Luke 10:25-37
Trinity 13
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit
Today’s Gospel says that the lawyer desired to justify himself. So let’s meditate on that word a little bit; what does it mean to be “justified?” When there is an officer-involved shooting of a criminal who pulled a weapon, or when someone inflicts bodily harm in self-defense or to protect the life of his family, we declare those actions to be justified. We recognize them as necessary and even right under those circumstances, and we don’t judge that person to be in the wrong. This can apply in less serious situations, too–raising your voice to a disobedient child or telling your friend a white lie that spares them unnecessary hurt might indeed be justified.
Very often, though, what we end up doing is trying to justify thoughts or words or actions that are not justifiable, especially in God’s sight. “I only lost my temper after they treated me badly and talked down to me.” “I wouldn’t give in to lustful thoughts if my husband or wife were more loving.” “Yeah, I took some stuff from work, but they’ve got plenty of money, and they don’t pay me enough anyway.” “It wasn’t gossip; everything I said was true!” “Sure, the Bible says to put God first and to remember the Sabbath day, but I’ve got to work and the kids have activities.” We are expert rationalizers, aren’t we. Our attempts at self-justification are often just a way of trying to calm our consciences and excuse sin.
It’s this sort of human self-justification that was happening in today’s Gospel with the lawyer. He may have known that he wasn’t 100% perfect. But still it says that he “desired to justify himself,” to try to show that he had kept the kept the Law of God that he had just recited. And if there was any perceived failure of his to do so, well, it was justified. Think about what God’s Law is asking of you when it says that you should love your neighbor as yourself. You should treat them the way you would want to be treated–and not just grudgingly, but willingly, from the heart. That’s not always an easy command even with someone you really care about. Can you do that day after day with everyone in your life, everyone whom God puts in your path?
That’s why the lawyer asks the question, “Well then, who is my neighbor?” Obviously he hasn’t done that with everyone in his life. But God can’t possibly require that. Who exactly fits into the category of being my neighbor? If we can narrow down that list a bit, I’m sure that I can handle it.
This is what fallen human beings always try to do with God’s Law, to whittle it down so that it’s more manageable and doable. This is the thinking of the priest and the Levite, who thought to themselves, “We can’t touch blood; it will make us ceremonially unclean according to Scripture. And then we won’t be able to enter the temple and perform our religious duties.” And so they justify themselves and explain away their greater duty to help their neighbor.
This minimizing, self-justifying impulse is also the thinking of your unchurched neighbors who believe they’re good enough to go to heaven. “I’m trying my best to live a good life; as long as I’m doing what is within me, as long as I take care of my responsibilities, as long as I do more good than bad, God will accept that. He can’t expect the impossible from me.” Except that’s exactly what God’s Law does. Love God with all that you are–heart, soul, mind, and strength–and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “You therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). What God’s commandments require is rather clear and unflinching.
So Jesus tells this parable to the lawyer to get him (and us) to give up on any attempts at self-justification before God. Jesus tells him basically, “You think you’ve been loving your neighbor? Try this story on for size.” Jesus doesn’t lower the bar, He raises the bar; He doesn’t minimize the Commandments, He maximizes them. The message Jesus is communicating is clear: Don’t try to neuter God’s Law. Let it have its full effect on you. Let it tear you so that He can truly heal you. Let it kill you so that He can make you truly alive with His own life. Turn away from justifying yourself, and trust in Him to put things right with you. Repent, believe in Him, cling to His righteousness. Only through faith in Him are you truly justified.
For Jesus Himself is the real Good Samaritan in this parable. He says to you who are mortally wounded on the side of the road, beaten down by sin and Satan and the grave, “The Law cannot help you. It can diagnose your condition, but it offers you no medicine. Like the priest and the Levite, it passes by on the other side. Give up all these exhausting attempts to try to make yourself good enough. Only I, Jesus, your Good Samaritan, can rescue you and give you true goodness. I have come to you as a foreigner from the outside, the Son of God from heaven. Though I am despised and rejected by the Jewish leaders, I have come to show you mercy and compassion.
“As one who shares in your flesh and blood, I am here to take your place. I myself will be robbed and stripped of My clothing; I myself will be beaten mercilessly and left dead on a cross, buried in a grave. But this is the way I will defeat your enemies. This is the way I will take away their power over you. I will take the whole curse into my body, your sickness and sin and hurt and death. And by My divine blood I will break the curse. Through My resurrection, I will give you new and immortal life. You cannot win this fight by your own strength. But I am fighting for you. When death and the devil grab hold of My weak flesh, they will learn all too soon that they have grabbed hold of the almighty God; and I will tear them limb from limb and utterly destroy them. I am here with you. Lean on Me. You are safe; you are forgiven; you are justified through Me. There is nothing now that can separate you from the love of God.”
The Good Samaritan Jesus comes to you and He cleans up the wounds of your sin in the waters of baptism. He pours on the oil of His Holy Spirit to comfort you and the wine of His blood to cleanse and purify you in Holy Communion. He gives you lodging in the Inn which is His holy church. Here you are continually cared for through the preaching of His words of life. For although your sins are fully forgiven, yet the wounds of sin are not fully healed. We still live with their effects in this world, don’t we. The Church is the hospital where those wounds are tended to by the Great Physician, lest they become infected. Jesus provides the innkeeper pastor with two denarii, so that the Lord’s overflowing compassion might continue to be given to you in His ongoing ministry of the Gospel. Jesus promises to pay whatever it takes to restore you. For in fact He has already paid the full price, fully atoning for your transgressions by His sacrifice on the cross.
Those two denarii also point us to the resurrection of Jesus in particular. A denarius would pay for one day’s room and board. So a two-denarii stay would mean that the man would be up and out on the third day. This is what Jesus has done for you. He paid not with gold or silver but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, and He rose on the third day so that you may share in His bodily resurrection and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. It is as we heard in the Old Testament reading: “After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.”
And now that you are raised up, you are freed to truly go and do likewise. You can do good works now not with some self-justifying motivation so that you can think of yourself as being good enough, but simply out of love for your neighbor in need. You can delight in God’s commands now because the threats and punishments have been taken away through Jesus, and you see how His commands order all things for your good. You consider it a privilege to have a part in what God is working and accomplishing. You live in Christ by faith, and He lives in you to serve and help others–whether that’s in the ordinary way of your daily callings, or whether it’s in unusual opportunities like the Good Samaritan had. As members of the body of Christ, you are the hands and feet of Jesus to love even those who are difficult to love. After all, that’s exactly what He has done for you.
And when you falter and fall short of doing that, you don’t have to excuse it or explain it away and try to justify yourself. Just return to the Lord with humble faith and cling to Him. For Jesus has justified you–not by saying that you had a good reason for doing wrong but by taking away all the wrong from you and in exchange giving you His own “rightness” and righteousness. You are in the family of God. And so the promised inheritance is yours in Jesus, a free gift, won by His death, delivered by water and the Word, sealed by His body and blood. As you rest and recover here in the Inn, be strengthened in the certainty that very soon, your Good Samaritan will return to you as He has promised. The risen Jesus will come again, your compassionate Lord, and you will be with Him in the perfect rest and contentment of the new creation.
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit