Word of Salvation – Vol. 40 No.31 – August 1995
The Way Of Life
Sermon by Rev. R. M. Brenton on Luke 10:25-37
My Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our family loves to play word games. Our favourite game, Balderdash, makes fun of word definitions. The object of this game is to score points by misleading the other players into believing that your definition of an obscure word is the correct one. It’s a great game for word lovers as it provides hours of wholesome fun.
Some of us word-lovers take to playing word games of a much more serious nature. We believe that the meaning of life hinges on the definition of a word. Often we find ourselves embroiled over the meaning of a particular word. She says the word means “such and such” while I maintain the word means “thus and so.” So we argue for a while and get nowhere.
Finally, one of us suggests that we call in the third party to settle our dispute. Webster is summoned. [Webster is the Dictionary of the English Language used by Americans.] We disputants have agreed in advance that Webster’s word is final. Being sure of myself on this particular word, I am counting on Webster for some justification. Webster’s definition is going to agree with my own, and I will be proven right. If justified, I will feel quite satisfied with yet another word game victory.
My brothers and sisters, there was once a lawyer who lived for word games. He loved words and definitions. Nothing thrilled him more than winning an argument over the definition of a certain word. His prowess in debate earned him the reputation as the best wit in all the land. Nobody proved his equal, and he took measures to ensure that nobody ever would. Whenever a bright and promising newcomer appeared on the scene the lawyer lost no time in matching wits. This lawyer would confront every young “upstart” and demolish him in debate, cutting him down early on so as to discourage any futile competition. In this way the shrewd lawyer maintained his reputation as top wit.
One day Jesus found Himself confronted by the master word-smith. It was now Jesus’ turn to be tested at words and definitions. The big question of the day – the question Jesus had impressed upon the consciousness of all the people – had to do with the requirement for eternal life. So, the clever lawyer attacked Jesus head on. He asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Behind that question was a calculating mind, thinking proud thoughts. Here I am, the best wit in all the land, Israel’s brightest star! What could Jesus possibly require of me that I haven’t already said and done to perfection?! Jesus will be hard-pressed to find an answer to my question – that is, one that applies personally to me.
Much to the lawyer’s surprise, Jesus responded to the question not with an answer, as one might expect, but with a question of His own. In one deft move Jesus put His antagonist on the defensive. “What is written in the Law?” Yes, I’m talking to you, O lawyer. What does the Law say?
“Hmmm,” mused the lawyer, “it’s not supposed to be going this way. He’s supposed to answer my question, not question me. But, no matter. I can answer Jesus’ question in my sleep. ‘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 neighbour as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this” – what the Law says – “and you will live.”
Just what I was hoping he’d say (thought the lawyer). Now I’ve got him where I want him. Now it’s my turn, and I’m going to do him in. The nerve of Jesus to try to turn the tables on me and put me on the defensive! How foolish! Look how he has played right into my hand. Now he’s really going to have to play. And he’s going to pay dearly for this one because now we’re down to definitions. And that was as everyone knows – is where I excel. It’s the moment of truth, folks. Guess who’s going to come out of this match standing tall and proud? As usual, it’ll be yours truly! Who else?
“Jesus, Sir,” replied the lawyer, “did I just hear you say that to inherit eternal life one must love his neighbour?” [pause briefly, as if to take Jesus’ answer of Yes into account.] “Good. Then tell me, Jesus, who is my neighbour?”
The witty lawyer could hardly constrain himself. There he was, on the verge of yet another verbal victory! There he stood, at the junction of justification! For he knew that as soon as Jesus said who his neighbour is, it would be at once clear who his neighbour is not. And that little bit of knowledge would be all the ammunition he would need to silence Jesus and win the game. All Jesus would have to say is, “This one or that one is your neighbour,” and the lawyer would be able to justify himself as a neighbour-lover. A simple definition from the mouth of Jesus was all that was required to prove himself a rightful heir of eternal life. All the lawyer needed from Jesus was a definition. Who is my neighbour? Your neighbour is so and so. A simple definition would do. So, he waited for Jesus’ reply.
My friends, although many of us could not care less about playing a round of Balderdash, we all find ourselves at times – even unwittingly – playing the lawyer’s game of words and definitions. We do this whenever we draw that proverbial “line in the sand” and on one side write is and on the other side write is not. We draw that line to separate the people we like from the people we don’t. We do it to ensure for ourselves a circle of friends. Everyone within the circle is my friend. Everyone without the circle is not. That “line” may take the shape of a friendship circle (as I have just indicated).
It may take any shape we choose. We may draw the line around our neighbourhood to ensure that we deal only with those persons who live in close proximity to us. Or, we may draw the line around only those who meet our approval and are worthy of our trust. How we decide to draw the line is not the issue here, however. The issue is that we are in the habit of defining who is and who is not worthy of our love. The issue is that we claim the right to choose for ourselves who will be loved and who will not. As long as we claim this choosing as our right, we will be forever defining ‘who is our neighbour’?
