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Parables of Grace - Luke 10
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
And it seems to me that all through the gospels, Jesus is constantly trying to expand our imagination of grace. And on the other side, we are working very hard to close it all back down. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week.
Speaker 1:Head to commons.church for more information. We are also in the season of Lent right now, and that is why I am wearing this purple stole today. It's part of how we remind ourselves of the season and we mark the sacredness of time as we move through it. This is a season of preparation and longing, but also repentance and mourning as we experience it together. But all of this seems even more important given the tragic events of this past Friday.
Speaker 1:And I know that we have already prayed today, but one more time now, we turn our hearts to those in need. For loved ones lost to hatred and brutality, Lord have mercy. For people left grieving, families stolen, Lord have mercy. For our Muslim siblings who gather to pray, Lord have mercy. For faith leaders in Muslim communities who must now find courage and wisdom to move forward, Lord have mercy.
Speaker 1:For men with hearts corrupted by white supremacy and violence. Lord have mercy. For those of us who must speak the truth and yet remain hopeful. Christ have mercy on us. Amen.
Speaker 1:Now in the midst of such grief, it is fitting today that we would return to the parables of grace. And last week, we jumped in with a well known parable, the parable of the lost sheep. And I love this parable, honestly, because it's such a great example of how Jesus' parables become domesticated over time. Suppose one of you had a 100 sheep and suppose one became lost, wouldn't any of you leave the 99 in the open field to go off searching for the one? And it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Right? Except, of course, we wouldn't do that. No one in their right mind would leave 99 sheep in an open field to chase down one, particularly when they have already shown a predilection to wander off. But this is Jesus' point. That grace is not easy or normal or sensible or rational.
Speaker 1:Grace is extravagant and risky and sacred and godlike. Remember in Matthew, Jesus tells this story in response to people who want to ignore little children. In Luke, he tells it in response to those who want to exclude sinners. And it's almost like Jesus is saying, I get your impulse. I understand why you feel this way.
Speaker 1:I know why it might seem prudent to you to ignore those who seem lost. But that is your story, not God's. And wouldn't you rather at least try to emulate something divine? The aspirational absurdity of grace. And I love that phrase.
Speaker 1:We put a video up this week on our YouTube channel talking about it, what it really means to aspire towards grace even when it doesn't make sense to us. And I love this idea. We're trying to do more of that through the week to engage with you. However, today is the good Samaritan. And one of the challenges we have with a story like this is that most of us know it too well.
Speaker 1:And so it's difficult for us to allow ourselves to hear it for the first time again. And so as we pray today, we need to invite some second naivete as we go. God, we come today in search of your grace and peace. We want to become fully immersed in your imagination of welcome. Also that we might carry it with us into our schools, our workplaces, our relationships, and our homes.
Speaker 1:We want to represent something of the divine mystery you invite us into, an absurd grace that draws those around us toward you. At the same time, some of us here today perhaps feel battered and bruised, left on the side of the road and forgotten. Perhaps as if grace has not yet found us. So we pray that as we speak and we hear your stories that those of us who would need to would sense your love in the midst of our lostness. May we truly believe today that being lost is the only prerequisite for being found.
Speaker 1:And then for those of us who are being found, help us not to become weary of caring. Help us to remember that as we look out for each other, as we care for each other, we are investing ourselves in the only thing that will last. So help us, guide us, heal us, speak to us this day. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay. The Good Samaritan. Today we have lawyers being lawyers, stories becoming parables, possible readings and finding ourselves in the other. But why don't we start by reading the story because it's a good one. Luke 10 starting in verse 25, we read that on one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.
Speaker 1:Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now the NIV here translates as expert in the law. Literally though in Greek, the word is just lawyer. So it doesn't necessarily mean he's an expert in religious law. The text just calls him a nomikos or a lawyer.
Speaker 1:And he asks his question and Jesus responds. What is written? How do you read it? And I love this because sometimes I think we get our heads in this idea that the bible is clear and there's only one way to read it. Jesus seems to assume the opposite.
