“25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered: “ ‘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, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.””
“Why are they asking?” That’s a question for you to ask yourself when you’re asked a question. “Dad, do you know where that cleaner, the Goo Gone, is?” “Why is that child asking?” “What do you think of this dress?” “Why is she asking?” If you are a teacher and a student asks you, “Why didn’t I do better on this exam?’ you do well to ferret out why this student is asking. Do they think the grade is unjust? Do you they truly want to improve?
We have many motivations in our asking and that’s worth considering when we pose questions to God. Do I really want the patience for which I’m asking? Do I really want Him to search me and know my heart? Am I just asking to be seen as someone willing to ask or do I really want to know?
That’s what you see in this parable. There is a man who thinks he knows why he’s asking Jesus his questions, but God in the flesh shows this man that this man has no idea why he’s asking. This man wants to be seen as spiritual; he’s not. He’s not willing to do what the Spirit wants. If you ask God’s will, be willing to do it; don’t debate God’s will; do it. Don’t just debate God’s law; do it. That’s the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in two points. First, the expert tests Jesus. Second, Jesus tests the expert. First, in verses 25-28, the expert tests Jesus. Second, in verses 29-37, Jesus tests the expert.
We see this man ask his questions in our first point: the expert tests Jesus. There are plenty stock characters in the drama of modern life—the disinterested clerk at the DMV, the burned-out social worker, the over-eager intern, the warm grandfatherly mentor. They had their own stock characters in the first century as well; one was the expert in the law.
The law, meaning the law of Moses, was to be the foundation for Israel’s life. Given its importance, it’s only natural that some people would seek to know this law inside and out, out of both good motivations and power-hungry ones. The expert in law tended to get lost in the minutia and miss the point—tithe what came out of their vegetable gardens and yet not love; that’s the sort of character we meet in verse 1, ‘On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”’
This expert already firm opinions on this question. This is like someone who bleeds Ford blue asking about your favorite kind of truck. He isn’t asking. He is testing. This man is testing Jesus’ orthodoxy. That’s not inherently bad, but this man’s spirit was all wrong. He’s the sort of man who asks questions not to see where he himself might be wrong but to judge everyone else according to the yard stick of his own rightness.
Such experts in the law were quite interested in the opinions of this or that rabbi. They wanted to know where teachers stood on the topics of the day so they could rank them. It’s similar to our endless conversations about the greatest of all time—Jordan or LeBron, Serena Williams or Steffi Graff, Washington or Lincoln? We have a compulsion to rank and rate and the experts on the law did that with rabbis and their views. This expert in the law is assessing this new rabbi, Jesus, in regards to his views on attaining eternal life; “what, Jesus, do you think a good Jew must do to wind up blessed eternally rather than cursed?”
Jesus isn’t playing the game. You never hear Jesus say, “well Hillel thinks…” He asks this expert the obvious question, ‘Well, as expert in the law, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”’ Jesus asks himself, “why is this man asking me this question?” “Why do you want to find the Goo Gone?” “What matters is what you think of the dress.” That’s legitimate. As Dallas Willard says about Jesus’ response here, “Jesus did not need to create any arguments; he simply asked the man what he already knew. The interesting thing about witnessing and teaching is that most folks already know what they need to know. They already have an idea about the answers. Sometimes they need something clarified or confirmed, or maybe they need an example laid out for them, but basically they know.”
That’s worth remember especially if you tend to hyper-responsible. Remember that other people have consciences too. Other people are responsible enough to be responsible for their views. Sometimes they are unaware or ignorant, but often they are simply refusing to know what they know. Perhaps the best you can do is remind them. That’s what Jesus does here.
The expert in the law did know; verse 27, ‘He answered: “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, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”’ The expert gave the exact answer Jesus gave elsewhere. This two-fold summary of the law was not unique to Jesus. The Jews knew what to do. The question is whether this expert would do the law rather than merely debate it and so Jesus gave him a gentle shove, “You have answered correctly… Do this and you will live.”
