August 14, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
Freddie Fender was going to fix his car himself. He was tired of paying the high repair bills. But Freddie did not read the instructions carefully, and after he was done with the job, it cost him twice as much to get it fixed right after he had fixed it himself. Hilda Homemaker was a do-it-yourselfer too. She was going to make a cake from scratch. But baking was not her forte and she did not read the recipe carefully, so she left out some of the most important ingredients. Thus, her cake fell flat in the pan and what was supposed to be an angel food cake, looked more like white brownies instead. Harvey Handyman picked up a set of plans from the lumber company. He was going to build himself the bookcase that he had always wanted. But Harvey only looked at the pictures, didn’t even bother reading the instructions, and started sawing. Though Harvey did manage to build his bookshelf, when it was finished it looked more like a rocking chair with shelves, rather than a the bookcase he had always wanted.
Though I realize that Freddy, Hilda, and Harvey may seem a bit comical to us, especially since most of us have had similar experiences in our lives, today these three fictional characters are teaching us an important lesson about being Christians. And that lesson is simple, as Christians, it is very important for each and every one of us to read carefully the instructions of God’s word, learn them, take them to heart, and follow them carefully, because if we should try to be a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to our Christian faith, not only will it lead to a spiritual mess; it could ultimately lead to the spiritual disaster of eternal damnation. This is why Jesus is teaching us in our lesson today just how important it is for us to read carefully.
Now, if you haven’t already done so, I invite you to open your Bibles to our lesson in Luke 10:25-37. As you are opening to Luke 10, let me tell you a little bit about the do-it-yourself expert that comes to Jesus in our lesson. He was an expert in the law; a religious do-it-yourselfer. He knew a lot about his Old Testament Bible and he though he knew the way to heaven. In fact, he felt that he was building his way there by himself through his own efforts at keeping God’s Law in his life. So, when he asked Jesus for directions of how to achieve eternal life, he really wasn’t asking to find out the answer, he was asking to test Jesus and show Jesus that he, the expert, was already such a great guy who was already building his way to heaven that he didn’t actually need Jesus help. Take a look at what Luke tells us, “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered: “ ‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25–29, NIV84)
Interestingly, there are still a lot of do-it-yourselfers who are just like this expert in the law. They do not read carefully or understand what the Lord has to say in his Word, so what they wind up making is more like devil’s food than angel’s food. They buy their Bible because it has God’s plan for salvation, but then they do not read it carefully or they only look at the pictures. They go through a lot of religious motions, but when they are done, they have nothing that will stand before the Judgment of the Lord, and they end up paying a lot more than they would have had to. Some religious do-it-yourselfers even stay away from church because they feel that their plan is already better than any plan that God can give them. Though they may sometimes come to church to hear what God has to say, after they spend their hour in God’s house they go back home and keep on building according to their own plans anyway.
Now, I know exactly what you are doing. You are mentally going through our membership roster and thinking that so and so is exactly like this. Or you are thinking how you wish that this person or that person was here to hear what Pastor is saying today. Though I admit that it would be nice to have those specific people here to hear this message from the Lord as he calls us to read word carefully, understand it, believe it, and follow it, what is most important is that we who are hear carefully read and understand what Jesus is saying to us today. For the application he gives us is simple. He wants us to read his Word carefully. He wants us to study his Word regularly. He wants us to grow in our faith so that we understand that we are sinners who are saved by grace. He wants us to understand that we are saved only by the Lord’s plan of salvation and not by any plan of salvation that we may have come up with on our own. He wants us to read carefully so that we are always seeking to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul, and strength, and mind; so that we are always seeking to live our faith by loving our neighbor as ourselves.
This is what Jesus wanted for the do-it-yourselfer, expert in the Law, and in his love, Jesus was patient with him as he asked the expert to take a closer look at the law he knew so well and read it more carefully. First Jesus asked the expert what he knew about the law and how he read it. The expert gave a beautiful summary of the exact heart of God’s law and the purpose of the Christian life when he said in verse 27, “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, love your neighbor as yourself.” However, Jesus longed to help him read more carefully and understand more thoroughly. So Jesus told this man the parable of the Good Samaritan, which Luke records for us beginning with verse 30: “Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:30–37, NIV84)
With this beautiful parable Jesus explained what a life of faith is all about. It is not about obeying the law point by point to build a ladder to heaven. It isn’t about seeking to follow a path to eternal life that comes from our own imagination. Rather, it is about reading carefully the instructions of salvation that the Lord Jesus recorded for us in his word and allowing these words to grow in our hearts. It is about reading carefully the instructions of salvation so that our faith in Jesus continues to grow and to permeate every part of our lives. Then when God’s Word so permeates our lives we will naturally begin to put our faith into action as we live and serve the Lord by loving our neighbor.
