Title: "Another Good Samaritan"
From the Epistle of the Day: And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified
the flesh with its passions and desires. [Galatians 5.24]
From the Holy Gospel of the Day: Was no one found to return and give praise to
God except this foreigner? [Luke 17.18; ESV]
We describe this 14th Sunday after Trinity as "The Ten Lepers Sunday,"
because of the Holy Gospel appointed to be read to you on this day. The trouble
with this Sunday is that our church body, back when our German forefathers
started speaking English in Church, appointed this reading for Thanksgiving Day,
because verse 16: "and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving Him thanks."
But, then, what is to be made of this 14th Sunday after Trinity? Is it another
thanksgiving day? No, it isn't – not now, and not even back when these things
first happened. So, this text directs us to another point, and we'll let it do
that today, while we'll use another text on Thanksgiving Eve.
But, what then is the point of the Holy Gospel for this day, if not about
thanksgiving? It is about the one who gives thanks to Jesus and the nine who do
not give thanks to Jesus. It is about the uniqueness of this man, the uniqueness
of this Samaritan. Now, last week we pondered the story normally called "the
Parable of the Good Samaritan."So, today we ponder the lesson of "Another Good
Samaritan."
I.
You may recall from Dr. Hein's sermon last Sunday that the Good Samaritan
was not "good" because of the deeds he did in our Lord's story about him.
Rather, the Good Samaritan was "good" because of the image of Christ that the
Samaritan displayed in the story. After all, the story came about as an answer
to what the Lawyer – the teacher of the Law – asked Jesus, "And who is my
neighbor?" The Lawyer asked the question in order to get out of the embarrassing
hole that he had dug for himself in questioning Jesus at all. Remember, he asked
Jesus, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Notice the trick question
here: "do" means "work to get," while "inherit" means "receive as gift." The
teacher thought that he had Jesus!
But Jesus turns the table on him, and in so doing treats the teacher of the
Law as if he were a student in the lawyer's class. Jesus uses the standard
verbal pop quiz approach of the teachers of the Law: "What is written in the
Law? How do you read it" And the teacher, now made into a student, gives the
right answer, to which Jesus responds as a teacher to a student, "You have
answered correctly." And then He adds, "Do this, and you will live."
It is then that the teacher become student desires to justify his first
question that had now been turned on him, so he pushes the envelop farther and
asks, "And who is my neighbor?" This question brings forth our Lord's famous
parable of the Good Samaritan. In the end, the message is the same: You can live
if you do the Law – perfectly! Or, and this the lawyer did not know or want to
hear, You can take the Good Samaritan that God has given you and that stands
before you. And so Jesus is the true Good Samaritan for all who want the true
answer to inheriting eternal life.
II.
And now, one week later, we are faced with another Samaritan, another one of
these people who lived between the Jewish territories of Galilee and Judah, who
were despised by the Jewish religious crowd because they were the mixed race
that came about after the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the Old
Testament. So, what are you to make of this other Samaritan?
It is correct to call him good, in that Jesus praises him, and then says to
him, "Rise, and go your way. Your faith has made you well." This Samaritan has
faith to know where thanks belonged for the miraculous healing that was given to
him.
Remember, all ten of these poor, wretched lepers called out for mercy and
for healing from the dreaded disease that caused them to be outcasts in society,
unable to live with their families, to work at their trades, or to rejoice in
good days – there were no good days for a leper. All ten were given this answer
by Christ: "Go show yourselves to the priests." That meant: Go celebrate your
healing! But they hadn't been healed when Jesus said this to them. So, they
headed toward Jerusalem, and while they were going, they were healed!
Now we face the question of the event, as Jesus puts it: "Were not ten
cleansed? Where are the nine?" Well, the nine are still headed to Jerusalem, for
they must get clearance to walk in normal society, and they must give thanks
according to the several-day long ritual. That's where they were, and Jesus knew
this before He asked the question, "Was no one found to return and give praise
to God except this foreigner?"
What made this particular foreigner, this Samaritan "good"? Jesus gives the
answer: faith! "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well!" And what
was this faith? It was faith in Jesus. It was faith that Jesus the man is at the
same time God. Jesus is everything that God established in the temple, where you
find the other nine by this time. Jesus is the presence of God among men. Jesus
is the voice that declares the sick well and the sinners forgiven. Jesus is the
intercessor whose praise rise like incense to the throne of His heavenly Father.
Jesus is the sacrifice of the Lamb of God that takes away sin. The Samaritan
recognizes Jesus for who He truly is, and that insight is only by faith, and
that faith is only by a gift from God, and so that faith and that gift make this
man "Another Good Samaritan."
III.
You learn two things from this encounter with story of another Good
Samaritan. One concerns the role of faith, and the other concerns the role of
the Law in the Christian life. You see from this particular Samaritan that he is
good because he has faith, not that he has faith because he is good. He returns
to the Lord, because that is where true thanksgiving should be made – it should
be made to the presence of God among men, namely, the man Christ Jesus.
Thanksgiving at the temple, for healing or for anything else, is just
preliminary in God's plan. Thanksgiving to Christ, where Christ is, is the point
and the goal of all the Old Testament sacrifices and prayers. This, the Good
Samaritan grasps, because he knows where he should be bowing with praise, and
that is at the feet of Jesus. He knows this, by God-given faith.
You know this same truth! By the same means, the means of faith! It is God's
gift to you that you are here today. It is not the result of your alarm clock,
or you parents' prodding, or your habits, or your responsibilities. It is God's
gift of faith, and the Holy Spirit's constant prodding, leading, guiding, and
carrying you to this place, for this message: Here is your forgiveness, it is
found Christ. He is here, for you! That news, that faith, makes the Samaritan
Good, and it makes you good, too – good with the righteousness and goodness and
forgiveness of Christ Himself.
But, there also is this second gift that you learn from this encounter with
the story of this Samaritan, the lesson of living as a Christian. St. Paul
writes, in section of the Epistles read to you today, "Those who belong to
Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Now, what does
this mean?
First, it means that a crucifixion of the flesh with its passions and
desires is the necessary event in the Christian life. Living in the passions and
desires of the flesh wounds, and even kills, faith. Christian are free from sin,
but they are not free to sin. Freedom from sin is by the promise of forgiveness
to which faith clings! And in the clinging, the flesh is then crucified. It is a
moment by moment thing! As you cling to forgiveness, the flesh is beaten down.
As you live in forgiveness, the passions and the desires of the flesh are being
beaten back by the Holy Spirit who lives in you, giving and sustaining faith.
But, as you let go of forgiveness and the liberty that it gives, exchanging
liberty for license, then the passions and desires of the flesh reassert
themselves in your mind, will, and emotions. It is the Christian struggle that
you and all your fellow Christians know only too well.
But there is victory ahead – for the flesh dies with your body, and the
flesh – the sinful nature – stays dead; it does not rise again, when you rise
again on that day when Christ returns. So, all the bruises and pains of this
life, along with the temptations and passions of the sinful nature – all these
die, never to rise again. But you still rise again. That's the victory, and all
these things are simply the prelude to the victory. Jesus tells you these things
so that you do not lose heart! For the victory is yours, and that is why you
day-by-day, even moment-by-moment crucify the flesh with its passions and
desires as you cling to Christ and His forgiveness, a forgiveness that says
again to you this truth: "Rise, and go your way; you faith has made you well!"
Shepherd
of the Springs
