Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

Baptism of Myles Hayes Frazier

St. Luke 10:23–37

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What must I do to inherit eternal life? 

Isn’t it obvious? You can’t DO anything to inherit. You get to inherit because of what someone else decided and did FOR you—putting you in their will. Jesus could’ve answered the lawyer’s question with a very straightforward answer, something like St. Paul would later write in Titus, chapter 3: When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying” (Titus 3:4–8).

So, how do you inherit eternal life? You have to become an heir of God. And how do you become an heir? God makes you one. He puts you in His will, so to speak. Jesus does something for you. He makes you the beneficiary of His testament. God does not save you because of any works you’ve done. You play no part in inheriting. You inherit eternal life because God baptizes you into Jesus. God gives you a new birth in the washing of baptism so that you are united with the Son of God, and so you are made an heir with the Son.

But Jesus doesn’t spell out His answer this way. Instead, He tells a story. He tells a story about a man who is helpless, a man who has nothing, can do nothing—he’s as good as dead. But this helpless man was picked up, rescued, healed, cared for. In a way, he was resurrected to a new life. Why does Jesus tell this story? Why doesn’t He just give a straightforward answer? Because He wants the lawyer, and He wants us, to learn how to see—how to see yourself in the story, and even more, see Jesus in the story.

First of all, the story cannot simply mean what so many people try to make it mean. It can’t be, “Now you go be a good Samaritan. Go be nice to everyone and then you’ll be saved.” Obviously, the story can’t mean that because it goes against the clear teaching of God’s Word which says no one is good, no can be saved by their works. Instead, we get the full meaning of the story when we learn to see Jesus rightly. 

Jesus said to His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” What did the disciples see and hear? Jesus! The promised Savior, God in the flesh, God with us, dying and rising for us. The prophets and kings of the Old Testament longed to see the Savior, but their eyes could not. He did not come in their time. They did not get to see Him teaching truth and doing miracles and laying down His life for the life of the world.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, then eyes did see Him: the promised One, Jesus Christ. Now that Jesus has appeared, we can see clearly how it is that we are able to inherit eternal life through Jesus. So, blessed are the eyes that see what you see. Blessed are the eyes and ears that see and hear Jesus in the story. He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness. We are the helpless man, the man who has nothing, can do nothing—who’s as good as dead. And until we really come to grips with that, we have no hope of being saved, because we cannot try to justify ourselves like that lawyer. We cannot prove ourselves right. Jesus is the One who saves us, who justifies us by His grace. He makes us right with God. He is the Good Samaritan, who picks us up, rescues, heals, and cares for us. He resurrects us to a new life.

And all this is why we baptize babies—helpless babies, as good as dead in the sin they are born with. This is why Myles was brought here to be baptized, not so he could do something—what could he possibly do? Not so his parents or sponsors could do something—they cannot save him. No one is saved by anything humans do. God saved Myles according to His own mercy, through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on Myles generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by God’s grace, Myles might become an heir having the hope of eternal life.

In the waters of Holy Baptism, Jesus has made Myles an heir of God. That is how you inherit eternal life. And so, Myles and all of the heavenly Father’s heirs can sing this joyful and confident song:

Death, you cannot end my gladness:

I am baptized into Christ!

When I die, I leave all sadness

To inherit paradise!

Though I lie in dust and ashes

Faith’s assurance brightly flashes:

Baptism has the strength divine

To make life immortal mine.

There is nothing worth comparing

To this life-long comfort sure!

Open-eyed my grave is staring:

Even there I’ll sleep secure.

Though my flesh awaits its raising,

Still my soul continues praising:

I am baptized into Christ;

I’m a child of paradise! 

(LSB 594:4–5)

Jesus died. His last will and testament have gone into effect. We have already received our inheritance in the forgiveness of sins. And Jesus rose and lives forever. So our inheritance is eternal. We have eternal life now. And so being heirs of eternal life now, we live in a new way.