In effect, we are saying to the world that our love has certain limitations because it only goes as far as we want it to go. These are the ones we have chosen to love; these are the ones for whom we will take responsibility. Those over there are beyond us, over our line, outside our circle. They must be someone else’s responsibility.
So I ask you, what does your line look like? What shape does it take? Does it have an “in” side and an “out” side? If so, would you be able to list the persons who live inside your line? How many names will be included on your list? 5? 10? 50? 100?
Let’s look at it from another point of view. List the persons you think would include you on their list. I mean persons who would say of you: she is my neighbour, or, he is my friend. Has it ever occurred to you that the one sitting beside you, or in front of you, may be on more lists than you? What do you think about that? Maybe he is on nobody’s list! – except his elder’s list! Try to imagine that somebody here is on nobody’s list. Nobody wants him as neighbour or friend. The line of definition somehow managed to evade this solitary soul. Nobody thought to include him on his or her list, so nobody loves him.
The Lord Jesus asked the lawyer what the Law says, and the lawyer answered correctly: to love the Lord and to love your neighbour as yourself. All of us would agree that the Law is good, and that it ought to be obeyed. But why? Because it is a good idea? A helpful suggestion? No, that’s not the reason. Even if the idea of loving our Lord and our neighbour is a good one, and even if the suggestion of so loving would in some way help to improve our lives, the reason the Law of the Lord ought to be obeyed is because it is the rule that God has imposed on His people. The Law presupposes the sovereignty of the Lawgiver. The Lawgiver is Lord. Such sovereignty implies authorisation, the Lord’s inherent ability to sanction His people with His Law.
This means simply that the Lord stands behind His Law in such a way that all law-keepers will live under the blessing of the order which obedience to Law provides while lawbreakers will live under the curses which disobedience provokes. Another way of putting it is that we will reap what we sow. If, on the one hand, we sow the love of God and neighbour, then we will reap such love among us as a blessing. If, on the other hand, we fail to sow the love of God and neighbour, sowing seeds of selfishness instead, then we will certainly not experience the love of God and neighbour among us. This principle of sowing and reaping of cause and effect was built into the machinery of the Law so that the Law would do its work properly. In Deuteronomy 28 the Lord, speaking through Moses, warned His people that if they failed to show neighbourly love, they would fall under the curse of neighbourly neglect. This means that if you don’t love your neighbour, your neighbour is not going to love you. Practically, this means that in your hour of need there will be nobody there to help you.
As Deuteronomy 28:24 says, “Day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.” If you neglect to love your neighbour, do you really expect him to come to your help? He won’t even know who you are. If you think that is bad, listen to verse 54: “Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother, or the wife he loves, or his children.” The “milk of human kindness” will evaporate, says Moses, as the culture (the common life of God’s people) turns brutish. The upshot of it all is the loss of human dignity and, more specifically, the forfeit of privilege under God.
Verses 43 and 44 sum it up like this: “The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower; he will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.”
My brothers and sisters, is this not the sad state of affairs portrayed by Jesus in his answer to the lawyer? This clever, calculation lawyer who has just cornered Jesus in order to extract from him a definition of neighbour for his own justification is once again outwitted by the master word-smith of them all. Instead of receiving from Jesus a self-justifying definition of neighbourliness, the lawyer gets a story. Jesus opens a window from heaven to illumine a world of misery and gloom where neighbour love is missing precisely because it has been defined out of existence.
If you can tell me precisely who your neighbour is, then you can also tell me precisely who your neighbour isn’t. By definition, it is possible for somebody to be nobody’s neighbour. That being possible, it logically follows that there may be a world in which everybody is nobody’s neighbour. If gentle, sensitive people like the Priest and Levite – if gentle, sensitive people like ourselves cease showing compassion, even withholding it from our own brothers, wives, and children, then who will love them and look after them in the day of need? The best you can hope for in a world such as this is for someone to come in from the outside and do for the neighbour what we have refused to do all along.
The Samaritan in Jesus’ story was the most unlikely candidate for showing compassion to the neglected victim on the Jericho Road. Most unlikely because Samaritans were outsiders who had no normal contact with God’s Israel. This was especially true in Jesus’ day. As a rule, the Jews went out of their way to avoid contact with Samaritans.
Yet, in this world envisioned by the lawyer – where the individual is free to define who his neighbour is (who he will love and care for), where everybody is potentially nobody’s responsibility – the only one who can save is a Samaritan, the one who comes from out of this world. Only in such a one as this might one hope for compassion and kindness. We can only hope that the outsider will see the neighbour in need and respond with all the resources at his disposal to meet that need. If such a world envisioned by the lawyer cannot rely on its own citizens to maintain the bonds of love, then the only hope must come from the most unlikely source: the Samaritan.