We will see how central this word “do” is to this parable—“do this and you will live.” This “doing” strikes some as works righteousness. There are entire theological systems structured around explaining away statements like, “do this and you will live.” They’ll say, “that’s the Old Covenant,” or here in the gospels, “that’s just until the cross. Then we get Paul and justification by faith alone.”
Not so. Salvation is totally, “justification by faith alone,” and it is totally, “do this and you will live.” The way forward isn’t to deny that Jesus meant what he said here or to deny that Paul meant it when he wrote, “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” The way forward is to hold both in proper tension like we saw in the Exodus with election and human responsibility. The way forward is to learn to prioritize based on where you are spiritually positioned. If you are tending toward pride, you prioritize predestination. If you are tending toward presumption, you prioritize human responsibility. If you are tending toward despair of your own morality, you prioritize justification by faith alone. If you, like this expert in the law, are tending toward moral smugness, you prioritize, “do this or you will live,” or “do this or you won’t live.” Jesus knows this expert’s heart. He knows why he’s asking this question and so Jesus tells him to stop debating the law like a bunch of teenage boys debating which truck is the best and to start doing the law. “Love God with all you are. Love your neighbor now.”
It’s in this expert’s response to that that you see his nature ooze out. Jesus’ words push what’s in us out so it might be seen. The expert reveals that he’s much more into debating the law than he is into doing it. He rejects this medicine of obedience Jesus offers and tries to lose Jesus and his own conscience in a fog of minutia; that’s our next point: Jesus tests the expert.
In our first point, the expert in the law tests Jesus. The expert had his own standard for orthodoxy and was using it measuring this up-and-coming rabbi from the middle of nowhere. In this point, Jesus tests the expert in the law. He does it by the expert’s own words about the law’s call to love your neighbor; verse 29, ‘But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”’
Here you have the gift of divinely authorized explanation of intention; “he wanted to justify himself.” We don’t get that in our day-to-day wanderings through life. We get into trouble when we assume that we do. We sometimes think we know someone else’s heart, but our closest relationships should show us how often we are off base. Sometimes I do have a good read on why that child is asking for the Goo Gone, but far, far more often there are far, far more that I don’t know and my assumptions make the relationships harder. If that’s true with these people with whom I live, how much more is it true regarding the next to nothing I know of your intensions or what you know of mine? Among human, God in the flesh alone knows what’s in the heart. He knew this man was justifying himself. We don’t know the heart as he did. Don’t try to imitate him in perfect knowledge; be humble enough to accept that you don’t see with the penetrating insight of the Spirit seen here in verse 29 with, “he wanted to justify himself.”
Jesus knows this man’s intension. His response isn’t to blatantly accuse. Jesus’ response is to tell this man who just arrogantly asked, “and who is my neighbor?” a story about neighborliness. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…” Well, it actually begins “a certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho” just like verse 25 actually reads, “on one occasion a certain expert in the law stood up to test Jesus…” That’s clear in Greek and that’s not by mistake. Luke and Jesus are making clear that there are no people in general—only certain people as we saw this morning with dealing with your spouse in particular. There are only certain people—this expert in the law, this man in this story—in certain situations.
That’s life. As Jeremias explains, “When Jesus … tells him that action is the way to life this must be understood as arising out of the actual situation.” It’s not all that worthwhile for a nine-year-old boy to ponder how he would reorganize the Batcave if he were Batman. He needs to reorganize his room in the sense of cleaning it like his mother said. So it is for this expert in the law and for us. We are far more prone to play at obedience than we are to obey.
The expert would have picked up on this concreteness in terms of the cities in Jesus’ parable. The seventeen-mile trip between Jerusalem and Jericho was notoriously dangerous. This was like going through Gary, Indiana. I remember stopping in Gary decades ago to get gas and grab something to eat. I stopped at a Subway for a sandwich and I’d never seen one and half inch thick bulletproof glass in a sandwich shop before. I told my parents about it when I got home and they said, “don’t stop in Gary.” “Don’t stop between Jerusalem and Jericho,” was the parents’ message to children in that day. There were any number of caves along that route in which the highwaymen hid waiting to rob travelers as if that was their job because that was their job. Centuries later, Crusaders built a fort between these cities because it was still so dangerous.