Though this parable makes it clear that our neighbors are really anyone who is need of our help; anyone and everyone we come into contact with in our lives, it is very seldom that our neighbors are the ones who are beaten and lying beside the highway. Yet it is interesting how so many religious do-it-yourselfers react to their neighbors like the Priest and the Levite did in Jesus’ parable. Though they go out of their way to be kind and do good when someone is watching, so often, it seems, that behind closed doors, they neglect their own spouse when he or she is hurting. They neglect the needs of their children and their family, crossing on the other side of the street, because they simply cannot be bothered to get involved with such domestic situations. Though they are ready to champion all sorts of causes to send food, clothing, or medical supplies to the starving children of countries ravaged by famine, countries destroyed by hurricanes and earthquakes, even countries ravaged by incurable diseases, their own personal lives are filled with sins that keep them from seeing the needs of those around them or even helping those in need and serving them out of love for the Lord.
But what about us? How often don’t we act in the exact same way as the religious do-it-yourselfers that I’ve been describing? How often haven’t we walked on the other side of the living room rather than take time to interact with our spouse or our children when they have been hurting? How often haven’t we ignored the obvious cries for help from our next door neighbor or our best friends when they obviously needed a sympathetic ear to listen or simply a shoulder to cry on? How often haven’t we closed our eyes or pretended not to see someone who needed our help in one way or another? Too often we have acted just like the Priest and the Levite in Jesus’ Parable, which is why he shares this parable with us. For the purpose of the Parable of the Good Samaritan is not so that we are motivated to be nicer to each other, but it is instead to cause us to read more carefully and understand that we cannot possibly keep God’s Law on our own. We cannot possibly keep all of God’s commands perfectly as he demands, because we are constantly stumbling and breaking them all. Even if we should have a good day and keep most of them, as the Bible tells us, as soon as we break even one of God’s commands we are guilty of breaking them all. Then, in that moment, all of our own do-it-yourself plans for salvation come crumbling down before us and we are left with no hope of salvation but one.
It is in that moment that the Lord our God lifts our heads up and asks us to read carefully the simple instructions of Salvation, “God so loved the World that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NIV84) These are the simple instructions that our God laid out for our salvation. Though we cannot possibly keep God’s law, Jesus did it for us. Jesus loved us so much that he freed us from our sins by his death and resurrection from the dead. Jesus loved us so much that even when we were his enemies he died to make us his friends. Now, it is through that love of Jesus that faith grows in our hearts. It is through that love of Jesus that we seek to live our lives out of love for the Lord. It is because we have been saved by faith that we can now seek to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our mind. It is because the love of Jesus our Savior now lives in our hearts that we seek to live our lives loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is because of that love of Jesus that we now seek to read carefully God’s Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. For you see, it is only when Jesus love for us permeates our hearts and our lives that we live like the Samaritan did, showing love in our actions. It is only when the love of Jesus permeates our hearts and our lives that we show love for our husbands, our wives, our children, and our families.
This is the purpose of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. It is not a story to teach us how to live a Christian life. Rather it is a story asking us to take a closer look at God’s Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. For when we read His word carefully, we find the story of our inability to keep his commands. We face the facts that the wages of sin is death. Yet we are confronted by the unimaginable grace that the gift of God is eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior. Now, moved by that love, we seek to show our love for the Lord our God by living in love for your neighbor. Though there are religious do-it-yourselfers who understand Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan as a “how to” manual of a Christian life, because we have carefully read it, we understand what it truly is. It is a parable to show us how we cannot earn eternal life in our own way. Rather we must rely on the Lord our God and his salvation. Then, moved by the grace of our Savior we will naturally live our lives in love, serving the Lord our God, even as we show our love for him in how we love our neighbor.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church -Le Sueur, MN
