Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church

ETERNAL LIFE OR SELF-JUSTIFICATION

Transcribed from the sermon preached July 11, 2010

The Reverend Robert McKenzie

Scripture Readings: Luke: 10: 25 – 37

I daresay there is no story better known in all of world literature than these eight verses in the 10^th chapter of Luke. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,” is the way the story begins. It turns out that he was literally going down from the mountain on which Jerusalem was perched to about 700 feet below sea level where Jericho spread out on a plain on the west side of the Jordan River.

Jericho is the most excavated site in Palestine other than Jerusalem. Diggings, which go back to 7 or 8000 BC, make Jericho the oldest city in the world according to some archaeologists. In the Old Testament Jericho is famous for the assault by Joshua whose troops tromped around the city seven times, blew their trumpets, reducing Jericho's walls to a heap of rubble. Jericho is also the city where Zacchaeus, the tax collector, climbed up in a tree to see Jesus, repented of cheating the people and offered Jesus the hospitality of his home.

So it was, the story goes, a certain man was on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. And as was often the case on that stretch of highway, he was set upon by robbers, beaten, stripped of his garments, robbed and thrown into the ditch nearly dead. Without proper clothing to identify him, who he was, where he came from, his niche in society, his place in the scheme of things, he was simply a heap of unfortunate flesh to any passerby. He was a nobody. Besides he was all bloodied up, and so, unclean, fowled, untouchable. It was always important to know who you were dealing with lest you compromise yourself in the eyes of God and society.

First a priest then a Levite were traveling along that same highway, noticed the man in the ditch, and quickly edged over to the other side of the road lest they come too close to him and find themselves fowled. There was no question of their assisting the poor fellow. They were officers of the temple in Jerusalem, committed to maintain impeccable religious purity as their offices demanded. Their careers depended on it. The people expected it. God required it. The law was the law.

The priest and Levite lived within strict boundaries; it was unthinkable that they violate the codes of purity, which God had ordained since the time of Moses. A Godly life was a matter of knowing your place in God's scheme of things and, most particularly, where others fit into that scheme. The priest and Levite were at the top of God's pecking order and were obliged to maintain a clear distance from anyone suspected of impurity. The body in the ditch was clearly compromised beyond all redemption.

The Samaritan, likely a merchant of some sort, who traveled this stretch of highway frequently, known to the innkeepers along the way as a trusted guest, was bound by no such scruples. On the other hand, there was nothing in it for him to stop and help the poor wretch. The guy was nearly dead. What could he do for him out on this empty stretch of desert highway?

None of that seemed to matter to the Samaritan. He got off his donkey and closely examined the man's wounds. After cleaning his wounds from his water pouch, anointing them with expensive oil and wine, he dragged the limp body out of the ditch, struggled to get him up on to his donkey, secured him with a rope so he wouldn't fall off, then led the donkey to the next inn with the man moaning in pain the whole way.

When they arrived at the inn, he called for the innkeeper to help him unload the man and get him into a bed. Before he continued on his way, he discussed with the innkeeper how best to care for the man. They agreed on what was to be done. He paid the innkeeper for his services and promised to reimburse him whatever more it might cost on his return trip. Then he resumed his trip, promising to return in a few days. In short, he assumed full responsibility for the man's care. He rescued him from exposure and certain death, provided ambulance service, emergency hospitalization and insurance coverage. All without thought that he was doing anything extraordinary.

What, we ask, was in it for him? When he got home and told his wife she was incredulous. You did what? She asked. A complete stranger? Don't you realize how dangerous that is? Yes, let us admit it. Going out of one's way to tend to the needs of a stranger can be dangerous especially on a lonely stretch of highway.

Some of us remember that hitch hiking was a common way for people to travel until after WW II. People would travel hundreds of miles by the thumb. You would stand by the side of a road, stick out your thumb as cars passed by and there was a kind of common agreement that drivers would pick up these total strangers and take them as far as they were going. Even as a child I and my friends would hitch hike to the lake some 15 miles away with our parents approval. And I bet all of us of a certain age have picked up hitchhikers. That practice of hospitality, of neighborliness, has gone by the way, partly because interstate freeways prohibit it but even more, because it is thought to be dangerous to pick up strangers.

