“The Most Important Question” Text: Luke 10:25-37 Christopher A. Henry Morningside Presbyterian Church Atlanta, GA July 29, 2007

“The Most Important Question”
Text: Luke 10:25-37
Christopher A. Henry
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Atlanta, GA
July 29, 2007

The story that I just read to you from the Gospel of Luke is perhaps the most well-known of all of the parables of Jesus. The language of Good Samaritan is a part of our working vocabulary. Even the least churched among us recognize. This is partially because, in a rather ironic twist for a parable that was told to stump a local attorney, the United States and Canada now have an entire section of legal code known as Good Samaritan Laws. These laws provide legal protection for anyone who chooses to help another human being who is in some kind of distress. But this watered-down definition of a so-called Good Samaritan misses most of the complexity of the story that we have before us. In fact, the near universal recognition of this story can have the effect of making it tame, controlled, or easy. And so this morning I would like to invite you to walk through this encounter between Jesus and an attorney, as if you are hearing it for the first time.

As is so often true in the Gospel stories, we gain a greater understanding of the parable itself if we first establish the circumstances in which it was told. Jesus is on his way to the cross, the writer of the Gospel has made that perfectly clear in chapter nine with the ominous line: he set his face to go to Jerusalem. Most of Luke's story involves the journey of Jesus and his disciples from the Galilean countryside to the Holy City where he has a date with Pontius Pilate. Just after beginning the journey, Jesus sends some messengers ahead of him to prepare a place for him to stay. But these messengers run into a bit of snag with the hotel reservations so to speak. Jesus and his followers are Judeans and the town he wants to stay in is a Samaritan town. Once a united monarchy under Kings David and Solomon, these two groups had become bitter enemies by the time of Jesus. And so he is offered no hospitality in this Samaritan village, and when the disciples hear this they suggest commanding fire to come down from heaven and consume these poor hosts. What further evidence would we need that Judeans and Samaritans did not get along? Jesus simply rebukes the disciples and they head off together for the next village, hoping for a friendlier reception. Still, as we begin this morning’s story, it is helpful to know that he bitter ethnic and territorial conflict between Jews and Samaritans would have been in everyone’s mind. And I believe that Luke assumes that it is in ours as well.

Further up the road, Jesus runs into a lawyer and that is where our story really begins. Luke tells us that the lawyer stood up to test Jesus with a difficult question. That may be the case, but I for one find myself feeling a little more sympathy for this lawyer each time I read the story. Perhaps it is because I have received such wonderful support and help this week from some legal professionals who are sitting in this sanctuary, but I suspect it has more to do with the question the lawyer asks. It's my kind of question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? The lawyer wants to know, in plain language, what he must do to achieve life that never ends. Who among us would pass up the chance to ask Jesus such a question? It's not a question about right belief, it's a question about right action. In our current church culture, in which so much controversy and conflict revolve around what we believe about the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, or who is fit to be ordained, isn't it refreshing to hear a question on how to act? Even though the lawyer is trying to test Jesus, I find myself eager to hear the answer that Jesus will give. I think that all of us want to know for certain that we are doing the kinds of things that please God.

But this lawyer has come to the wrong rabbi if he is looking for a direct answer to this very direct question. Instead, in good rabbinic fashion, Jesus answers the lawyer's question with another question. Woody Allen: Why does a rabbi always answer a question with a question? Rabbi: Why shouldn’t a rabbi always answer a question with a question? Jesus asks this lawyer, who is well versed in the Jewish law: What is written in that law? What do you read there? Perhaps Jesus wants to respond to the test offered by the lawyer with a test of his own. Perhaps he wants to see if the lawyer really knows what is in the law, a kind of bar exam pop quiz. Perhaps this is true, but it seems to me that the question serves a deeper purpose in this story. In fact, the entire passage revolves around a series of questions, each a little more perplexing and difficult than the one before it. Each inviting us a little closer to the heart of the gospel.

Questions have the ability to draw us into the mystery of our faith, to give us a window into the unknown. By embracing our questions and our doubts, rather than running the other direction, we enter more deeply into faith. This is because the ability to ask questions is a sure sign of relationship. Jesus could have simply given the lawyer a neatly packaged answer to his excellent question, but this a story about relationships and so Jesus invites the lawyer into a dialogue on the meaning of "eternal life" by asking him to recite the content of the law.

Well, Jesus is dealing with a legal professional here and so the answer that he receives is a good one. The lawyer creatively combines two of the most well-known verses in all of Hebrew scripture and ends up with a fairly comprehensive statement of proper ethical conduct: 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. Jesus seems to accept the answer, but he is not through with this lawyer and so he pushes his conversation partner just a little bit closer to gospel truth, to the place where proper words and proper actions meet: Do this and you will live.

