Sermon manuscript:
God’s Law is plain in our readings this morning. It is God’s
Law that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength,
and mind. We should also love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Our Gospel
reading further elaborates on the second part of this definition of God’s
Law—what it means to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. There is more that
could be said, therefore, about the first part—what it means to love God with
all that you can muster. Perhaps you can think on that yourself later
today—what does it mean to love God with one’s whole being? As far as this
sermon goes, we will deal with Jesus’s explanation of what it means to love our
neighbor.
There are three things that I’d like to point out to you
today. First, I’d like to speak about how good God’s Law is—how appropriate and
helpful and beautiful it is. Second, I’d like to show you how this thing that
is appropriate and helpful and beautiful is not your friend. It is not warm and
cuddly as you might suppose. Finally, I’d like to show you how the Law can
become sweet and mild and good to you again.
Let’s begin with how the Law is superb and praiseworthy. Our
Gospel reading is known as the parable of the Good Samaritan and for good
reason. The Samaritan is good—really good. While the priest and the Levite pass
by on the other side of the road, the Samaritan was moved to compassion when he
saw the man who had been attacked and abused by the robbers. All too often
people are liable to blame the victim for what happened to them. What’s more is
that all too often, such reasoning is not too far off the mark. Perhaps if this
fellow had been more prudent he wouldn’t have found himself in the bad position
he was in. Icy hearts are good at this kind of reasoning. They can make
stinginess and meanness sound like praiseworthy virtues! The Samaritan was not
so cold hearted. He loved the man and helped him.
And, boy, did he ever help him! I’m sure that you’ve heard
me speak to this over the years, because it is one of my favorite places to go
when the question comes up of what the Law requires of us. This Samaritan
dropped what he was doing and took up this unfortunate man’s cause as his own. As
I’ve said over the years, the Samaritan could have given the man a couple
hundred bucks and left it at that. As it is he went the extra mile. He bandaged
him and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. He put him on his own
animal and walked beside him for miles on the hot dusty road until they came to
a place where they could stay. As you know, there isn’t a hotel on every street
corner, so they might have had to go some distance. The Samaritan stayed with
him and nursed him all night long. After all that he still gave him a couple
hundred bucks—telling the innkeeper to look after the man until he returns.
Then he’ll pay the man’s bill—however big it might be.
Why did the Samaritan do all this? There’s only one possible
explanation: he wanted to. If he didn’t want to do it, then he would have
easily found a way to get out of it. As it is, he made it his goal (in a sense
it was his hobby—it made him happy) to trudge alongside him and shell out his
hard earned cash. I challenge anybody to prove to me how what this man did is
anything other than excellent. It is so appropriate, so helpful, so beautiful.
It is so common for children to be taught that they should be as glorious and
accomplished as they possibly can be—they should be a president or a CEO or something.
That is all garbage compared to the goodness and beauty of loving one’s
neighbor as it is laid out for us in Jesus’s parable. If you would be truly
great, then sell what you have and give it to the poor. Then go and follow
Jesus.
Now I said at the beginning that even though the Law is so
good and beautiful, it is not your friend. How come? It’s because the Law and you
are not on the same page. What you want and what the Law of God wants are not
the same. There are a lot of things that you would like to spend your money on.
Helping some bloke that you just happened to come across is probably not one of
them. There are a lot of things that you might enjoy spending your time doing. Slaving
away for somebody else is probably not one of them. Unless, of course, you get
paid gobs and gobs of money. Then you might do it. But if there is nothing in
it for you, then the only way you will do it is with bitterness and grumbling.
God’s Law is not impressed by the overwhelming selfishness
that characterizes our lives, therefore God’s Law says that you aren’t a good
person. But we aren’t prone to take this abuse lying down. We will rise up
against such demands placed upon us and declare God’s Law to be unreasonable!
We will fight with God’s Law and say, “Are we supposed to love God with every
fiber of our being and our neighbor as ourselves? That’s impossible! Who can
love God or their neighbor like that and never have a bad day? Nobody!” And
this is one of those rare places here our reason is actually correct in
spiritual matters. It is true. Nobody can do God’s Law.
So we’re off the hook, aren’t we? We’re all in the same
boat, misery loves company, so let’s all just eat, drink, and be merry ‘til we
die? This is not an uncommon viewpoint. People look around and see that they
seemingly aren’t as bad as this guy or that guy, so at least they’ve got a shot
at being somewhat acceptable to God. But God doesn’t leave us in the dark as to
what his standard is for judgment. You want to be regarded as good? Then do
good. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your
neighbor as yourself. Who are you to disagree with God over what is good and
what is evil? Resistance is futile. You can argue with God all you want until
the demons are dragging you body and soul into hell.
That is precisely what God’s Law does. Because it is
truthful, because it is right, it condemns and damns all that is not good.
