Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
September 6, 2009
13th Sunday After Trinity
What must I do to inherit eternal life? Luke 10:25
If you ask the wrong question, you’ll get the wrong answer. If you
ask a person how to get to Indiana when Pennsylvania is your
destination, you’re going to have a problem. That’s what the lawyer
in the parable did, he asked two wrong questions. The first because
he wanted to trick the Lord, and the second because he wanted to
justify himself. Talk about foolish endeavors. We can neither trick
God into giving us a glad eternity, nor justify ourselves before Him
no matter how hard we try.
But what’s impossible for us, because we’ve robbed of righteousness by
the devil, is entirely possible for Jesus who is the Good Samaritan.
He finds us where we are, has compassion on us when no one else will,
binds up our wounds, brings us to the inn of the church, appoints
inn-keepers to care for us, pays the price for our salvation, and will
return again to give us the eternal life that we all hope to obtain.
The parable is neither a morality play, nor justification for
establishing social programs, whose real purpose is to rob people of
their money and deprive them of their freedom. Nor is it about
obtaining God’s eternal applause for a job well done.
The parable is about Jesus who does what the Law cannot do, namely,
rescue us from death, cleanse us from our sins, make us righteous
before God and give us eternal life.
Now it’s a fact that we all want life. We all want to be healthy,
happy, successful and prosperous and we don’t ever want it to end.
No surprise there. We were created by the Living God, made in His
image and formed in His likeness. Every fiber of our being longs to
live, thrive and survive.
But the devil ruined it all. He came into the garden, tempted Adam,
led him into sin and every generation since has inherited and imitated
Adam’s rebellion – and this is bad because the sentence for sin is
death.
What a contradiction! Living creations of the Living God, condemned
to death because of sin. But that is our true condition, and the
source of all our frustration.
Death is repulsive to us; a stranger; an enemy we want nothing to do
with. But like the robbers in the parable it always lurks around the
next corner. And like the robbers, it doesn’t usually finish us off
with one big chop. Instead it breaks us down day by day, week by
week, torments us with temptation, and beats us with guilt, shame,
illness, injuries, troubles of all sorts and leaves us half-dead.
Is there any hope for us? Is there any way out?
Many answers have been proposed. Adam and Eve thought they could
cover their sin with fig leaves. They were the first Green Energy
Czars of history but it didn’t work then and it won’t work now.
Ever since sin entered the world, and death by sin (Romans 5:12) an
endless parade of social, economic, legislative, technological and
religious solutions have been proposed to turn things around; to make
the world a better place and give men the joy they all desire. But
they all break down because they all ask the wrong question that the
lawyer asked Jesus that day: what must I Do to inherit eternal life.
Do you hear the error?
What must I do?
How can I save Myself?
O how we love that question!
It appeals to our pride like no other and makes perfect sense to
intellects disabled by sin. “How can I save myself?” It’s all we
know, and when we’re not busy destroying ourselves, we’re busy saving
ourselves, but nothing works.
What’s the evidence, you ask?
Death still bats .1000. Cemeteries are as busy as ever…but don’t
worry because there’s always room for one more.
What must I do to inherit eternal life? We think that heaven is
something we can merit but Jesus sets the record straight. In the
parable the Priest and the Levite represent the Law, but they were of
no help to the dying man. The lawyer thought that by a series of good
works, prayers and devotions that he could extort God’s favor, and we
think the same. But there’s nothing more deadly than
self-righteousness whether the Christian kind or the socialist kind.
The defect isn’t in the Law. St. Paul asserts that: the Law is
Spiritual, but I am Carnal, sold under sin. (Romans 7:14) The
problem is us. We are powerless to love God or our neighbor as the
Law demands. The bar is set so high that we can’t even see the top of
it let alone jump over it. We are perpetual under-achievers in the
spiritual arena, moral midgets, lawyers to the enth degree and the
microscopic standards we set for ourselves won’t get us where we want
to go.
There was another error in the lawyer’s question as well, an internal
contradiction. “What must I Do to Inherit eternal life,” he asked?
But Inherit and Do are very different creatures! One is a wage for
services rendered, the other a gift. St. Paul writes in Romans 8:16
that by faith we become “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ,
provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified
with him,” and suffer we do.
The parable is about Jesus. He is the Good Samaritan! He is the one
who finds us on the side of life’s road; beaten by sin; robbed of
righteousness; stripped of life and bereft of peace and joy.
Unlike the priest and Levite who, coming upon the scene, crossed to
the other side, Jesus saw our distress and came to our aid. He gladly
paid the price of our salvation by giving His sacred body to die our
death, and pouring out His holy blood to cancel out our sin, give
life to the dead and restore us to un-ending health.
Jesus did more besides. He brought us into the inn of the church and
appointed inn-keepers known as pastors to continue our treatment. He
gave them instructions to care for us until His return, to administer
the wine and oil of His Word and Sacraments, not just once but
continually. We need that Word to be applied liberally and constantly
to us for it and it alone makes our spirits sing. It alone is light
for our darkness, wisdom for our foolishness, balm for our sorrow and
only it can treat the wounds we suffer daily at the hands of sin,
death and the devil. It and it alone is pure joy, pure goodness, pure
beauty and truth.
Jesus is the Good Samaritan, we are not. But having received divine
Mercy we are in a position to understand it, and commissioned to go
and do likewise. This is what we are to be engaged in from the day we
are baptized until the day the Good Samaritan returns to give us
eternal life as an inheritance. Amen.
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