Only as children of paradise does Jesus’ statement, “You go, and do likewise,” apply to us. Even though the story cannot only mean you have to be like the Good Samaritan, Jesus does still say to us, “You go, and do likewise.” But only heirs of God can do like the Good Samaritan—like our good, loving, kind Savior, like a good neighbor to those around us. Having been baptized, Myles and all God’s children will live out their Baptism and use their inheritance. Being forgiven by God, they forgive others. Being loved by God, they love others. They show the goodness and loving kindness of God in their words and actions. This is what all baptized heirs of eternal life now do.

They don’t do anything to inherit eternal life. But having been made heirs by our Savior, having inherited eternal life in Him, then they watch and learn from Jesus, their Savior and Good Samaritan, and do likewise.

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

St. Luke 10:23–37

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor. 

That’s not what the lawyer wanted to hear. He stood up to put Jesus to the test, but Jesus ended up testing him—diagnosing him, exposing what was wrong with him. Jesus turned the question on the lawyer: “‘What shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ You tell me. What does the Law say?” Well, obviously… 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. “Yep,” says Jesus, and He begins to turn away.

Well, that wasn’t very fun. Jesus made me give all the answers… Oh, I know how to get Him talking: And who is my neighbor? Answer me that, Jesus. If you can. The lawyer was trying to justify himself. But let’s be honest, that’s not really a bad question. Who is my neighbor? It’s easy to say, “Love your neighbor.” But what does that actually mean? Maybe we should seriously ask ourselves, And who is my neighbor?

Now we’ve been trained to give the answer: Everyone—everyone’s my neighbor. We should love everyone. But again, how do you really do that? We like this answer even though it’s horribly impossible. But we like it because it’s also wonderfully impossible. There’s no humanly possible way to love everyone, which really helps to get us off the hook. Just say, Oh yes, we should love everyone. Be nice and claim to love everyone. Just think about loving everyone. And with any luck, you’ll never have to do any real work. You can avoid any real suffering with real neighbors.

See, we love the “idea” of our neighbor. We love humanity in the abstract. But real neighbors are annoying. The people we have to live with, the people we don’t like but show up in our lives anyway, we don’t really want to deal with them. So, we tell ourselves we have a duty to humanity or to society—very abstract ideas that are nice and easy to think about without worrying too much about any real details. We come up with ways to love others (the generic “others”)—ways that are often not much more than things we like doing anyway.

Also, I have to point this out: it’s no coincidence that while talk of “social justice” and “equality” is the fashionable thing, there is less and less care for individuals. Everything is race and gender and class—groups we can lump people into. And the individual baby in the womb, or the individual terminally ill parent is gotten rid of (often literally), or the individual poor person is put into the system, because we don’t want to actually deal with them. And while everyone talks about love and acceptance in general, personal interaction and communication grows more and more hostile, with people refusing to listen to each other.

We don’t exactly escape this in the Church either. We especially like to choose our favorite ways of showing love. We’ll serve our neighbor or the church by doing our hobbies and declaring our hobbies to be holy. Some of us think you can tell the church is strong when the building is taken care of, when the budget is met, when the pews are full. They care about the building projects more than what the building is there for—that it’s a place to hear and talk about God’s Word. They think: There. I helped out. I did my duty. Or others love to talk about missions and they send money to various church organizations… because we don’t have to know “those people out there.” We don’t have to deal with them. And we don’t want to think about the people in our own families that don’t come to church.

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor. And frankly, we resent that. We resent being told who we must love, because often we don’t personally like those people. But we have to love our neighbor because he is the one who is put there for you to love. What an alarming, almost ridiculous, reason for such a serious work as love. But it is precisely because love is such a serious work that we are not allowed to choose whom we love, but we must be directed to the ones we are to love. (Remember, when I say “love” we’re talking about doing the Law, sacrifice, service, giving of yourself. We’re not talking about romantic love or pleasant feelings). But if who we got to love, who we got to serve, was completely left up to us, then we would make idols out of them all. We would only serve and love them because of something in them (because we liked them), rather than because God commanded us. We would turn love into the most outrageous blasphemy against God. Indeed, we do exactly this, as we claim to love people while approving or celebrating their sins; and as we claim to love people while not actually lifting a finger for a neighbor in need.

