If you were to take a poll, it is very likely that the parable in today's Gospel is one of the most well known parables that Jesus ever told. A man gets mugged. Two people who should help him don't. The one person who does help him is his sworn enemy. This parable has a happy ending, a noble hero, and plenty to teach us.
In order to get the full meaning out of this parable, it is important to check out the context of the story. Jesus is still on His last Journey to Jerusalem before He offers Himself up for us and for our salvation. He is taking time as He travels to stop in the towns on the way. He is still healing, teaching, and proclaiming the Good news that the Kingdom of God is near.
Today's Gospel demonstrates the mistake that is at the foundation of most false doctrines. A lawyer came forward to test Jesus and asked a question. You would think that a lawyer would see the contradiction in the very question that he asked, but he asked it anyway. The lawyer asked, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" If you understand the meaning of the word "inherit" and the meaning of the word "do," you will see an immediate contradiction. An inheritance is a gift. If you are in the will, you get the gift. If you are not in the will, you do not get the gift. There is nothing you can do to force God to include you in His will.
Never the less, the lawyer asked the question and so do we. Jesus has earned our salvation with His suffering and death on the cross. He offers it to us as a gift. The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of faith that holds on to that salvation. God does everything. Salvation is ours. There is nothing we can do. Never the less, there is always the temptation for us to try and do our part. There is always some temptation to try to earn or demonstrate our salvation by keeping the law.
The instant we try to earn God's favor or make some kind of a deal with God, we have left the path of truth and are headed toward false doctrine. Since God wants us to learn from our mistakes, He will often show us the ultimate results of this false thinking. When people asked Jesus a law question, He gave them an answer in the law so that they would see how futile our good works really are.
The lawyer asked a law question. In order to help the lawyer see the error of his ways, Jesus gave him a law answer. [Jesus] said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" And he answered, "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." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." The lawyer knew the law. He gave the exact same answer that Jesus had given at another time. The basis of the law is love for God and love for neighbor. The lawyer had it down pat. [By the way, notice that, according to Jesus, loving God and your neighbor is law. It is not Gospel.]
So, in order to satisfy the law, all the lawyer had to do was love God perfectly and love his neighbor perfectly and heaven was his. Now loving God is one thing. Loving neighbor is something else. God is perfect. He is holy. He is merciful. He provides for all our needs. Loving Him probably seemed doable to the lawyer.
On the other hand, there was the neighbor. Loving some of our neighbors is easy. They take care of their lawn. They don't let their pets wander off. They don't have loud parties late at night … at least not without inviting you to attend. It's easy to love those neighbors.
Then there are the other neighbors. You know - the ones who tune their car outside your bedroom window at 3:00 A.M. - the ones who have dogs that bark all night - the ones who have unusual jewelry permanently attached to unusual parts of their body - the ones who frighten you just a little bit when they look your way - those neighbors. It's really, really hard to love those neighbors.
If you are honest, you admit that you can't love all your neighbors as you love yourself. On the other hand, if you are into self deception, you will figure out a way to weaken the law so that you can keep it and give yourself a gold star. That is exactly what the lawyer wanted to do. He figured that there might be a way to make it so that those hateful, irritating people were not really his neighbors. So he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" That is when Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.
You all know the story and the moral to the story. If we are to earn our own salvation according to the law, we must do what the Good Samaritan did. If we find our mortal enemy in some kind of difficulty, we must help him. We must be willing to authorize him to use our MasterCard or VISA in order to cover all the expenses it takes for him to recover. If he is literally beat up at the side of the road, we are to see to it that he gets to the nearest hospital and leave our credit card with the cashier in order to cover all the medical costs for this person to have a full recovery. Basically, we should be eager to do whatever it takes to help our worst enemy in any circumstance. If you can't do that, then you can't go to heaven - at least, not according to the law.
Our Gospel says that the lawyer desired to justify himself. If we tried to justify ourselves according to the law, then the story of the Good Samaritan sets a standard that none of us could possibly keep. The parable of the Good Samaritan condemns every last one of us.
But this story is told by the one who set His face to go to Jerusalem, Jesus Christ. When we ask Jesus a law question, we get a law answer. What if we allow Jesus to share His Gospel with us? How does the parable work when we apply the Gospel?
Once again, "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." This man is us. The devil, the world, and even our own sinful flesh have mugged us with our own sin. We are literally dead in our own trespasses and sin. [Ephesians 2:1]
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. The Priest and the Levite are the law. The law requires us to help ourselves. There is nothing in the law that will step forward and help us. If we can't keep the law on our own, then it condemns us to eternal death.
But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He 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.' The Samaritan is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. He generously applies the oil of His righteous life and the wine of His own blood. [Isaiah 53:5] He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. He gave us His righteousness and took our sins onto Himself as He suffered and died on the cross.
Jesus then took us to the inn of the church. There he gave instructions to His pastor to care for you. He has given the pastor something way better than a card with a billion dollar credit limit or a blank check. He has left His Word, Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, and the Lord's Supper with the inn of the church. He has given His pastor instructions to use these Means of Grace to tend to the well being of all those who have been beaten up by sin. With these Means of Grace, the pastor tends to the victims of sin, death, and the devil.
Finally, the day will come when our Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ will return to make all things right. He will settle all accounts. He will deal with the evil one and throw him into the abyss. Sin, death, and the devil will no longer bother us for they will be gone. Just as Jesus rose from the dead in an immortal body, we too shall rise from the dead never to die again. Then we shall live forever with Jesus on a new earth where there will be no more sin or sorrow or death.
If we want to live by the law, then we are the Good Samaritan. If we want to live by the Gospel then Jesus is our Good Samaritan.
We cannot live up to the standard of the Good Samaritan. Sin mugs us and leaves us at the side of the road to die. In fact we are spiritually dead.
Our only hope is the Gospel of our Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ. Only He can rescue us and bring us healing. Jesus is the one who set His face to go to Jerusalem so that He could die for us on the cross. He is also the one who rose from the dead to give us the promise of eternal life with Him. He offers us forgiveness, life, and salvation.
Don't mess up this salvation by trying to do your part to save yourself. The inheritance of eternal life is already yours. Our Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ has already earned your forgiveness. The Holy Spirit establishes the faith that trusts in Jesus for that forgiveness. There is nothing left to do. When it comes to our salvation, God does all the work. He is our true Good Samaritan. Amen
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