This story, of course, was told to make a point. Jesus was having a discussion with this lawyer who was out to catch Jesus in a point of law. “What shall I do to have eternal life?” he asked Jesus. Jesus met him on his own ground, didn't try to shift to some spiritual, esoteric discussion, but went right to the argument. “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” he asked the lawyer, this expert in the law. “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.” the lawyer answered without hesitation. This reply, as it turns out, was an extraordinary answer because nowhere in the law was the love of God and the love neighbor linked as though loving God extended to loving neighbor as well. Loving God was easy; loving neighbor was another thing. But the lawyer got it. Jesus approved of the answer and assured the lawyer that he had correctly identified what life is all about.

That should have ended the discussion. The two men should have shaken hands, put their arms around each other’s shoulders, gone off to have a beer and a lively discussion about world affairs. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The lawyer, being a lawyer, wanted to get at definitions. There was dangling out there that imprecise word, neighbor. The law had a lot to say about neighbors. Could he and Jesus agree on a common definition? The lawyer, says the text, wanted to “justify himself”, wanted to nail down just who a neighbor is, wanted Jesus to agree to his definition of neighbor so as to justify his behavior. He wanted a clear statement of what was required of him so that he would be blameless before the court of law.

When I was in the Navy I was a supply officer on a destroyer. We had an executive officer, the second in command, whose whole navy career was based on paying strict attention to navy regulations so that he would always ”be covered”, or in the language of our parable, be justified in case of any mishap. So, for instance, if some piece of equipment malfunctioned and we didn't have a spare part to fix it, I was to immediately send off a requisition for that part even though we were operating in the South China Sea thousands of miles away from any supply depot that might have the part. That was covering myself. Living by the law, or in our case, navy regulations, justified my role as the supply officer before my superiors. Then we got a commanding officer who refused to see things so simply and the fur began to fly.

Just who must I love, the lawyer wanted to know. Not just everyone without distinction, surely. Other parts of the law made it clear just who a proper neighbor is. Are Gentiles neighbors? Are Samaritans neighbors? Are Jews who violate the Sabbath laws neighbors? Are menstruating women neighbors? Are anonymous bloody bodies in a ditch neighbors? Surely there are boundaries, which separate one's neighbor from the rest of the herd. Did Jesus recognize those parts of the law as well?

It was not Jesus' way to argue points of the law with his detractors. He was a storyteller, not a legal scholar. So he talks about a traveler whose misfortune was easily dismissed by a couple of temple officials who were bound by the law to ignore him, and a generous traveler, a Samaritan, who saw the man's distress and did what he could to restore his health. And then he asked the lawyer - not what we might expect – namely, was the beaten man his neighbor in the sight of the law – but rather, who acted in a neighborly way toward him. Being a neighbor is not about them, but about me. Being a neighbor is not about drawing distinctions among the people whom I meet on my way through life, but about how I act toward those people. One should not ask, who is my neighbor, but, rather, am I being a neighbor.

And it all boils down to whether I am busy justifying myself in the eyes of whatever world I live in, whether I am always looking over my shoulder to see who is watching, whether my primary aim in life is looking out for my own interests, whether my life is all about keeping score, whether I can rest comfortably within a prescribed set of expectations . . . . . . . or do I simply look to the interests of others whoever they may be and whatever circumstances they may find themselves in. That is why the whole law, says Jesus, is summed up in these two commandments – love God with your whole being and love your neighbor as yourself.

If I do everything to find approval for myself, then I can only relate to others as a way of winning that approval. We seek the approval of others as a way of justifying who we are. It is, in the final analysis, all about me. What we need to realize is that it's about us, all of us. We are all in this together. Loving neighbor as myself loudly proclaims a deep bonding among all people; - I am as you are. That's what it means to see Christ in every person. We cannot do without each other. I have no time to set myself up against you or over you or ignore you. We are in this thing called life, together. We can only have eternal life when we act that way.

And more and more I have come to realize that loving in a neighborly way encompasses more than other people; it encompasses the whole creation. We Christians with our Creator God should be at the forefront of preserving this glorious creation, the handiwork of the Creator of which we are but an integral member. But unpacking that one is another sermon. So be it. Amen