So, for our good, God directs us to our neighbors: real people God sticks right in your face. There’s no such thing as love for humanity in general. There is the neighbor, who is the concrete sample of humanity that is actually given to you to love. And helping our real neighbor is always uglier, dirtier, always less convenient, than helping the people we like. It’s certainly harder than just talking about love, or thinking lovely thoughts.

The priest and the Levite had the job of teaching people God’s Law. It was their job to teach people about loving their neighbors. And yet, when confronted by one of their own, lying half-dead in a ditch—a concrete example where they could put their teaching into practice—they looked the other way. And they probably went back to their congregation later, and mentioned the sad sight: “Oh, it was just so terrible. Yes, poor man. It’s such a shame how unsafe the roads are these days. So many robbers about. You can’t trust anyone anymore.” Empty words and useless handwringing, but no acts of love.

Instead, the Samaritan recognized that he didn’t have much choice in the matter. There was a neighbor in need if ever there was one: a real, flesh and blood man, with much of his blood pooling beside him. The Samaritan had to love this man because he was the one put there. He had to show love to that Jewish man, and it didn’t matter that the Jews had never been very nice to him. The Samaritan did the dirty, bloody, inconvenient work of loving his neighbor.

So, who is your neighbor? Who precisely should you love? And remember, the answer isn’t “Everyone”—that’s too generic. So, does this mean you should wait until somebody is literally lying in your path, half–dead? Well, kind of. That would certainly be a big clue. But you don’t really have to wait for that. Who is already lying in your path? Who are your neighbors? Who are the people next to you? We like to pretend this is so complicated, but it’s really not that hard.

Think of the three estates, the three main areas of life: Home, Society, Church. First: the Home—there’s your closest neighbors. Your husband or wife, your children. These are people God has commanded you to love and care for. It doesn’t matter if you “like” them every moment of the day. God has put them in your life for you to serve. And you cannot abandon your duty to love the people in your home, in order to find your fulfillment somewhere else—not in a job or a hobby or some mission. But God gives a blessing with this command: you will find fulfillment and joy by sticking with it. It won’t always be easy or pleasant to serve your spouse or teach your children. But it will be a good work, a true sacrifice of love. God is pleased with that. And He promises that, in time, you will be pleased with it too.

Second: the Civil Society—or we could say, your community. Your literal neighbors. Do they need your help? Do you let them fend for themselves and figure their relatives will take care of it? It’s easy to complain about our society these days. There’s a lot to complain about—our culture seems to be dying. But nothing will get better if we aren’t looking for small ways to improve our community. It’s up to us to see that our schools are teaching children well, that we value human life, that we even be willing to give up some of our mindless entertainment and give to others.

Third: the Church. Most people naturally like their family, and you can have some choice about what neighborhood you live in, but you don’t get to choose the members of your church. Once again, these are the ones you must love because they’ve been put there. So, in church we should certainly care for one another’s needs—if someone is sick, if there’s been a death in the family, if we can provide some help out of poverty and hardship, then we should do that for fellow members in the Body of Christ. But the best way the members of the Church can love one another is by praying for one another and encouraging one another in the faith. And that doesn’t happen with just a friendly smile or handshake. We build up one another in the faith by being in church together. It is encouraging to your brothers and sisters in Christ to see you in the pew—to see they are not alone, to pray and sing with more voices than just their own. Even if you think you didn’t “get anything out of it” today, someone else was blessed just by your being there. And when you are absent, you hurt your neighbors who are here without you. The Body hurts when its parts are missing. We also build up one another and love each other by speaking God’s Word to each other, talking about it, learning it together. So, not just sitting in church, but also engaging with the Word, whether that’s in a Bible class or over a cup of coffee in the fellowship hall.