Speaker 1:I mean, Jesus takes for granted that different people are going to read things differently. And even though Jesus has his interpretation that ultimately he wants to communicate, I love that he invites this guy not just to quote a verse, but to give his interpretation of what it means. So know this, you are interpreting everything you read all the time. Whether that is Harry Potter history or the parables of Jesus, you are creating meaning in your mind as you go. And that's okay.
Speaker 1:That's what you're supposed to do. Jesus asks you, how do you read it? But if you don't know that and somehow you fall into the trap of thinking that you alone can read without your bias and experience and place in the world, filtering those words and turning them into ideas, well, that does become a problem. Look, if Jesus isn't scared to invite your interpretation, then maybe you shouldn't be afraid to name it as such. And so here Jesus says, how do you read it?
Speaker 1:And the man, perhaps having heard Jesus speak before, gives a fantastic answer. He quotes Jesus to Jesus. He says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. This is a combination of Deuteronomy six and Leviticus 19, but it is also precisely the answer that Jesus gives in Matthew 22, in Mark 12, and the paraphrased version in John 13. And so Jesus, probably a little impressed replies, you have answered correctly.
Speaker 1:Do this and you will live. And if that was the end of our story today, that would be great. A lot to unpack. This is a summary of the law in two simple lines. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1:But of course, this is not the end of our story because we know we need a parable today. And so the lawyer pushes a little bit farther. Wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor? And I love this moment in the story because it's all just so very lawyerly. And, of course, I know nothing about being a lawyer actually, although I did watch the show The Grinder, a show that no one else watched and got canceled far too soon.
Speaker 1:Fred Savage played a small town lawyer. Rob Lowe played his brother who was an actor who played a lawyer on TV. I know. Very meta. Right?
Speaker 1:The premise of the show is that Rob Lowe's character moves home and wants to become a real lawyer, and he basically just shows up in court and keeps yelling objection objection and harassing witnesses and acting as if lawyering in real life is like it is on TV. It's all very amusing. You should check it out. But without dragging the lawyers in the room here, this is what lawyers do. They want details and definitions and limitations and liabilities.
Speaker 1:Basically, this is a really good lawyer question. And so in response, Jesus tells a really great story. He says, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes. They beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
Speaker 1:A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man he passed by on the other side. So too a Levite, when he came to the place and saw the man passed on the other side as well. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came to where the man was. And when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
Speaker 1:And he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day, he took out 2 denarii, 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 had. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?
Speaker 1:There's a couple of things here to mention off the top. First of all, this is a very familiar story. Right? And whether you have been a Christian all your life, eating juice and cookies in the pew, or whether you just walked in off the street into a church for the very first time today, you probably are somewhat familiar with this tale. Good Samaritan is an idiomatic phrase that has entered the English language.
Speaker 1:At this point, it really has nothing to do with the biblical story. It just simply means someone who's willing to help without an ulterior motive. Speaking of lawyers, I don't know if you know this, but in Canada, we actually have a good Samaritan law. I'll read it to you. It says, despite the rules of common law, a person described in subsection two voluntarily and without reasonable expectation of compensation or reward provides the services described in the subsection, this person shall not be liable for damages that result from the person's negligence in acting or failing to act while providing such services unless it can be established that the damages were caused by the gross negligence of said person.
Speaker 1:Grinder aside, I do prefer Jesus' version of the story. But the point is, we all know the story. It's in our bones. It's enshrined in the legalese of our nation, And that actually makes it very hard for us to engage with on a personal level. We just know it too well.
Speaker 1:And this is something that happens to us the longer we are immersed in the words of Jesus. They become normalized. And that's unfortunate because a lot of what Jesus says is intentionally scandalous, and that's the point. But that means that whenever a story begins to feel familiar or innocuous or comfortable, we have some work to do. So let's go back to the start.
Speaker 1:And let's pay attention to some of the clues that give us more context here. First, our lawyer comes to Jesus and asks a question, and things seem pretty normal here. People ask questions of Jesus all the time in the gospels. In fact, that that was very much part of the rabbinical form of teaching. Conversation is always better than monologue, he said from the stage.
Speaker 1:But already in the opening here, Luke is giving us some clues as to what this story is gonna be about. The word that's used for the lawyer's question here is a form of the word parazo, which means to test in order to understand. But Luke actually adds the intensifying prefix here to make it ekparazo. And generally in Greek, ekparazo means something more like to entice or trap. So this question is a test, but at least as Luke sees it, it's not a fair test.