Therefore it condemns and damns you for not having kept it. This is not the
Law’s fault. It’s your fault. Just as the criminal is not fond of the police or
the judge, so also you cannot be friends with God’s Law so long as it has
jurisdiction over you. Just as the criminal sinks down with dread at the
pronouncement of guilt and punishment, so also you cannot love the Law as it
takes away all the hypocrisy and sneaking and thinking that you’ve gotten away
with something.
Time and time again in the history of the Christian Church
there have been people who have rejected and hated this very important
understanding that the Law will always condemn us so far as our natural selves
are concerned. They want to be friends with the Law. They say that you can work
together with the Law and become better and better until you become as bright
as the morning star. You are your own self improvement project.
These people are more dangerous than they seem. They lead
people to hell. They seem very pious. They seem as though they are teaching
God’s Word correctly, because, to be sure, God says what we should and should
not do, and this is what they are always focusing on. But it is not the talker
of the Law who is justified, but the doer of the Law who is justified. The fact
is that the Law cannot be looked to as proof of anybody being good. God’s Law
exposes the truth, and the truth is that no one is justified in God’s sight.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
There is only one justification that a person can look to
with the hope of being found acceptable in God’s sight, and accordingly being blessed
with every blessing because God finds us well pleasing. That justification is
the justification that Jesus, God’s own Son, has worked for us. He has lived
the good life that the Law prescribes. Though he never committed sin himself,
he became sin for us, and suffered the punishment that is due for our sin with
his crucifixion and death. Thereby the Law’s demands against us have had their
say, and they’ve done their worst. It’s not as though God just casts aside the
Law and says we’re not going to worry about that anymore. That’s the devil’s
pseudo-gospel. He’s always saying that you’ll probably be fine just the way you
are. No, Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. He died our
death, so that we might live together with him.
The Law is not our friend. Jesus is our friend. The Law
cannot give us life and blessing for the simple reason that we have not kept
it. Jesus, on the other hand, gives us life and blessing, because he is the
friend of sinners. When God saw how we were attacked by Satan and how there was
no hope for us to be justified according to the Law he had compassion on us. He
did not pass by on the other side of the road. Instead he sent his dearest
treasure, whom he loves, and is well pleased with the salvation that Jesus
worked for us. Scripture has imprisoned all things under sin so that the
promise of salvation by faith in Jesus would be given to those who believe.
So now how should we regard the Law? What should we think of
it? The answer is that we can think of it as it really is. The truth is that the
Law has lost its jurisdiction over us. It is not the standard for whether we
are acceptable in God’s sight or not. Jesus is that standard. He is our
justification. Therefore the Law cannot offer us anything that we don’t already
have in Jesus. We don’t need the Law. The justification and sanctification that
God works in us by his Holy Spirit is a whole lot better than whatever we might
try to manufacture for ourselves by trying to interpret God’s Law and screwing
up our will to try to keep it.
By not needing the Law for our righteousness, we can also
let the Law be, as it has been given by God. We don’t need to reinterpret it so
as it make it possible for us to keep it. All those who want to be justified
according to the Law are forced to edit God’s Law. They can’t leave it as it
is, because they are desperate in wanting to be justified by it. They don’t
want to have to help the guy that they’ve just happened to come across. They
want to be justified in passing by on the other side of the road. They want to
keep what’s theirs. Remember why Jesus speaks this parable in the first place.
The scribe wanted to know who his neighbor was so that he could do what was
required of him, and then have the rest of his time to himself. He is
disappointed when Jesus tells him that whomever he comes across is your
neighbor. Elsewhere Jesus also says that even our enemy is our neighbor. God’s
Law requires even that we love him.
With our wicked, fallen flesh there isn’t a ghost of a
chance for us to love our neighbor in such a way, even though we can see our
neighbor. We haven’t even talked at all about loving God whom we can’t see.
Those who want to be justified by the Law can’t let these impossible demands
stand. They end up doing away with God’s Law by reinterpreting it so that they
can congratulate themselves for being such jolly good fellows. What’s really
happened, though, is that they are foul and wicked. They tread the justifying
blood of Jesus underfoot. The Law has not been given to make us feel good about
ourselves. The Law has been given to reveal our trespasses, so that we might
take refuge and find salvation in the only place that we may find it—in Jesus
Christ and him crucified.
But what about our lives and our good works? Aren’t we
supposed to do good as Christians? Yes. But (and this is a big but) not under
compulsion. A good tree produces good fruit. If you are a good tree, then you
will produce good fruit, because that’s just what good trees do. When we die
together with Christ and are raised together with Christ, when we become new
creatures, born of the water and the Spirit, we are given new lives where God
is at work in us, sanctifying us, making us holy, making us the creatures that
we were meant to be before sin entered into the picture. This means, incidentally,
that God’s Law, which is good and holy and beautiful, will also be found to be
fulfilled in the lives that we live. God does not leave us as rotten humps of
flesh who know nothing about love unless it somehow benefits us. No, Jesus
adorns his bride, the church, with beautiful things. He begins to heal our
hearts so that we begin to want to do good. This work of our baptism will be
complete when we are raised from the dead when Jesus comes.
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