All of this has been God’s Law: Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and love your neighbor as yourself. God has commanded it. That’s why we should do it. But there is another reason why we should love God and love our neighbor. St. John the Apostle wrote in his First Epistle: In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:10–11). We love because Jesus did it for us. He did His love—it was an action, a sacrifice. By His suffering, bleeding, and dying He turned away God’s wrath. He made satisfaction for our sins. He did not love the people He liked. He made us unlikeable, unlovable people worthy of God’s love—totally justified by His righteousness. He loved His real neighbors, the ones in desperate need right there in front of Him. And for Him that really was everyone. He made everyone His neighbor by His love, you included.

We can’t do that. We can’t love everyone the way Jesus did. We certainly can’t love them by taking away their sins. We aren’t Jesus. So, Jesus gives us specific neighbors—a limited amount of people we truly can love, we truly can serve. And He gives us specific earthly works—the Ten Commandments—ten things to do for God and for other people. That’s what real love for humanity looks like: doing a commandment for another person. Your Small Catechism gives good suggestions on how to do that (and if you don’t remember what it says, then your homework is go read it). 

Real love is action. It’s sacrifice. Real love is what God did on the cross where Jesus suffered and died for us. And that same real love is now here at work in the lives of His people. Let us pray:
      Lord of glory, You have bought us With Your life-blood as the price,
      Never grudging for the lost ones That tremendous sacrifice.
      Give us faith to trust You boldly,
      Hope, to stay our souls on You;
      But, oh, best of all Your graces, With Your love our love renew (LSB 851:4).

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.


Preached at Trinity, Clinton, IA & Immanuel, Charlotte, IA

Some ideas from G.K. Chesterton, "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family", Brave New Family, p. 41

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

Hosea 6:1–6

Galatians 3:15–22

St. Luke 10:23–37

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

No one has ever seen God. He is invisible. He is a spirit. He lives in that unapproachable light and no one can see Him and live to talk about it. Remember how Moses had to hide himself under the cleft of a rock when he spoke to God on Sinai? Or how Isaiah cringed in fear, crying “Woe is me! I am undone!” when he saw God in a vision? Even the holy angels, who are not God but live in the presence of God, evoke fear in the hearts of those who see them. God is a consuming fire.

But God hides His terrible, unknowable, awesome glory beneath the most humble form. God became a man. He took upon Himself our own flesh and blood, body and soul. He has joined the human race. And His prophets had prophesied this, but they never got to see it. They never heard His voice spoken with the vocal cords of a man. And the old kings, whose kingdom Christ would inherit and bring to fulfillment, also never saw or heard what they yearned for. So Jesus says to His disciples: “Blessed are you… For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” The disciples are blessed because they see and hear it: Jesus—God in the flesh. Make no mistake about it. He doesn’t do His miracles or teach His teaching as a wise man who shares the wisdom of humanity, but as the eternal God. Our God is a man—His name is Jesus. And if our God had not become a man we could never have known Him. He joined us sinners in our helplessness in order to bring us back into fellowship with Him.

The prophet Hosea desired to see what he prophesied when he was given this Word from the Lord: I desire mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. God doesn’t desire that we would serve Him for His benefit, that we would fill Him up and please Him with sacrifices and burnt offerings. But He desires to serve us with His mercy for our benefit and to give us a right knowledge of God. And He desires that we would also follow in His ways by showing mercy to others. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God’s desire for mercy was fulfilled, and the fullness of the knowledge of God was given to mankind. The disciples saw this mercy in Jesus. They heard and learned the knowledge of God by listening to Jesus’ voice. And so they were blessed.

