His righteousness divvied up among us and now covers all of our sinfulness. From the cross we are anointed in baptism and from the cross His wine which is His blood washes our sins away.

The Lord He brought us to an inn. Not just a lousy flea-ridden, bedbug-infested motel, but He brought us into His church. Here in His church we continue to be nourished and cared for by those around us, so we are no longer alone, but we have a home. The church therefore is like a hospital for sinners, and we who are weak and weary, who have been crushed beneath our sins, may gather together in this place to be made well again. Our residence in this hospital of the church is not cheap, but our Lord has promised to pay our way. Even when we have serious flare-ups of sin, regressing into our old wicked ways, the Lord has prepaid the cost for anymore sin. All shall be forgiven.

So it is that the Lord loves us, the unlovable. The desire to justify ourselves is proven to be a really dumb idea. We’re sin-sick and half-dead in the ditch, and our only hope of salvation is through Christ. This love of God for the unlovable, for the loveless, he wants us to show to others. He gives us the command: “You go, and do likewise.”

This is one of the most challenging commands. It is not easy to get along with others, and it’s especially difficult to love those we don’t get along with. It’s also very convicting because we’re acutely aware that this is a command which we’ve failed to keep. When you go to individual confession and absolution, you confess: “I have not let His love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed. There are those whom I have hurt, and those whom I have failed to help.” Lord have mercy upon us!

It’s all too common that we only want to love those who love us, and we  worry about loving people who are not actually our neighbors. It’s so much simpler to give to charity which maybe helps unknown people who live someplace else and whom I will never have to meet. But strictly speaking, unknown strangers whom I’ve never met are not my neighbors. My neighbor is as Jesus illustrated, and my neighbor is whomever I happen to come across in my daily life. We like to say that everyone is my neighbor, and that’s true in a sense, but it’s so broad that it ends up meaning nothing. How do you help everyone? That’s impossible, you can’t, so you end up helping no one, and especially neglecting your actual neighbor.

Jesus calls us to love those in our midst, which is the hardest to do, because those are the people we are most likely to have conflicts with. Your flesh and blood family are your neighbors, even if you don’t get along with your sibling and they’re a jerk; still your neighbor. Your church family here, all those names on the book, are your neighbors, even if you don’t like some of them and they’re a jerk; still your neighbor. You know what, even those people you really like who are near you, those people are your neighbors too, and you don’t have to feel guilty about loving them.

But the hardest ones to love are those whom you can’t stand to be around. God commands you to love them. This doesn’t mean that you have to agree with them, or even particularly like them, but you must love them. These are people for whom Christ has died, and He loves them, even if they hate Him.  Do you have to love them even if they stab you in the back and gloat? Yeah, because Jesus loved those who were actively crucifying Him. The love of Christ Jesus for us, for the unlovable, for the loveless, for poor miserable sinners is the same love for others that has been poured out into our hearts.

How do you learn to love those who hate you? By letting Christ’s love have its way with you. Confess your sins, over and over again, see how wretched you are and how deep the love of God is for you. The more you come to understand that you’re the naked, beaten, half-dead sinner whom Jesus loves, the more you understand God’s love for you, and thus the more you understand what it means to love others. Seeing that God loves us, the unlovable, we begin to also love the unlovable in our lives. Then we no longer desire to justify ourselves, since the love of God in Christ Jesus has revealed our utter dependence on His mercy.