July 15, 2007 at Saint Mark Church Norman, OK
Deuteronomy 30: 10-14 + Psalm 69 + Colossians 1:15-20 + Luke 10:25-37
This parable would certainly rank in the top five of remembered and well-known parables. Images from it have been reproduced in windows of the greatest cathedrals. Painters like Rembrandt and Giordano have put it on canvas. Hospitals and health-care facilities have named themselves after it. It is a by-word for responding to the needs of others. But all of that is a shallow glance at a profound and important instruction of Jesus along the way to Jerusalem.
In the end, parables are always about God. They reveal something about God, instruct, challenge, and form disciples who would take up the work of Jesus Christ, the work of God. As always, in the retelling, layers of meaning and points of focus develop and shift. Those who first heard the parable from the lips of Jesus would have identified first of all with the man in the ditch. From his perspective, it’s a very different story.
Different listeners can move around from character to character and have plenty to think about. In our age, when story telling is mostly for entertainment, the story hardly says much at all, especially when we are so removed from the whole idea, the whole conflict that lies behind this story. Even the conflicts come at different levels: there is the conflict between the lawyer and Jesus; a conflict within the law itself; a conflict between the cultures as the whole idea of a Samaritan being moved with compassion collides with the hated and racism of that time; and not least of all is the conflict within the boundaries that define who is a “neighbor.”
At the level of Luke’s story telling, this parable is about God, and it might seem a bit shocking to realize that he is using someone considered an enemy to reveal a quality of God for the sake of those who, made in the image of that God, might be called to let that image shape their behavior.
At the same time, there is a confrontation of attitude here that fits in with the three previous stories which we told last week and the week before. First, it was James and John with their outburst of revenge which Jesus rebukes. Then it was the Joy of those returning disciples that Jesus must redirect lest they think it’s all about their power. Now it is another attitude that must be called into question before the journey to Jerusalem delivers Jesus to his Glory. This is the attitude we see in the lawyer. He is trapped in the “do to get” thinking that is still way too common among us
“What must I do to win the inheritance of everlasting life?” he ask. For him, an action or decision only has value when compared to the reward attached to it. Jesus goes right to the heart of the matter when he says:
“Do this and live.” because there is no gap between the present and the future. The action is its own reward. It is not a matter of doing something
and then waiting to be rewarded, presumably after death. What Jesus and Luke would have us understand is that acting with compassion and mercy is an immediate experience of everlasting life, the Reign of God.
This is a tough thing to get our minds around; this business of always deciding what to do because of what we get. It’s back to last week’s issue now moved a step further. We do things because of who we are, and what we do is the very action of God. In terms of the characters of this story, God acts like the Samaritan, crossing dangerous territory with healing and help. God takes risky and foolish actions, like sending his only Son to save life. Eternal life will be able to be inherited only because of the perilous actions Jesus takes on behalf of all who are neighbor. To inherit this life, one must “go and do likewise.” In other words: “Go and do what God does.” When you do, you will be living in the fullness of life and death will have no power over you.