But this lawyer, in the text today, did not see and hear what they did. Of course, he was smart. You have to be smart to be an expert in the Law of Moses. But even with all his learning he had no true knowledge. He missed what the prophets and kings had longed for, even though it was standing right in front of him: his God and Savior in the flesh. This expert in the Law didn’t come to Jesus to worship Him, or to be taught by Him, or to receive from Him the gifts only God can give: forgiveness, life, and salvation. This lawyer came to test Jesus. Not only test Jesus, but also prove himself. He was desiring to justify himself. He wanted to show that he was just, he was righteous by keeping the Law. He thought he could be saved by keeping the Law.

Now all the Lutherans go “Oh silly Pharisee. We all know you can’t be saved by works.” But that’s not quite fair, because like the disciples, we see and hear what others do not. The kingdom of God is revealed by faith in the Word of God, but it is hidden from those who do not believe. And we have the extra benefit of the written New Testament Scriptures. We have St. Paul’s epistles that so clearly teach we cannot justify ourselves by our works, our feelings, or our good intentions. As St. Paul wrote: It is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11).

Ah, but that does raise the question in our Epistle reading today: Why then the law? If trying to keep the commandments won’t save you, then why does God command them?Answer: the Law was added because of transgressions. The Law does three things in connection with our sin, our transgressions. (1) The Law keeps our sinful flesh in bounds, it holds us in check so that we don’t utterly destroy one another and ourselves. (2) The Law acts as a mirror to show us our sin—it reveals just how horribly sinful we are, just how much we deserve death and hell. (3) And because we as Christians are not yet perfect in this life, because we still struggle with sin, the Law rebukes us and teaches us what a God-pleasing life looks like. So, all of this means that the Law is not for salvation. The promise of the Gospel, the promise of the Savior who forgives sins—that is for salvation.

So, St. Paul goes on: Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Do the Law and the Gospel contradict each other? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Law and the Gospel are for different things. The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

This is important for understanding the Parable today. The Parable of the Good Samaritan cannot mean you should be a good person, and if you are good enough and try to help people then you will inherit eternal life. Remember, that was the lawyer’s question, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer cannot be, “Act like the Good Samaritan.” Salvation is not by works of the Law. God desires mercy and not sacrifice. God is the One who gives mercy—He is our God the Man Jesus who died and shed His blood for us. The point of this Parable is to show what had once been hidden but now is made known in Jesus. This Parable shows what is now seen and heard in Jesus. We are blessed by seeing and hearing Jesus our God and Savior in this Parable as the Good Samaritan.

Jesus humbled himself. He made Himself the lowest of the low, and came to serve sinners. He sees us in our sinful condition, dying and helpless on the side of the road. And what the Law cannot do, He does. He bandages our wounds. He pours on oil and wine, to soothe and to disinfect—that is He pours on His holy medicine in Baptism, Absolution, and the Holy Communion. He takes us to the inn, paying for us to have a place in His holy Church. He paid that price by going to the cross where He offered to God His obedience to the Law: His perfect love for God and for neighbor. That was the one and only sacrifice God desired, and in that vicarious offering of love Jesus won for us the forgiveness of sins. Jesus, the Good Samaritan, who is despised by those who seek to justify themselves, He justifies us by His blood.  

And He’s not done. He doesn’t stop helping us because we never stop needing His help. Again and again, we confess our sins against God. We have not loved him with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind. And we confess our sins against our neighbor. We have not shown the mercy that our God requires. We have loved ourselves more than we have loved either God or our neighbor. But our Good Samaritan sees the wreckage we have made of our lives and He loves us. Not only does He freely forgive all of our sins, but He fills us with His own love. He changes our hearts so that we want what God wants and love what God loves. And when we fail and fall and lie helpless, He lifts us up again, forgives us again, and shows us His mercy.

And this is how we learn to love and show mercy. Our God and Savior says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. We receive mercy from Him and that teaches us to give it. Having His mercy empowers us to do mercy like Him. As our Lord said after His Parable, “You go, and do likewise.” So, we pray in our Collect today: Almighty and everlasting God, give us an increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain what You have promised, make us love what You have commanded. 

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.

A few paragraphs are adapted from Rev. Rolf Preus, Trinity 13, 2012 & 2015