CUPC
Sermon
July 14, 2013
Luke 10: 25-37 – “What’s Your Answer?”
This is the link to the audio of this morning's sermon. Below the link is the full text.
The sharply dressed young
lawyer, looking back at his friends and with a little smirk on his face, stepped
up to Jesus and asked what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Noticing the smirk, Jesus said, “You’re a smart
person. Assuming there is an answer,
what do you think the answer is?”
Not wanting to embarrass
himself, the lawyer knew how to answer. He
knew the rules. He quoted from
Deuteronomy and Leviticus. First he
repeated what is known as the shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is
our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. [Deut.
6:4,5 ]” Then he quoted from
Leviticus 19.18: “You shall not take
vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
Jesus congratulated him for
answering correctly. Suddenly the young
man realized that he might look foolish asking a simple question to which he
gave his own answer, so he decided to get Jesus to give an explanation of the
answer. What did these things really
mean in everyday life. Who were we
“required” to love? Who was our neighbor?
Apparently the young lawyer
hadn’t paid much attention to some verses down a little further in that same
chapter of Leviticus: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall
not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the
citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in
the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. [Lev. 19.33,34]”
Jesus told the lawyer – and
the crowd that surrounded them – the story that we call “The Good
Samaritan.” When he finished the story,
Jesus again asked the lawyer: “What do you think?”
Sometimes we like to think
that the Gospel is a brand new story, a new message from God that wipes away
all of the strangeness and confusion of the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the
Old Testament. Yet we can’t read the
Gospel – or any other part of the New Testament – without realizing that the
New Testament is simply trying to explain the same promises, the same
covenants, the same sense of love, the same sense of forgiveness that God tried
to express to people throughout the stories found in the Hebrew scriptures. In telling the story of the Good Samaritan,
Jesus is simply trying to explain what Leviticus and Deuteronomy are meant to
mean for us in everyday life.
One Old Testament scholar,
John Goldingay, is so frustrated by the way we have ignored the history of
God’s relationship with humanity as told through the pages of the Hebrew
scriptures that he says the New Testament is nothing but footnotes on the Old
Testament. All of our scriptures, from
Genesis to Revelation, are the story of God’s relationship with humanity, of
God’s efforts to reunite humanity with God and with one another. That’s what reconciliation means: we are to be reunited with God from whom we
have turned away. We were intended to live as one with God and with one
another.
And from Genesis to
Revelation we are given example after example of how we have screwed up the way
God intended for us to live with one another and with God.
After years and years of
sending flood and fire and war and famine and prophets perpetually calling the
people back to God, God decided to become one of us so that we would know
exactly how he wants us to live.
How he wants us to live.
That’s what it is all
about. It’s not about memorizing laws,
it’s not about theological arguments, it’s not about hollow rituals, it’s not
about exclusion, it’s not about treating a book like it is God: it’s about our relationship with the living
God and with one another. It’s about how
God wants us to live … together.
All of scripture – if you
look at it as a whole instead of as inspirational snippets – is pointing us
toward one thing: becoming as one with
God and with one another. It’s what Paul
has called “reconciliation.”
It’s difficult for us to
comprehend the truly outrageous example of “neighbor” that Jesus shows to this
young lawyer. We sometimes get so caught
up in the “feel good” aspects of this story that we miss the fact that it’s
almost inside out.
This man who was robbed and
beaten up is helped by someone who was excluded (actively excluded) from any
relationships within Jewish society.
This Samaritan didn’t follow the rules of the Temple, didn’t participate
in the rituals of the Temple, didn’t believe in God in the same way as the Jews
in Jerusalem. But this is the man who
showed mercy on the wounded man.
At the end of the story Jesus
asks the lawyer: “Who was the neighbor
to the man who was robbed?” The point of
that question was not simply to praise an act of genuine mercy. That question was rooted in Deuteronomy 6 and
Leviticus 19. That question goes back to
the command to love God and love your neighbor and your neighbor is the person
living next to you and everybody else that you meet.
In Matthew 21 Jesus tells a
brief but interesting parable. The
context is the beginning of Holy Week and Jesus is in the Temple in Jerusalem
being interrogated by the chief priests and the elders. Again Jesus is using questions and parables
to try and get his point across.
He asks:
“28 ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went
to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29He
answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30The
father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’;
but he did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his
father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the
tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of
you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you
did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him;
and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”
Jesus tried repeatedly to
tell us that what God wants for us is found in the doing, not the saying. It’s found in the sharing, not the
keeping. It’s found in the giving, not
the holding. It’s found in an openess to
everyone, not an exclusiveness to those we like or those who are most like
us.
Yes, the parable of the Good
Samaritan is certainly about the quality of mercy, but more than that it’s
about whom Gods wants us to care for.
It’s not about being a nurse or a medical missionary in some foreign
land; it’s not about being a pastor or an evangelist; it’s not about how many
verses of scripture you can memorize; it’s about how you live out what
scripture is calling you to do. It’s
about showing patience and kindness, mercy and charity to the extent that we
have resources to do so. It’s about
listening to one another.
Some people who would lock us
into a religion of rules and the worship of a book will quote part of a sentence from 2 Timothy
3. They will tell you: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [16].” They usually put a period right there. (Interestingly, the author of 2 Timothy would
have been speaking about the Hebrew scriptures.) But in 2 Timothy 3 the sentence doesn’t end
where they often put the period. The
whole sentence says: “All scripture is
inspired by God and is useful
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient,
equipped for every good work. [3.16 & 17]”
“… so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient,
equipped for every good work.”
It isn’t about the book: it’s about the message from God to you and me
about how to behave with God and with one another. It’s about listening to what God is saying to
us and acting on it.
It’s all there in Deuteronomy
and Leviticus: Listen, you who would be called children of God: your God is the only God. Love God with everything that you have. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your
neighbor is everyone you meet, family or foreigner, friend or stranger. I am your God. Listen to me!
“Teacher, what must I do to
inherit eternal life?” What does the law
say? What does that mean? What does that mean for your life? What does
it tell you to do? Who is your
neighbor? What must you do – DO
– to inherit eternal life?
What’s your answer?
Amen.
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