Speaker 1:This encounter isn't really about learning or discovering. It's designed for Jesus to fail. And I wonder if Jesus sees that coming. The man asked a question. Jesus responds with his own question.
Speaker 1:How do I inherit eternal life? How do you think you inherit eternal life? And look I hated this kind of thing as a kid but I find myself doing it more and more now as a parent. Eaton, you need a time out. Why do I need a time out?
Speaker 1:Why do you think you need a time out? But immediately here, this sort of underlying tension to the story is building. Everybody's being very polite, very respectful. The lawyer even refers to Jesus by the honorific teacher. But you get the sense that everyone watching knows what's going on here.
Speaker 1:This is a battle of wits. So the lawyer asked his question. Jesus responds with his. The lawyer says, okay. We can play the game.
Speaker 1:And he quotes Jesus to Jesus. And I imagine Jesus smile and nod and acknowledge the man. And instead of taking the bait and trying to argue with this lawyer, he simply says, well answered, and he tries to move on. But the lawyer interrupts. Just one more question, sir.
Speaker 1:And I've heard you say this many times before. It's beautiful. A great sound bite, really. We all love it. But if I may, who exactly is my neighbor?
Speaker 1:And I think for me, a part of the reason I'm drawn to this encounter so much is that it all feels very familiar. Jesus says, love your enemies. And the people say, yeah, sure, but not like actual enemies. Right? And Jesus says, forgive always.
Speaker 1:And people say, yeah, sure, but not like all the time. Right? Jesus says, you belong to me if you love people. And we say, yeah sure, but people. I mean that's so hard to define.
Speaker 1:I mean who exactly is people? Am I right? And it seems to me that all through the gospels Jesus is constantly trying to expand our imagination of grace. And on the other side, we are working very hard to close it all back down. In a different circumstance, you can imagine this question asked in a very different way.
Speaker 1:Jesus, I love what you're saying. Help me here, though. Who is my neighbor? Who should I go and find? Who should I go out and love?
Speaker 1:Who should I pour my resources into and share my life with and love well? But that's not really the question here, is it? Because the question is formed who is my neighbor, but the question that's asked is really who is not. And sometimes, I think we need to be more brutally honest with ourselves. Because very often we have well formed theologies that are designed to sound nice while at the same time, indemnifying us from the most scandalous implications of God's grace.
Speaker 1:And so instead of argue, Jesus tells a story. And there are a couple things in this story that are really intriguing for me. First of all, Jesus doesn't introduce this as a parable. Normally, will say something like, suppose one of you has a 100 sheep or the kingdom of God is like, but here he just says a man went down to Jericho. And if we're getting technical here, what he actually says is a certain man was going down to Jericho.
Speaker 1:And because of this for centuries, people have wondered about whether this is a parable at all. Is this a story or did this happen to someone? Did Jesus see this happen? Did this happen to Jesus? That, we'll probably never know, not this side of eternity, but it is important to notice how personally Jesus seems to take this story.
Speaker 1:Last week, I called the parable of the last sheep not just a parable, but a fairy tale in the best possible sense. That story is designed to help us imagine a world that we wish existed. A world where any one of us would be as absurdly gracious as God. This is a very different kind of story. Right?
Speaker 1:I mean, this is not a fairy tale. This is a story firmly rooted in a world where people get mugged, Where people hurt each other. Where people ignore each other. Where people are shot while they pray. This is a story firmly rooted in a very real world.
Speaker 1:That's actually really important to the story. Because for grace to be aspirational as it was last week, I think grace also has to be plausible in the real world with real people. And before you and I can ever dream about a world where any of us would be as good as the shepherd, first, sometimes we need to believe in a world where one of us might try. And so never discount those small moments of unnoted grace that you extend to someone near you. They may not be as profound as the good Samaritan.