This traveler fell prey to this danger. “They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.” That’s not the surprise in the story. That’s par for the course for that trip. It’s also not surprisingly is that a priest came by, “A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man.” The temple was in Jerusalem. Jericho was a popular place for priests to live. Priests regularly walked this route. It seems like a fortunate happenstance; this man whose vocation it was to help is providentially here to help. It’s like getting in a car accident and in a car behind you is an EMT. But, Jesus tells us, “he passed by on the other side.”
Jesus makes clear that the priest saw this injured man. This priest may have passed by because he couldn’t be sure it was right to help. Maybe the injured man was a godless Gentile. Maybe the injured man was unrighteous and by helping he would be standing in the way of God’s judgment on him. The book of Sirach reads, “give to a devout man, do not go to the help of a sinner; do good to a humble man, give nothing to a godless one.” When it doubt, play it safe and so the priest passed by.
Jesus tells us that a Levite did the same. Having two religious leaders pass by a man in need is almost certainly a word of judgment upon the whole practice of Judaism in that day. Judaism was to be a religion of the two-fold commandment of love, which the expert of the law just repeated, but that love wasn’t being put into practice. In such an assessment, we must remember that Jesus is the in the perfect place to judge. The leaders of this religion of “love God and love others” will soon execute him. Jesus has this expert of the law in all this.
After the religious leaders pass by, a Samaritan saw the beaten man. Many of us are so familiar with this parable that we think highly of Samaritans. We Americans even have Good Samaritan protections in our laws. The Samaritans were not respected by the Jews with reason. Around the time of Jesus’ birth, the Samaritans had purposefully defiled the temple in Jerusalem by scattering dead people’s bones in it. Adolf Schlatter paraphrased the Samaritan woman’s response to Jesus as, “Jew, stay with your Jews.” “Samaritans and Jews had notoriously bad relations,” Snodgrass tells us. This is like Russians and Ukrainians today, Protestant Irish and Catholic Irish a generation ago. Don’t imagine that some trust exercise is going to reconcile this animosity.
The Samaritans only held to the books of Moses and so the Jews understandably believed they had defective theology and practice; but, Jesus tells us, “a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.” It seems knowing the books of Moses was enough to do the law of Moses. The expert in that law should take note. We who know our Bibles well should take note.
The Samaritan is described in terms of action verbs—saw, took pity, went, bandaged, poured, put, took, paid. That’s faith in action. “This faith is a living, busy, active, powerful thing!” as the justification by faith alone expert Luther wrote. “It cannot do anything except good. It does not even ask which good works ought to be done; even before the question can be asked it has done them and is constantly at work doing good.” That’s the Samaritan. The question is, “is that you?” Do you do?
The expert in the law tried to justify himself by trying to lose Jesus in the fog of, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus now returns with that same word asking the expert, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert wanted to know who was his neighbor. Like that priest and Levite he wanted to know if it included a Gentile or the unrighteous. Jesus dismissed the question altogether and asked him, “are you a good neighbor?” Mr. Rogers taught generations of children what it meant for it to be a beautiful day in the neighborhood was that you did what a good neighbor would do.
This expert on the law tested Jesus. Jesus tested him, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Note what that expert didn’t say? He didn’t say what even the NIV entitles this section—the Good Samaritan. The expert wouldn’t bring himself to say the word “Samaritan.” The expert hasn’t understood. He’s not doing the law and loving his neighbor as himself if he won’t even say the word Samaritan.
Jesus noticed and told this expert to learn from that Samaritan. “Go and do likewise,” and we are back to doing. That’s the word which drives this parable. Our place is to be doing with that Samaritan who didn’t think it all that notable to help. He just thought it was what decent people would do. He’s not self-absorbed like the expert. He’s absorbed in doing. That’s the point. This Samaritan knew the law better than that priest, Levite, or expert because he did it. “Do this and you will live.” That’s the sort of life that will go on eternally. That’s the only sort of life anyone should want to go on eternally.
This expert wanted to know what God wanted but he didn’t want to do it. Do you really want to know what God wants? Don’t ask if you are not willing to do it, but know it’s only the do-ers who live. Amen.