Sermon from 2 Sundays Ago

Trinity 13 – Luke 10: 23-37

September 18, 2011

Rev. Micah R. Gaunt

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

1.                  You’d think there are a million and one ways to live. So many different religions and philosophies. But really they can all be reduced to two.

2.                  There are only two possible way to live. One can live by the law. That is, one can find assurance and confidence, and orient one’s life according to what one does. Or, one can live by faith; that is to live by the shocking even scandalous news that, despite what may be seen, life and all good things are a pure undeserved gift from God. What’s more, there’s nothing you can do to make God love you any more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less. The ones who work 1 hour are payed the same as those who work 12 hours, and in God’s kingdom murderers, adulterers, and traitors are forgiven and go free.

3.                  Well, in the gospel, the lawyer tries to live by the law. Look at his question to Jesus. “Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?” To which Jesus replies, “Okay you want to work for your inheritance? You want to play that game? What does the law say? Every Jewish child knows the answer to that one. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your hear and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” There it is. Correct. If you will live by your works, do that… perfectly.

4.                  Notice the lawyer’s response. He doesn’t say, “Alright, I’ll do it! I can’t wait. Don’t hold me back!” Instead, he tries to justify himself. “Who is my neighbor?” That’s the way it goes when life is lived by the law. People look for loopholes. The question is always what’s the least I have to do. People invest their time and energy in justifying their actions. Moreover, life under the law does not engender in us the impulse to love and serve our neighbor. Actually, the most pious outward behavior can often mask a hidden evil. Osama bin Laden lived according to a religion that taught that you could achieve paradise by the merit of your works. I’m sure he followed the Islamic law to the letter, outwardly. Yet, after the raid on his compound, he was found to possess a great deal of pornography.

5.                  This is always the way it works if your hope and confidence is found in your work. If you’ve ever dieted you know. Breakfast: half of a grapefruit, plain low fat yogurt, one piece of low carb, low calorie bread, hold the butter. Dinner: garden salad with a splash of low fat vinegrette, quarter cup of cottage cheese, half a slice of takeout pizza. Supper: 7 and a half slices of pizza dipped in ranch, half a bag of Doritos, half the container of double fudge brownie and peanut butter ice cream, and 64 ounces of Mountain Dew (but it’s diet). When you live by the law, it can keep the burning desires of the flesh at smolder for awhile, but as soon as the flesh gets fed… it’s like lighter fluid gets thrown on the fire. Flames erupt. They find new dry kindling and it gets out of control.

6.                  There is no life under the law. On the contrary, Paul tells us that law was given not to give life but to imprison everything under sin, so that people would stop trying to earn anything from God, and simply receive what He wants to give them – the promise of true life.

7.                  So it is that when the lawyer, in the gospel, tries to justify himself, Jesus tells him a story. A man goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falls in among robbers who strip him, beat him and leave him half-dead. His own people a priest and a Levite pass by and leave him to die. After all according to the law, if they touched him they would be unclean. But it’s an outsider, a Samaritan who stops to help the Jewish man. Now, think of the Jewish man as a Husker fan, and its Saturday December 4^th, 2010 and the Samaritan is an Oklahoma fan. Again, it’s the Samaritan who helps at great personal expense. He binds the man’s wounds and pours oil and wine upon them. He set the man on his own animal, and took care of him in the inn. Then he pays for the suffering man’s further care. The Samaritan even promises to pay for any further expense.

8.                  Then Jesus asked, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who had fallen among the robbers?” That’s a better question than the lawyer’s. The lawyer who tried to figure out who he had to love asked “Who is my neighbor?” Answer: everyone. Jesus asked, “Who proved to be the neighbor?” That’s only one person. That’s the question worth your time, because that’s the question that brings you to Jesus.

9.                  We are the man in the ditch fallen among thieves. If I can shift the image we have been like a person strung out on drugs, lifeless, useless. Our talents and resources have been bent only on getting our next hit. We’ve been so addicted to sin that even if we did manage to do something good it was tainted. We’ve either held back and not done everything we could for someone. Or we have done our work with self-interested intent. We’ve wanted others to notice.

10.              But Christ has proven to be the neighbor. He has seen our need. He didn’t avoid us, or plug His nose, or put on protective gloves. Without counting any costs he has come to save us, to clean us up and nurse us back to health. Perhaps you’ve seen in Christian artwork the image of a pelican and her young. It was once thought that a pelican mother, if needed, would pierce her own breast so that her young could be nourished by her own blood. Whether or not this is true, doesn’t matter. Because this is the true story of your life. Christ willingly was pierced and bled out for you, so that today would happen. Christ suffered for this moment. So that now you would be encouraged and strengthened by His word of promise. That you would even be nursed to health by His blood. So this is true, even though we waste away outwardly, we are renewed inwardly, day by day.

11.              And so as you listen to the words “the true blood of Christ shed for you” see in your minds eye your savior lain upon the cross. Hear in your head, Christ’s declaration from the cross, “It is finished.” All the work required for you to truly live has been done. Now you simply eat and drink the blessings.

12.              For that is how we live – by faith. We receive God’s gifts and the promises attached to them, and say, Amen. Look at what this simple receptive faith accomplishes. Not only are we now able to live forever, now Christ even serves others through us. So that when we have served our neighbor we say, “It was not I who served, for I no longer live but Christ lives in me.” Did you notice that in the collect we prayed “make us love that which you command?” We prayed, thus, because even the ability to love God’s commands is a pure gift from Him.

13.              What great things have been revealed to you! The first two verses of the gospel were not added by accident. Jesus privately says to his disciples “…I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” What is Jesus getting at? The lawyer sees Jesus just like the disciples and it doesn’t do him any good. Actually, the lawyer illustrates Jesus’ point. The lawyer wants to find assurance by his works. He wants to live by the law. He doesn’t see. Not so you. You have come to see that you live by faith in Christ. And so I tell you today, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.” There are people in this world who it is truly good to be. Thanks be to God, you are one of them. In + Jesus name, amen.