Speaker 1:Someone might not write it down, but someone is watching and someone needs to see it before someone can dream about a universe of God's love that surrounds them always. But there are a couple details here that shape my reading of the story and actually take it in a couple different directions for me. First, Jesus says that the man went down to Jericho from Jerusalem. And that is about a 30 kilometer walk in the ancient world with a drop in elevation of about 3,000 feet depending on where you ended up in Jericho. So it's a long trip, but it's a very doable trip, and likely it was actually a fairly common trip.
Speaker 1:The difficulty is that it would take you a fair distance from either city. And away from the city, out in the country, that was a vulnerable space in the ancient world. And out there, this man gets mugged. Now, he's traveling alone. He's beaten.
Speaker 1:His clothes are stolen. He's left for dead. But in a brilliant stroke of luck, a priest and a Levite happened to walk by. Unfortunately for him, they both crossed to the other side and they walked past without helping. So a priest and a Levite walk into a bar and everyone said, what's the difference?
Speaker 1:Well, Levites were the tribe that the priests came from. Priests were the direct descendants of Aram. And so all priests are Levites, not all Levites are priests. However, both priests and Levites would have been very highly esteemed and well regarded from their birth. And yet neither of them step into hell.
Speaker 1:And there may be some reasons for that. In the story, we're told that the first man is traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, but we're not explicitly told which way the passerby's are headed. And that does complicate things a bit. Possibly in the case of the Levites, certainly in the case of the priest, if they were heading from Jericho the other way up to Jerusalem, this would have presented a conundrum. You see, Jesus says that the victim had been left for dead.
Speaker 1:But if the priest was heading to Jerusalem, it was likely to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people, and therefore touching a dead body would make him ritually unclean and therefore unable to enter the holy place. I mean, hey, if the guy is dead, he's dead. There's nothing he can do about that. Maybe he's just playing it safe. I know that still sounds bad, but I think it adds a wrinkle here.
Speaker 1:All of a sudden, these aren't villains. They're not heartless. They're just pragmatic. I mean, if you're a priest and your job is to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people for the nation, isn't that important? If you can't do your job and sins aren't forgiven, that's gonna be a problem.
Speaker 1:And so maybe in his mind, he's putting his duty to the community above his duty to the individual. Who knows if he can help this guy anyway? Better to focus on what he knows he can do. And if that's the case, well, then maybe Jesus' question here is about, do I do the right thing or do I do the more right thing? That's a lot more realistic, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, but rarely do I actually struggle with love and hate. It's more like shades of gray. Hulk smash isn't really my problem. It's more like Hulk sulk angrily in the corner. Right?
Speaker 1:Because the truth is rarely do we face a choice between good and evil. It's more like good and less good or evil and more evil. Right? So maybe Jesus' point here is that loving your neighbor is about constantly evaluating how best to be present to those immediately in front of you. Loving your neighbor is about ensuring that rules never override people.
Speaker 1:And if that's all we get from the story, that's a win. But there is a complication. Because we're not explicitly told which direction the passerbys are heading, but we are told that they are going down the same road. And we might use that pretty loosely in English, but in Greek there are the terms katabino to go down and anabino to go up. And particularly in Hebrew conversation, you always anabino, you always go up to Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:The fact that everyone is catabinoing here suggests they're probably all heading in the same direction to Jericho. And if that's the case, well, then ritual purity isn't really a problem anymore. So what is? And the answer here is, of course, wrapped up in the identity of the final character, the Samaritan. Now, if you're not familiar with Samaritans, these were a people group that were essentially half Jewish.
Speaker 1:They were Israelites that survived the conquest of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria. They intermarried with Assyrians, and they developed a syncretized form of Judaism. There's this beautiful story where Jesus interacts with a Samaritan woman in the gospel of John, And she immediately points to some of the differences in their respective religions and Jesus says, listen, none of that matters. God is spirit. And a time will come when ritual will give way to heart.
Speaker 1:But it's important here to understand that for hundreds of years, Jews and Samaritans had not gotten along. In fact, Samaria was in the middle of Judea, and Jews would often walk around an entire country to avoid setting foot on Samaritan soil. So the idea of contrasting a Samaritan, not just with a Jew, but with a Levi and a priest honored people in the community, this is incredibly loaded language. And everyone listening now is probably super uncomfortable. I mean it was a little tense before, but everyone was still being polite.
