Co-missioners,
Steve Albertin, a longtime member of the Crossings Board of Directors and a co-host of our monthly Table Talk series, has just completed an assignment as interim pastor at King of Glory Lutheran Church in Carmel, Indiana. This was the third such assignment to have come his way since he retired some years ago.
Steve has approached all three of these assignments as an opportunity to share the benefits of the theological tradition that Crossings represents. Robert W. Bertram, Steve’s long-ago teacher and a Crossings co-founder, called it “the thin tradition.” Steve’s subsequent experience as a pastor operating within the tradition confirms how thin it is, or so he tells us.
Today we send you a case in point. It’s Steve’s second-to-last sermon at King of Glory. He preached it three Sundays ago on August 25. His text was the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, which was not the Gospel appointed for the day. As Steve explained when he sent this to us,
“I promised to preach on this text before I left because we had a Bible Class on the parables last spring which included this text. I gave them my ‘evangelical’ interpretation which surprised them all. They all assumed that the parable was telling them ‘what to do.’ When I finally preached it the response from the congregation was very positive.”
We mention this suspecting that Crossings veterans will find the sermon somewhat unexceptional. For us it hits familiar and expected notes. Not so with others, as Steve observes. Let’s face it: where the Gospel is concerned, we thin-tradition types are spoiled. Among ourselves it’s all too easy to take God’s treasure in Christ for granted, forgetting how rarely it gets put on display as a matter of course at the churches most people go to. With that we recommend an exercise for all of you who do pause to read. Look for the specific theological moves Steve makes to deliver this parable to the folks at King of Glory as God’s good news for them. Then, as the Lord of the parable might put it to other preachers among us, “Go thou and do likewise.”
(Just by the way: a video of Steve preaching the sermon is (still?) available at the King of Glory website. It’s worth a look, we think.)
Peace and Joy,
The Crossings Community
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The Good Samaritan Parable as Good News
An Example by Steven Albertin in “Rescued from the Ditch,”
a homily on Luke 10:25-37
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You are speeding down the road late for an appointment. You see someone stranded along the roadside with a flat tire. He looks like he could use some help.
But then you think of all the reasons why you can’t take the time to stop. You are already running late. You have on your good clothing. You need to look good for your appointment and don’t want to get dirty changing a tire. There are many other motorists driving down this road. Surely, there will be someone else to lend a helping hand. And who knows what kind of trouble this could lead to . . . stopping to help a perfect stranger? It could be a trap and a set up for foul play! Then you hear the voice of your lawyer or your insurance agent, your spouse or your parent whispering in your year, “This is no time to be a Good Samaritan. There are too many risks and dangers. Pray for the victim. Contribute to a charity, if that will make you feel better, but keep driving!” You breathe a sigh of relief. You drive by on the other side. You feel justified. You feel that all is well, neat and tidy.
Until you come to church and hear what I am about to tell you about the parable of the Good Samaritan.
A lawyer, an expert in all things religious, asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It seems like a simple question but it is a loaded question. It assumes that IF we only follow the rules, meet the conditions and do what we are supposed to do, THEN we will get the goodies. It assumes that the law is the final word in determining our relationship to God. It is the grammar of conditions: “IF we do this, THEN God will do that.”
Living with such an assumption is the way we live our lives every day. We may not be thinking much about “eternal life” or “going to heaven” or “salvation,” but we all want approval and recognition. We all want lives worth living and that mean something. If we don’t want the approval of God, then we certainly want the approval of those who are “gods” in our lives. Some years ago, the film “Joan Rivers, A Piece of Work,” appeared in theaters. It was a documentary on the life of the famous comedian who had kept audiences in stitches for over a half century. Her success was based on her ability to make us laugh at the common, ordinary and mundane things of life. In this film, we see Joan do that with a passion. Now in the autumn years of her life, after so many plastic surgeries that she has lost count, she will not accept defeat, won’t slow down and feels the need to prove herself over and over again. She like all of us is driven by the question “What MUST I DO to inherit eternal life?”
The problem is that we can never do what the law demands. Jesus could have shaken his finger at the lawyer and scolded him for asking such a wrong-headed question. But Jesus realizes that the lawyer’s problem is more than just having a head filled with bad ideas and wrong questions. He wants to touch the very heart and soul of this man. So he gradually draws him into a trap.
It is as if Jesus is saying to the lawyer, “So, you want to live under the law. You believe that you can meet its demands and justify your life. OK, let’s play ball. What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
Initially the lawyer plays ball well. He knows the law: “Love God with all your heart, soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself.” But there is a problem here. Loving God is no big deal. It is the loving-your-neighbor part that’s the problem. He isn’t so sure about that. He needs to be sure in order to justify himself.
So, the lawyer does what lawyers do. He parses, specifies and clarifies. Where do you draw the line? Just who is my neighbor and who is not? After all, you can’t drive down the highway and fix the flat tire of any and every stranger.
