July 15, 2007

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Who is the hero?

Summer is the best part of the year for movies. Every movie out there has one main character who is the hero. Some movies like Transformers or Harry Potter; always has the main character seen through out the whole movie. Now the main character, if it’s an action movie probably has to save the world. Whatever the case might be, nothing the hero does seems to be wrong. He or she will always be right and at the end of the movie, the character comes out on top. I mean who would not want that. Who would not want to be always right and to have every one admire you for your deeds? To always show off the great things that one has accomplished.

With that we can go to our Gospel lesson to find the so called hero of the story. It takes place in a town in Israel and there are some people present. Our so called hero is a lawyer with Jesus. Now this lawyer is not the same kind of lawyer that we think of. This lawyer is one who was trained in knowing the Law of God. He knew and trusted in the Law of God. He believed in the Law. He followed the Law to the dot. He was right in the Law while everybody was not. Now while he was sitting down and probably talking to other people about the law, he probably notices Jesus.

He thought he was the hero of the Law and wanted to put Jesus to the test. No one knows really why he wants to but one can imagine because he has heard numerous reports of Jesus through out Judea. With those reports, he wanted to prove himself to everybody. At that point, this is when everything goes wrong for our lawyer. He thought that he could trap Jesus with the Law. That was his first mistake. The second mistake that he made was the words he used. People have always told me to be careful with the words I use or it will come back to hurt me. "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" If one were to look at this saying, you could see an oxymoron here. The phrase "what shall I do" and "inherit." The first part of the phrase implies that he has to do something, while he uses the word "inherit" which could mean earning something without work. This question contradicts itself.

Of course Jesus knew what is going on. He knows that the lawyer is trying to trap him. This is not the first time that Jesus has accounted this. Luke 5:17 "On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, "Why do you question in your hearts?" These Pharisees loved the law but at the same time loved to question what is in their hearts. The same thing is going on in our Gospel lesson with our lawyer.

Each time the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with words; Jesus would always answer back with a question as with this lawyer. I have learned that one should never answer a question with a question, but Jesus always does. "What is written in the Law?" How do you read it?" Luke does not tell us how long it took this man to answer the question but one can imagine that it was probably pretty fast with a nice smile because he knew the answer. "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" from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. When the lawyer was done answering this question, Jesus told him that he answered correctly and to do that.

Our so called hero did not stop there. He went for another swing and stuck out because he tried to justify himself by asking Jesus who was his neighbor? At this point, Jesus goes on to tell the young lawyer a parable. Parables were easy to understand by everybody but only a few could interpret it. This lawyer was probably one those who could interpret the parable.

The parable goes on about a man who was a Jew, walking along the road. While he was walking, he was beaten and robbed. The robbers left him for dead. Coming along on the road was a Priest. Most people would think a Priest would help anybody, right? Well not this priest. Instead this priest moved on and continued his way. Why would a priest continue on and not help this man? He did not help because he probably thought this man for dead. It would be against the law to help this man who was dying. If he were to help a dying man, he would be ceremonially unclean. If he became ceremonially unclean, then he could not do his duties for God. Numbers 19:11"Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days." However, he does know the scriptures, Isaiah 58:7 "Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?" Yet he does not heed to Isaiah and moves on. Why make myself unclean when somebody else could do it?

With that he left the man on the road and continued on. The next person to come was a Levite. Now Levites were in charge with keeping the temples and altars clean. They were under the jurisdiction of the Priest. Numbers 8:19 "And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people of Israel, to do the service for the people of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement for the people of Israel, that there may be no plague among the people of Israel when the people of Israel come near the sanctuary." The Levites too knew the Law about touching a dead man. Touch one and you were made ceremonially unclean. Which would not be good thing because then he could not perform his duties at the temple.

Well so far, from what we have heard from Jesus, two important men who work at the temple pass by this dying man. If religious men would not help this dying man then who would? The answer would be a Samaritan. A Samaritan helped the Jew. However, it was unheard of. These two races of people were complete opposite. Samaritans were shunned away by the Jewish people. They were shunned away because Samaritans were half Jewish and half Gentile. They left God’s kingdom when they split and formed their own country.

What ever the difference was this Samaritan decided to help the Jewish Man. Even though he knew who the dying man was, he helped him. He poured wine to clean his wounds and oil to help seal them up. Then he brought him to an inn which was probably down the road to Jericho. At the inn, the Samaritan paid the inn keeper to watch over him. After the parable Jesus asked him "Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" What do you think the lawyer’s response is? It is probably the same one you are thinking of, "The one who showed him mercy." Then Jesus would say the same thing he said to the lawyer to us, "You go and do likewise."

Who was the hero here? Was it the Lawyer or was it Jesus? Our hero is Jesus because He paid the price for us to be healed. We were supposed to be left for dead due to our sins. No one was willing to help us but God. Only God helped us. God had compassion on us because we could not help ourselves. We were like the Jewish man in the parable, we were helpless. Ephesians 2:1-6 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,"

God took care of us by sending His Son to die on the cross. Instead of leaving us to die in our sin, Christ took our sins upon himself. He took the punishment in which we were supposed to endure. We still receive God’s mercy today, tomorrow, and in the near future, no matter what day it is. When we call upon the name of Christ for forgiveness it is given. It is by that forgiveness that we too can be like that Samaritan in the parable.

Even though we know of God’s law and His Grace, when we do not act upon it, it is meaningless. At times we would not help a fellow human being because we did not know who that person was or because the person was not a Christian. Well it does not matter who the person is, with Christ we can help anybody. The power of God is within each of you to help a fellow being. As stated in Leviticus 19:18 "but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord" There is no mention of who our neighbors are. The only thing mentioned is to love your neighbor as yourself. Well God loves us and with that love we can love others as we love ourselves. 1 John 4:19 "We love because he first loved us."

There is no need to be a hero because all of us have been saved. In any action movie the world is saved by a hero. Well we are saved because of Christ as our hero. However there are those who have not heard they are saved. As Christ was our Samaritan, let us too be Samaritans to people around this area, country and world. We have heard the word of our salvation and with that we can now spread the word to those who have not heard. To those who have not heard the wonderful things about Christ. "Which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing-as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth." (Colossians 1:6).

In this church, we are Samaritans by the little stuff we do. We helped raise money for a Corn Mill for people who we do not know in Kenya. We open our doors to the neighborhood this week to all kinds of children. There could be some children who may not have heard the word of God. I know through out the year, we have raise food for shelters. These examples are but a few of the things we do because God is with us. With God, all of us can go out in the area to help all kinds of people, where ever they are. This is only the beginning because with God nothing is impossible. Matthew 19:26 "But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." In Jesus Name. Amen