Scripture Reading: Luke 10:25-37
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He 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.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my 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. 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.’ 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 Needs Me? The Real Message of the Good Samaritan
Today we turn to the parable of the Good Samaritan, perhaps one of the best known parables in the Bible. The story has all the drama we remember: someone is beaten up and left on the side of the road, the "right" people—the priest and the Levite—pass him by, and the "wrong" person, the wicked Samaritan, the one that everybody hated, he's the one who stops and has mercy. Not only that, he takes the injured man to a place where he can stay and recover, and spends his own money to make sure that the person is healed.
It's a well-known story, one you've probably heard preached on many times. Today, what I'd like to focus on is not the parable itself, but the questions that are asked in this story.
The Lawyer's Question
The lawyer approaches Jesus and asks him a question—not to get information, but to test him. He says, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
The lawyer knows the answer. He just wants to see what Jesus will say. And Jesus pulls the trick you do with someone who thinks he knows a lot: you say, "Well, what do you think?"
The lawyer can't help himself, because when you know a lot, you want to tell people. He answers: "Love God, love your neighbor as yourself."
Jesus replies with words that make the lawyer uneasy: "You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live."
The Wrong Question
Jesus's words make the lawyer uncomfortable, because the lawyer follows up with another question. Scripture tells us: "But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'"
When we think about love and service, that's a question we sometimes ask: "Who is my neighbor?" But the real question behind that is: "Who do I have to take care of when God tells me 'do this and you will live'? Who do I have to love to get eternal life?"
The lawyer wants Jesus to give him a checklist. Once he has the list of things he's supposed to do, the people he's supposed to care for, the people he's supposed to love, he'll check off all the boxes, and then he'll have eternal life.
Likely for this lawyer, what he's trying to do is narrow it down:
Certainly not those Samaritans
Probably not those Gentiles either—they're just as bad
So just the Jews, right? Those are my neighbors
Maybe it's just the Jews who go to my synagogue, not the ones who speak Greek and support the Romans
Maybe only the people who come to church every Saturday
The idea here is to make sure he can narrow down God's law inch by inch, section by section, until it is something that he can accomplish, until it's something that he can do.
Our Struggle with God's Law
That's something that each one of us will do with God's law, because God's law is so vast and so huge and so impossible that facing it is scary. It was scary for the lawyer—he wanted to justify himself—and it's scary for us too.
"Love God with everything that you are and love your neighbor as yourself."
To feel like we can do that, we have to make it narrow, small, and accomplishable, so that we can feel like we are good Christians. That's what the lawyer was trying to do. But God's law isn't narrow, and it isn't small, and it isn't accomplishable. Jesus tells us, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."
When we ask the question, "Who do I need to take care of?" we are trying to limit the strength and power of God's command when he says, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
The Other Extreme
There's another way that sometimes people answer the question, "Who do I have to take care of?" It's not to limit it down to a small population that you can actually love and be concerned for. They say, "I know what it's supposed to be—who do I have to take care of? Everyone!"
I think that is just as problematic as limiting it. If "loving your neighbor as yourself" is taking care of everyone, it can be about just as good as taking care of no one. If you are supposed to love and take care of everyone, you will be just as concerned about Ukraine as the person sitting next to you—a thing you can do nothing about, compared to a person who is sitting right next to you. You'll be more concerned with politics than whether your neighbor has a friendly neighbor, more concerned with things online than your brother and sister in Christ sitting next to you.
It's just another way of limiting God's law. Instead of focusing on just a specific group of people, we get to focus on someone far away and feel like we are doing something if we get really excited about what's happening somewhere else and ignore the people God has called you to love nearby. It's just another way to limit God's law and appear good.
The Right Question
"Who do I have to take care of?" is actually the wrong question. "Who do I have to take care of?" is focusing on making God's law something I can do.
Jesus doesn't answer that question. When the man says, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus doesn't respond with that. He says, "Which one of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?"
So he's got three examples: the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan. Which one was a neighbor to the man on the side of the road?
The question isn't, "Who do I have to take care of?" The question is, "Who needs me? Who can I be a neighbor to?"
That's what the Samaritan did. He was walking along as a Samaritan. He had no desire or need or rule that would have forced him to help a man on the side of the road. It's likely it was a Jew, an enemy, but he comes across someone beaten up, broken and left for dead, and he says, "Someone needs me," and takes care of him.
He doesn't ask, "Am I following the rules? Who do I have to take care of?" He says, "He needs me."
Jesus Our Good Samaritan
This is what Jesus did, isn't it? When he looked down on a world that was broken, beaten by sin and left for dead, we deserved it, didn't we? Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, eating the apple, bringing about sin and death in the world.
Jesus would have been perfectly justified looking down on us from his heavenly home and condemning us and saying, "They get what they deserve." But that's not the heart of the Savior. He looked down on his people, on his creation, and said, "They need me."
And he took on human flesh, came down and was broken and beaten for us—not just left for dead on the side of the road, but he actually died on a cross and was placed in a tomb and rose from the dead for our salvation.
Jesus rescued us. He didn't spend a couple denari, a little money. He spent his life, his holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. He came down because we can't love God enough or love our neighbor as ourselves, and he gives us this wonderful place, the church, where we can be healed every single Sunday, receive his means of grace, hear his word and be fed once again to serve as he served us.
Living the Question
I think that's what Jesus is getting at when he tells this story. It's not to focus on, "Who do I have to take care of? Who do I have to serve? What does God's law say about what I must do?" But: "How can I reflect Jesus's love in the people around me? How can I take the love and salvation that Jesus has given me and give it to those in my orbit, the people who need me?"
That is actually what Martin Luther does when he talks about the Ten Commandments. If you look at the Small Catechism and all the explanations that Martin Luther gives, the question behind it all is: "What would this mean if I were Jesus to my neighbor? If the heart of Christ was in me, how would I serve my neighbor?"
Which is why he can take things like "You shall not steal" and turn it into "support him in his possessions and income." The question is always, "Who needs me? How can I show the love of Christ in my life?"
And it begins by having Christ in your own heart, because you can't show that love without the love being present in you. Christ comes to us, gives us life, gives us his salvation, his heart and his hope, which then is poured out into the people around us.
Jesus calls us not to ask the question, "Who do I have to take care of? What does God command that I do?" But he gives us a new heart, so that when we run into people who have need, we can ask the question, "Who needs me?"—like I need Jesus.
In Jesus' name, amen.
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