St. John’s Lutheran Church, Toluca, IL – 5th Sunday after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Psalm 25:1-10; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37
Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27He 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.” 28And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
NRSV
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Good Reputation
Grace and Peace to you, beloved of God, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Do not let loyalty and faithfulness [to God] forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and of people (Proverbs 3:3-4 NRSV).
According to Publilius Syrus, a Roman writer from the first century before Christ, “a good reputation is more valuable than money.”
Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.
Basketball legend Julius Irving, a.k.a. Dr. J, once said: “When I went to Philadelphia, I was 26 years old and really sitting on top of the world. Family life, a professional career, plenty of friends and associates, and a good reputation, a wish list that could be the envy of many.”
Good reputations are important. It seems to matter a lot how others are perceived by us and how we are perceived by others.
Under such a lens, what makes the Samaritan in our gospel story today good? I heard this question raised this past week by the Rev. Dr. Karolyn Lewis, chair of Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary. It is a very good one. Why this Samaritan is perceived as good?
This is interesting because neither Luke as the narrator nor Jesus as the parable teller say that this particular Samaritan is good. Jesus did lead the inquisitive lawyer to conclude that the Samaritan was a neighbor to the beat-up, semi-dead person lying in the ditch. However, and again, where the good reputation given to him comes from?
See, parables are not named in the original biblical text. All those little headings in some bibles are tools that publishers use to make it easier for us to find what we looking for. The label of being “good” was given over time to this Samaritan by us upon the persnickety study of scripture.
Oh! Really? Yep.
But again, why name it “the parable of the good Samaritan” and not “how to inherit eternal life,” which was the original question of the person testing Jesus in the first place?
I don’t know, but isn’t it interesting that we, the community of sinners made saints in Jesus Christ, chose to agree that this Samaritan is particularly good? Maybe it is not by coincidence.
You read enough Bible and eventually realize that Samaritans did not have a good reputation among the people of Jesus’ time. That was due to historical disputes. Samaritans claimed Mount Gerazyn in Samaria as a holy place where they encountered God. Therefore, they rejected the notion that God could only be worshiped at the Temple in Jerusalem, which per se was more than blasphemous for the average Israelite.
Samaria was one of the original twelve tribes of Israel. They were students of the same scripture but since had become ostracized. One did not want to be seen with a Samaritan, and Jews would avoid traveling through Samaria. These are one of those walls of separation that Jesus destroys when he not only intentionally traveled through Samaria but dwelled with them for an extended time. The Samaritan’s reputation was so bad that Jesus was accused of being one of them when teaching in the Temple and having that being used against him.
Once more, why then do we perceive this Samaritan in the parable to be good?
Maybe there is something in this parable that resonates and stirs stuff in our guts. Perhaps it causes us to see what this Samaritan is doing regardless of how he is perceived by others and how others may be perceived by him. In doing so, we deem him good. His actions seem to trigger something in the transformed new creature inside us. Because of it, maybe we remember the reasons that led God to graciously write his law of love in our hearts and gift us with faith. So we could be a neighbor to each other and extend kindness and generosity to someone when nobody else would.
Perhaps the same applied to the lawyer testing the Christ. Jesus did not need to school the suspicious steward of the Torah, for he knew the law, the book of teachings very well. His encounter with the incarnation of the Word of God was somehow sufficient for him to recall God’s purpose for him.
He likely remembered that we should be grateful for what God did for us, for Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
Because of it, perhaps he remembered that we respond to God’s gracious love for us by practicing hospitality and compassionate love to those dwelling with us. Leviticus 19:18 says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Then verse 34 of the same chapter says, “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.”
God insists on us, so we may live in wholesome relationships with him and one another. All along, he knew what he needed to do to be in good repute with God and the people. The gift of divine instruction inspired him to see again with clear eyes what God expects from us. He knew what good was, and apparently, so do we. Like him, we have all the right answers in our hearts. Go, do likewise, and live well!
Thanks be to God, Amen!
Bridging Faith 