Praise God we have such a Samaritan! A Good Samaritan. He’s more than just a figure in a story. He’s our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Jesus was telling the lawyer – and us – about himself, the One who came from “out of the world” into the lawyer’s “I-know-who-my-neighbour-is” world, only to clash with the customary way of living, saying, and doing.
Our out-of-this-world Jesus was so at odds with His own people that He was nicknamed “the Samaritan” (John 8:48)! Jesus’ own people would not include Him within the line of acceptance they had drawn). They despised and rejected Jesus so much that they ascribed to Him the most hateful name they could think of: the Samaritan.
Ironically, the despised Samaritan was the only one willing to help the neglected neighbour. Nobody else would do it. Also, the Samaritan was the only one able to help. Nobody else could do it. Everything Moses said in Deuteronomy 28 had come true. Israel had lost the will and the way of life. As the result of deeply ingrained disobedience God’s own people lost the will power and the wisdom to preserve life. When people interpret “love the Lord your God and love your neighbour” to mean “each one look after his own”, there is bound to be a breakdown in community life. Some people simply won’t be loved and looked after. In time, most people won’t be loved at all.
The ideal world of the lawyer is really the self-centred “dog eat dog” world that we, to our shame, know all too well. In a world where the motto is “each man for himself”, you will find no one to rescue you in your day of need. In a world where people demand “more elbow room, more space,” you will find no room left over for compassion and kindness. In such a world there is no help and no hope. The people who inhabit this world simply will not respond to the crying need of the day. In time, they lose the ability to respond. Finally, they lose the way altogether. Without love, life is lost. And the people sink lower and lower into the mire of empty, meaningless existence. As Moses had warned, the people will go from being the head to being the tail (Deuteronomy 28:44).
When the situation reaches this critical stage the only hope is for an outsider to come in and take charge. A new Head is needed. Even a Good Samaritan will do! Someone who will show and tell God’s will and God’s way. This is what the Lord Jesus, God’s Good Samaritan, did though His own life’s example. By word and deed He taught us that one does not define who his neighbour is. Be done with your definitions and put away your word games. Now, go out there and discover your neighbour. He or she is the one who lies in your pathway, the person God puts in your face. Unavoidably yours! His need cries out to be met by your kindness and compassion.
My brothers and sisters, when we consider the record of Jesus (what the Bible says about Him) we notice that wherever Jesus found a neighbour in need he reached out to that one in love. Jesus always went! When Jairus came to Jesus with the news that his daughter was on the point of death God’s Good Samaritan followed him to his home so that He could help and heal. When Jesus’ own disciples urged Him to send the hungry crowd away, God’s Good Samaritan insisted that they stay for supper. He insisted that His impatient disciples wait on tables!
The point is, whoever was near to Jesus – remember, a neighbour is simply the one who is near you at any place or time – whoever was near to Jesus was blessed by the kindness and compassion of God’s Good Samaritan. Jesus always faced up to His neighbour. In fact, at the very moment the word-wise lawyer engaged Jesus in his clever little game, God’s Good Samaritan was moving forward to meet you and me in our crying need. With unflinching determination Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem, there to offer Himself as the supreme once-and-for-all sacrifice for the atonement of our sins. Soon God’s Good Samaritan would find Himself on that blood-stained Jericho Road in order to make His arduous ascent to Jerusalem.
Jesus, God’s Good Samaritan went! He walked the Jericho Road all the way to Jerusalem, finally shouldering the accursed cross of our sin to Golgotha. Yes, He went for us. Perhaps it is better to say that He came to us. He came to meet us, with all our shameful sin and misery, head on. He heard our cry of need, and faced up to us. From out of this world He entered our cruel, heartless world with its violence, bloodshed, and neglect of neighbour. And in so coming, God’s Good Samaritan gave His life for ours. In this way He redeemed our lives from destruction. In this way He recreated our lives anew from the inside out. In this way He redefined life altogether. He did this by offering Himself in love, in compassion, and – yes – by pouring out His own life’s blood.
You see, this Good Samaritan walked our way of violence and death to establish His Way: the Way of Life. It’s the Way revealed through Moses. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbour as yourself. Do this! And you will live!”
If only we would. If only we could. We can. So long as we rely on the Captain of our Salvation. He has walked the Way of Life. He walked that Way alone. He now calls us by faith to follow Him. In Him is Life: eternal life. And He, by His life’s work, is the Way of Life.
As He said to the lawyer of long ago, so He commands you and me today: go and do likewise. Follow God’s Good Samaritan. Let’s do so today. And always.
Amen.