Another Mis-named Parable¹
Luke 10.25-37
Rev. Matthew M. Fry

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Grant unto us now, almighty God, the ability to go beyond our limits, so that we might experience you more fully, in this time and into our future. May this time of preaching and hearing the Word Proclaimed infect our lives, and alter our ways of seeing the world, and of being in it, so that we might live in your grace and love, and spread your mercy and care to the whole world. In the name of Jesus the Son we pray, Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in the gospel of Luke. Listen. Luke 10.25-37.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He 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.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus 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. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He 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. The 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.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

The lawyer begins by standing up and asking Jesus the question about what must one do to inherit eternal life. And what follows is like a Woody Allen movie. “Why does a rabbi always answer a question with a question?” (Long Pause) “Why shouldn’t a rabbi always answer a question with a question?” Maybe Jesus does this because he detects a certain hostility in the question, or maybe to guard himself in the case that hostility comes later, which it does, “But wanting to justify himself…”

I suppose I should lay my cards on the table here and now. For 2,000 years the central figure in this parable has been seen to be the Good Samaritan. That is how I learned it in Sunday School, and how I have talked about it with our oldest, that it is a good thing to help people. That is a great and important lesson. But I don’t actually think that is where Jesus was headed with this parable. I think this is another mis-named parable, like the one of the Prodigal Son, which I stated only a month ago is more about the grace of the Father and the non-acceptance of the invitation to come into the party that accompanies grace by the elder brother. In the same manner, I think we have focused on the Good Samaritan when the real defining character is the one to whom all the other characters respond, the person who fell among thieves. The person most like Christ in this story is actually the beat up, left behind, near dead person who has been beaten, passed up by the priest and rabbi religious leaders. After all, Christ is headed for exactly that fate as he tells this parable.

Reading this passage as such flies in the face of 2000 years of interpretation, but I am never one to shy away from such a fate, and in my experience, this congregation isn’t afraid of sticking out a little bit from the crowd. Claiming this parable as a victim of misnomer means that all Hospitals that carry the name “Good Samaritan Hospital” have been misnamed. It is the suffering, dying patients in such institutions who look most like Jesus in his redeeming work, not the doctors walking around in their lab coats and stethoscopes around their necks.

Desiring to imitate the Good Samaritan is nothing bad. We all should aim for such a lofty height. The trick is that we begin to think that this is our ticket into eternal life, as we read the question from the lawyer. However, the lawyer would know he could not identify with anyone in the story but the person who fell among the thieves. Can’t identify with the priest or the rabbi, and not the unclean, unlovable, unredeemable Samaritan. To identify with a Samaritan is to identify with ultimate blasphemy. No, the lawyer asking the question would have known that the only one to identify with is the victim by the side of the road, left for dead. So if the question is how to inherit eternal life, the answer is not “Work good at being a good neighbor, that will earn you heaven.” The answer is, “You are lost, realize that you are lost, and Jesus, the finder of the lost, will find you.”

If we are to imitate Christ, and I think that in some ways that we are, is that not more than just a matter of doing kind deeds and good acts? Is it not also the following of him into the only mystery that can save the world, Christ’s passion death and resurrection? Is it not the taking up of his cross?

And here’s our cross to bear. We can’t work really hard, and be really nice, so as to earn even a pebble worth of grace and favor in God’s eyes. We can’t become acceptable to God on our merit even if we are so neighborly that they would re-name it from being a Good Samaritan to being a Good insert your name here, like being a Good Matt Fry. Even if I were to be that good, it won’t earn me salvation. Because salvation is not earned, it is given freely. All we can do is accept our lostness, our deadness, and let Jesus the finder of all things lost and raiser of all things dead, come find us and raise us.

See, it’s the complete opposite of the way the Good Samaritan has been read all these years. It is not some story with the moral of “go help others and then God will love you.” It is a story of lostness and being found, or death and resurrection, or grace and acceptance of that gift. We need to read it and realize that there is nothing we can do to make God love us, or help convince God to grant us life eternal.

Which is one hard cross to bear. We can’t make God love us or let us into heaven. What we can do is embrace our lostness, and in freedom find the ability to be good neighbors, which is incredibly satisfying. It is so because it is the way in which we were created to live, for and with one another.

It is when we embrace our lostness that we are most like Jesus, and most likely to be found by Jesus. It is when we grasp to find ourselves that we are more lost than we can ever know, and more lost than anyone could ever imagine.

So I say, to all of us who are recovering do-salvation-ourselves people, who need to let go, embrace your lostness. Sing out, I once considered myself found, but now I’m lost, which is perfect because Jesus loves the lost, and has yet to leave one lost to stay lost. Amen.