Now, it is at this point in the story where we Protestants may get a little uncomfortable. The lawyer has asked Jesus about eternal life, and all good Presbyterians know that eternal life, salvation, is a gift given by God, not something that we human beings can earn by our own merit. Long before Martin Luther and John Calvin, the Apostle Paul penned these words: and we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. And yet Jesus tells the lawyer, DO THIS and you will live. That is, perform the works of the law, and life will be yours. I am tempted to ask Jesus some further questions of clarification. What exactly do you mean by “do”? Is eternal life given only to those who do the right things, or is the doing a grateful response to the eternal life already given? And, Jesus, when you say that we will live, do you mean eternal life or simply a more fulfilling life here on earth? Further, am I really required to take on the astronomical responsibility of loving God and neighbor? Is it even possible? And anyway, who is my neighbor?

Ahhh….that is the question that the lawyer poses to Jesus next, and it is the impetus for the greatest parable ever told. Who is my neighbor? Or, put another way, Who must I love? At what distance, physically, geographically, emotionally, spiritually, can I stop loving? When can I simply turn away and say with an exasperated sigh, “I’d love to help, but you are not my neighbor and therefore I have no obligation to love you.” You live in Sudan or Honduras or Pakistan, and so you are not my responsibility. Your skin color or sexual orientation or political party or religion is different from mine, and so you cannot be my neighbor. I’m still a good Christian, I just don’t like those people. Or, perhaps more likely for most of us…I simply don’t have time to care about the whole world. So, who is my neighbor…who must I love?

You can almost hear Jesus say under his breath, “now we are getting somewhere” as he begins the story of the Good Samaritan. The message of the parable is profoundly unexpected. Two professional do-gooders walk by a man in great need. They know the law, they even have it memorized. In other words, like the lawyer himself they have all the right answers. But that’s the very point of the parable: knowing the right answer and doing the right thing are quite different. Finally, Jesus introduces the central character of the parable. The Samaritan, the outsider, the one who could never quote Leviticus and Deuteronomy with complete accuracy, the enemy of the Jews. And this Samaritan shows the man in need hospitality and kindness, even to the point of major inconvenience on his part. The extravagance of the Samaritan’s response is Jesus’ way of showing the marked contrast between this supposed enemy and the two morally upright religious figures.

Like so many of Jesus’ parables, this turns our expectations on their head. In fact, Jesus reverses the question of the lawyer. The most important question, it seems, is not “who is my neighbor?” but rather, “whose neighbor am I willing to be?” If the lawyer was looking for a legal definition of the term neighbor, what he receives instead is a description of what a true neighbor looks like. It looks like loving your enemies. It looks like going out of your way to serve those in greatest need without regard to who they are or what they have done. It looks like seeing those whom others pass by and then being moved by compassion to reach out in acts of love. This parable could be a description of the life of Jesus Christ—breaking down barriers, stretching limits, coming near to the oppressed and the broken. This parable could be a description of what the church of Jesus Christ is called to do in the world. I think of the words of a friend and mentor of mine, at a time when I was beginning to form my position on our denomination’s treatment of faithful gay and lesbian Christians. Orval simply asked me a question: Do you think it is possible to overestimate the love of God?

This is a story of relationships. Whose neighbor are you? Whose neighbor are we? This, it seems to me is the most important question in this morning’s encounter between Jesus and the lawyer

It’s not a question that can be answered with eloquent words or a logical equation. Because the parable set before us today is not concerned about the conflict between the principles of good and evil. It is a story neither of fatalism nor of retribution. It suggests no philosophical system. It confronts us irresistibly, disturbing our conscience and urging us toward an ethic of social responsibility. It pushes us beyond answers and into action.
Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? Once again, the lawyer is armed with the right answer: the one who showed him mercy. And once again, Jesus is not satisfied with mere words: Go and do likewise, he commands, forcing the attorney to answer for himself that most important of all questions: whose neighbor am I?

We do not know how it all ended for the lawyer. He is not given a chance to cross-examine Jesus after the command to Go and Do Likewise. Maybe he though his original question, the one about eternal life, had been adequately answered. More likely, the question itself suddenly seemed unimportant when set down beside the one Jesus asked. I’d sure like to think that he followed Jesus down the road to Jerusalem, in search of new neighbors.
So, whose neighbor are we…we here at Morningside Presbyterian? On second thought, don’t answer that question just yet. Let’s go find out. Amen.