Speaker 1:Now Jesus has taken the lid off any polite conversation. He tells about how the Samaritan helps the man. But then he takes him to an inn and he pays for his lodging. He compensates the owner for the costs and promises to return and settle up if anything goes over. And this is over the top, overboard generosity.
Speaker 1:It's hyperbolic to the point that Jesus knows that when he gets to his climax and he asks, who is the neighbor? There's gonna be no doubt left in anyone's mind. But what exactly is his point here? Is it that Samaritans are nice and Jews are mean? Well, no.
Speaker 1:That doesn't make any sense. Jesus is Jewish after all. Most of his audience is as well. So ethnicity is the hook, it's not the takeaway. In fact, the whole point seems to be that ethnicity, proximity, respectability, familiarity, all of these neighborly markers that we hold on to so tightly are completely overrated when it comes to real neighborliness.
Speaker 1:Perhaps a neighbor is as a neighbor does, you might say. And I really like the way that Joel Green summarizes this in his commentary on Luke. He says that the importance of the priest and the Levite is not about ethnicity, but instead it raises much larger issues of a sociocultural variety. See priests and Levites shared high status in the community, not because they were trained or chosen, but simply because they were born into the right families. They participated in and they were legitimated by a world with circumspect boundaries between people.
Speaker 1:They epitomized a worldview of tribal consciousness concerned with relative status in us them cataloging. They had become accustomed to being evaluated on the basis of their ancestry, not their actions. In other words, everything about their world had told them they weren't like others. And eventually, they started to believe it. It's as simple as this.
Speaker 1:They don't act like a neighbor because they don't think they're a neighbor and therefore they aren't a neighbor. And if you and I are being honest here, are all kinds of ways we are told that we are not neighbors. Have I been told that being born in Canada makes my voice more valid than others? Have I been told that owning my house means I hold more stake in the neighborhood? Have I been told that my degrees give me more right to speak on behalf of God?
Speaker 1:Have I been told that being white, being a man, being straight means I'm the default in every conversation? The answer is yes to all of that. And all of my life, I have been told those messages that have reinforced that who I am and who my neighbor is, but they're wrong. And so Jesus takes a Samaritan, a religious and social nobody who practices a deviant form of religion, a loser who just happens to be on the same road one day. And he says, can you see yourself in this person?
Speaker 1:Because if not, then you'll never see yourself in the ditch. And until that happens, you'll never understand what it means to be a neighbor. See, the real question here is who we see ourselves in. And the first step is to see ourselves in the hero. The next step is to actually see ourselves in the villains, but the ultimate goal is that we come to see ourselves in the ditch.
Speaker 1:And that slowly our humanity would expand past the social silos that feed our religiously approved apathy. And one day, all of that might give way to genuinely heretical love. See, this is a parable of grace, not for the grace that's extended to the man in the ditch, but for the grace that invites all of us to transcend the categories we've been given so that we can come to recognize what we share with everyone who crosses our path. Grace is not a helping hand in a hotel stay. Grace is the shared experience of life with an out, an us, and a them.
Speaker 1:If grace is the world that we dream about when told of shepherds who leave everything to find one, And grace begins when we learn to see ourselves in the person across from us right now, right here in this moment. A neighbor is as a neighbor does. And the challenge is that you might neighbor well this week. Let's pray. God, for all of the different ways that we have bought into stories and narratives and families of origin that tell us we are not like others.
Speaker 1:That we are separate and distinct. That there's an us and a them. And that has become what has defined a neighbor for us, those who are near to us, those who are like us, those who are familiar to us, those who we deem a sense of respectability with. God, might all of those narratives give way to grace. And might we first come to see ourselves in the hero we didn't expect, so that we can then see ourselves in the villains that we don't want to be like anymore, and that ultimately we might recognize ourselves in the ditch.
Speaker 1:In need of grace, in need of help, in need of community, in need of those perspectives we didn't think we needed in order to round out our view of the world and help us see you and your grace and your story more clearly. God, would you invite us slowly at first, but faster and faster to move towards you. To open our eyes and to see that our silos are self constructed. And that we share a common story with everyone we encounter. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray, amen.