THE QUESTION OF THE AGES:
HOW DO I GAIN ETERNAL LIFE?
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
As Martin Luther King once said, “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'”
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Bristol, Connecticut
July 11, 2010
Luke 10: 25-37
Amos 7: 7-17
There probably is no more familiar parable than the Good Samaritan which we’ve just heard read. Even people who’ve spent no time in churches know its basic message. We routinely speak of someone doing a good deed for a stranger as a good Samaritan. It’s a familiar story which is also why it has a hard time getting a fresh hearing in church. Not to mention that most sermons on the Good Samaritan are just about as predictable as the familiar parable. That is, they chastise the likes of you and me for being properly religious but passing by the hurts of society right around them. Of course, this is not a wholly inaccurate criticism.
In fact, for years I’ve always had a bit of concern about what I would do if I were driving to church on a Sunday morning and came across someone in need by the roadside. Would I stop and be helpful, or would I drive on by because I had to get to church where people were waiting to hear me to preach about the Good Samaritan? I still don’t know what I’d do.
Fact is, though, most of us frequently pass by needs of all kinds that we ignore because we’re either afraid to get involved or because we have something we deem more important to do. And, if you’re like me, as we pass by people in need –say a homeless person or someone broken down on the roadside or even that neighbor who we understand is having a hard time, we find ourselves talking to ourselves. You know, coming up with wonderful rationalizations about why we really don’t need to take the time to help: someone else will come along or it’s too hot or too cold or I’m just getting over the flu or it might be a set-up and I’ll get mugged, etc.
So, who are we in this parable? Most sermons would have us consider ourselves in the category of the priest or the Levite. And, well we might be. But, I think a good case could also be made for our being more like the lawyer in the parable.
The lawyer is a most likable guy. He’s smart, he’s logical, he’s curious, he’s imaginative, and he’s interested in right and wrong. And, he’s got a great question: How do I get to live forever? Who wouldn’t want to know the answer to that?
In good rabbinical fashion Jesus doesn’t answer him. The lawyer, you see, wants an easy-to-come-by answer. He wants someone else to hand him the key to the kingdom. But Jesus refuses to play his game. Because Jesus wants him to discover it for himself and so he answers his question with a question. “What is written in the law?”
And the lawyer answers him beautifully. “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.” Here’s how another translation puts it: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence. And love your neighbor as you do yourself.” Isn’t that good?
And Jesus likes it too and tells him so. “You’ve given the right answer. Do this, and you will live.”
Uh…………. The lawyer immediately begins thinking about all the people he passes by on his way to work, all the people sitting on steps and sleeping on sidewalks and drinking in doorways. He thinks about the morning’s headlines. He thinks about all the unsolicited mail he receives asking for money for worthy causes that he rarely, ever sends. If he’s you or me, he thinks about the offerings at church for special needs and how he hates it when he reaches in his billfold and only has a $20 bill, not a 5 or 10 -- I mean $20 is $20!
So the lawyer does what most of us do: he tries to justify himself. Luke even says so: “Desiring to justify himself, he asks Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”
Now here he’s hoping. Hoping Jesus will be reasonable. Maybe tell him something that will enable him to feel good about himself. After all, he got the love God part of the answer right.
“Who is my neighbor?” He asks.
But, you know what, he’s really asking and hoping to hear from Jesus “Who isn’t my neighbor?” “Whom may I legitimately pass by or ignore and still feel good about myself, not feel guilty?” Maybe he can argue with Jesus, make it so complicated that Jesus will admit there isn’t any always a right answer. Maybe the lawyer was hoping Jesus would say something like former President Bill Clinton said: “Well, it depends on what the meaning of is is.” If we try hard enough, we can always find good reasons for giving less of ourselves.
But Jesus won’t cooperate with the lawyer. The lawyer wants to talk about love and about how complicated it is to be open to everyone all the time. He would really like for Jesus to make the directions a little easier to follow, like defining who IS my neighbor and who isn’t my neighbor so I can maybe do what I have to do and then get away and tune out the world.
But Jesus knows that the last thing on earth the lawyer needs is another debate. So he tells him a story instead, the story you already know about how it doesn’t matter how religious we are or what we think, understand, know, feel, or say about love, but what we DO about love that brings us life.
Then, after he has told the story, he lets the lawyer answer his own question. “Which of these three,” Jesus asks – the two religious types who crossed to the other side of the road or the heretical outcast who took care of the beaten man – “which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
It’s a setup, of course. There’s only one simple answer to Jesus’ question and the lawyer, again, gives the right one: “The one who showed him mercy.” The one who DID something.
“Go and DO likewise,” Jesus says back to him. “DO this, and you will live, eternally.
Now, you may have noticed that Jesus’ answer is not really an answer to the question the lawyer asks. The question he asks is, “Who is my neighbor?” But the question Jesus answers is, “Whose neighbor are you?” The difference is profound!
And the answer, of course, is I am the neighbor of anyone who needs what I have to give. For Jesus there are no boundaries on the limits of love and mercy. Only one thing leads to eternal life, according to Jesus. And that is doing love to our neighbor.
What we’re left with is the same dilemma the lawyer had. Whose neighbor are we? Who has a need that we can honestly help meet? How far are we willing to go to find a neighbor who has a need that we are able to meet? How far are we willing to stretch? Around the world? Good. There are children living today because you gave $10 for a insecticide treated net to prevent malaria in Africa.
How about next door? Or down the street? How about with a person who frankly we can’t stand to be around? Maybe even a family member; a co-worker?
Neighbors, as it turns out, are everywhere – wherever there’s a need.
So, whose neighbor are you? Who has a need that you can meet? Any kind of need?
These are the questions Jesus would have each one of us ask ourselves.
As Martin Luther King once said, “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'”
“Just do it” is a slogan for Nike sports wear. Just do it. Not just talk about it. Not just preach about it. Just do it.
And “just do it, just do love” is also the advice of the Son of God for any who want eternal life. For, and here’s the underlying secret of what Jesus was teaching through this parable: The eternal life that Jesus gives begins not when we die. Rather, eternal life begins the moment Jesus convinces us that the most important questions in life are: Whose neighbor am I? And, what can I do for others?
And then, of course, we have to go and just do it.