Jesus answers him with the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story we have gotten so familiar with that we are immune to the surprise it wants to spring on us.
You have all heard it before. On the road to Jericho, a fellow gets beat up, robbed and left for dead in the ditch. Religious leaders, a priest and a Levite, with more important things to do, pass by on the other side. Perhaps they too are hearing voices whisper, “This is no time to lend a helping hand. There are too many risks and dangers. Contribute to a charity, if that will make you feel better, but keep walking!” They do this and feel justified.
At this point in the story, the lawyer like anyone else in that culture would have expected the next person coming down the road to be an ordinary Israelite. It was typical for such stories to have an anti-clerical/anti-priest/anti-Levite message. The common folk resented the snobbery of such religious leaders. Of course, such snobs would not have had time for the poor guy in the ditch. Contrary to the uppity priest and Levite, the average guy-next-door would have taken the time to care for one of his fellow Israelites beaten and bloody in the ditch.
But here the story surprises everyone! The next fellow down the road does take the time to help the victim. But he is not the average guy-next-door. He is— God forbid!—a SAMARITAN! The Samaritans were hated and despised, religious half-breeds and mortal enemies of any good Jew. The guy lying in the ditch, probably a good Jew on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho, would spit in his face if he could. Just like the Ukrainians and the Russians! Just like Israel and the Palestinians! And the Samaritan knows it. If there was ever a time to draw the line and say, “This guy is not my neighbor; he is my enemy; I can walk by on the other side and feel perfectly justified,” this is it.
But the Samaritan surprises everyone who first heard this story by caring for this guy in the ditch, bandaging his wounds and soothing him with wine and oil. Even more, the next day he takes him to an inn, gives the innkeeper two days wages and says, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”
This is a guy who takes being a neighbor seriously, even to the point of taking all kinds of risks to help a mortal enemy lying in the ditch.
At this point, the lawyer must have been squirming. There is no way he could ever be a neighbor like that. That was impossible. Surely, God could not have that kind of expectations when He commanded us to love and care for our neighbors.
But that is exactly what Jesus wanted to do to the lawyer. Jesus wanted to expose his delusion that he could somehow keep the law and win the approval of God. The lawyer thought that the name of the game was keeping the rules and justifying his life. But that was God’s job, not his job. By believing that he had to do something to please God, he had already exposed himself as a First Commandment breaker. If he had truly loved God, he would not be worried about “What MUST I DO to inherit eternal life.” He would not be concerned with justifying himself. He would not be wringing his hands about “Who is my neighbor?” and who is not.
By telling this story and exposing the lawyer, Jesus has become the accuser. Jesus has, so to speak, “assaulted” this lawyer for his faithless arrogance and foolish question and has put him in the ditch. The lawyer is the one lying half-dead in the ditch on his imagined journey to eternal life. If this lawyer is ever going to get to eternal life, it is not going to be on his own. It is not going to be because he has all the answers or can do all that God expects of him.
We are the lawyer. That is the truth we acknowledge every time we confess our sins and seek God’s mercy. We are “by nature sinful and unclean.” We have not loved and trusted God as we ought. We have not loved our neighbor as we should. We keep on digging ourselves deeper into the hole and putting ourselves further into the ditch every time we ask, “God, Jesus, Pastor . . . just tell me what I GOTTA DO to be saved, to have a meaningful and purpose driven life, and I can do it.” When Jesus tells us as he told the lawyer at the end of today’s Gospel, “Go and do likewise,” we probably feel picked on, embarrassed, accused and assaulted.
And when we do, Jesus has us just where he wants us.
There we are, metaphorically lying in the ditch, victims of our own foolishness, victims of a violent and ruthless world and victims of our sin. And the Good Samaritan comes to us. He rescues us, binds up our wounds, forgives our sins, pours out his blood for us on the cross, washes our bruises in baptismal water and hands us over to the trusted care of His church. The Good Samaritan is Jesus. Like the Samaritan He is an outsider, despised and rejected, stricken, smitten and afflicted. When He sees us lying in the ditch, He is “moved with pity.” He cannot walk by on the other side.
Rescued from the ditch, we no longer have to ask worried and faithless questions like “What MUST I DO to inherit eternal life?” We no longer have to be concerned with justifying our lives, as if somehow we had to build our own meaning and purpose in life. God in Jesus has rescued us from the ditch. God has graciously poured himself out for us on the cross. He has made us the apple of His eye and the crown of His creation.
That changes everything. Our lives are no longer about us. We are no longer worried about what others think of us or even what God thinks of us. We no longer fret over who is my neighbor and who is not. When someone is in need, we help him simply because he is “in the ditch” and needs our help. We love God and our neighbor not because we HAVE TO but because we GET TO. WHY? Because we have been rescued from the ditch by Jesus, the ultimate Good Samaritan, we can’t help but “go and do likewise.”
