"He Who Showed Mercy"
Luke 10:25-37
Trinity 13
Pastor Aaron A. Koch
Mt. Zion Lutheran Church
Greenfield, WI

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

All of us have our comfort zones when it comes to our religious and spiritual life. We feel like when we've gone to church, when we've helped a neighbor out with this or that, when we haven't committed any huge sins, then everything's alright with us and God. We're comfortable with ourselves. We feel like we've done enough, and our spirituality is about where it should be.

If that describes you, though, then today's Gospel throws a monkey wrench into the works. For the parable that Jesus tells is meant precisely to get you out of your comfort zone, to zap you out of your spiritual complacency.

An expert in the Old Testament Law comes to Jesus. And he's pretty self-satisfied about his standing before God. Like any good lawyer, he asks a question that he already knows the answer to, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus is on to the lawyer, and so He has him answer his own question. The lawyer gives a summary of the Ten Commandments from the book of Deuteronomy, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus says, "OK, do this and you will live."

The lawyer was used to teaching the Old Testament Law to others; that was his job. But he still didn't fully understand how to apply it to himself. And that's our problem, too, isn't it. We agree that the Ten Commandments are good. We especially agree that people should love their neighbors as themselves. But the truth is, we're better at applying that to others than we are to ourselves, expecting love and mercy from our neighbor but not always giving it. We expect our families to put up with our bad moods, our short tempers and pettiness and selfishness; and we get all bent out of shape when they don't. We think our boss should overlook our half-hearted work, our long lunch breaks, our "borrowing" from the office; and we get all defensive when he or she doesn't. We get upset when visitors aren't lined up outside our hospital room, or when friends aren't bubbling over with joy that our kids made the honor roll, or when someone jumps into line ahead of us at the checkout counter when we're in a hurry. We're good at demanding things from others that we ourselves don't always give. We act hurt and sulk and get ticked off when our neighbors act not all that differently than ourselves have acted.

The lawyer still couldn't see that he wasn't loving his neighbor as himself. He was still trying to justify himself and show that he really had kept God's Law by asking the question, "And who is my neighbor?" But now the lawyer gets an answer he does not expect. Jesus tells a parable which takes him out of the safety of his comfort zone. Jesus teaches that your neighbor is not just your family or friends or others like you-there's enough of a demand right there. Your neighbor is anyone who stands in need of your mercy and help, even a foreigner, even your enemy. They are the ones you are to love, giving of your time and your resources and yourself for their good.

And so your neighbor is not just the wounded man in the on the side of the road. Your neighbors also are the thieves, who stand in need of your prayers and words of warning and advice. Your neighbors are the priest and the Levite, who stand in need of your example, your patience, your loving rebuke. Your neighbor is the innkeeper, who stands in need of your two denarii, your encouragement, your promise to help even more. Your neighbors are all of these people-whomever the Lord places before you to love, even when they are unlovable; to be merciful toward, even when they themselves are merciless.

So, is that what you have done, loving your neighbor as much as yourself? Try doing this seriously, without fail, for a day and then a week and then a month. And you'll soon learn what Jesus was trying to get across to the lawyer. For in your heart you'll soon be wishing you didn't have to do it, and you'll be raging against God who lays this burden on you. You'll soon realize how far short of the glory of God you've fallen. Repent, for you haven't kept the Law-not in the way it demands. The Law can't save you; it can only kill you.

But that is good. That, in fact, is God's purpose, to kill you in order that He might make you truly alive again in Christ. This is what the Old Testament reading prophesied, "Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has stricken us; but He will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight." As a surgeon cuts in order to heal, so our Lord lays us bare and empties us of ourselves with the Law, in order that we may be filled with Himself and made whole and right through the Gospel. Jesus Himself was torn and stricken for our sins; by His wounds we are healed. On the third day He was raised up, and we also were made alive together with Him, as Colossians 2 says, "You were buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him," born from above to new and everlasting life.

That's where Jesus would turn our attention today, away from the Law and to Himself. For only in Jesus is there mercy. Only in Jesus does one inherit eternal life. For only in Jesus are we made to be children of God and heirs of all the goodness of our heavenly Father.

Notice how Jesus turns the lawyer's question around. The lawyer had asked, "Who is my neighbor." But Jesus asks, "Who was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?" With Jesus the neighbor was not the recipient but the giver of love. What Jesus is doing by turning the question around is placing the lawyer and us on the side of the road. The parable of the Good Samaritan is not only a call to do good, it is a call to receive mercy from Christ. For He is the Neighbor. That's the point. He is the true Good Samaritan. He took pity on you who were left for dead by the Law, and He came to you from heaven to rescue you. He is the outsider who has compassion on you. He cleans up the wounds of your sin in the waters of baptism. He pours on the oil of His Holy Spirit to comfort you and the wine of His blood to cleanse and purify you in Holy Communion. He gives you lodging in the Inn, His holy church, where you are continually cared for through the preaching of His words of life. For though your sins are fully forgiven, yet the wounds of sin are not fully healed. The Church is the Inn, the hospital where those wounds are tended to by the Great Physician, lest they become infected and deadly again. Finally Jesus provides the innkeeper with two denarii, that you might receive double mercy, overflowing compassion. He promises to pay whatever it takes to restore you. For in fact He has already paid the full price, fully atoning for your transgressions by His sacrifice on the cross.

So then, who is your neighbor? That is to say, who is neighbor to you? The ultimate answer is Jesus. He loved you as Himself. He kept the Law for you, in your place. Through Him you are fully redeemed and righteous.

Dying to yourself through repentance, Christ now lives in you and through you by faith to love your neighbor. He frees you to "go and do likewise"-not because you have to in order to be saved, but simply because your neighbor needs you. Since Christ became weak for us and bore all our infirmities and sorrows, we learn to see Him in those who are weak and suffering. And we show love for Him by loving them.

The Epistle sums this all up, "The Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." Fellow believers, the promised inheritance is yours in Jesus, a free gift, won by His death, delivered in your baptism, sealed by His body and blood. As you rest and recover here in the Inn, be strengthened in the certainty that soon, very soon your Good Samaritan will return to you as He has promised. The risen Jesus will come again to take you to be with Himself in the place that He has prepared for you in His everlasting kingdom.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit