March 12, 2023
We’re in tax season. It’s time to see if there is a loophole or deduction you can use. It makes sense, if you don’t want to pay more than you have to! With a loophole, we try to see what we can get by with. It goes for other areas of life. If the Doctor gives you rules for healthy living, like exercise every day, you might say, I do, every day I walk from my bedroom to the kitchen! Or if the doctor says, eat your vegetables, you count French fries as a vegetable! No one has to teach us to look for loopholes in the rules, it comes naturally!
We know what it means to look for the loophole, to see what we can get away with. But when it come to following God, are there loopholes?
We are in a sermon series on the gospel of Luke. There are four gospels, four books of the Bible that tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Luke wrote his gospel with a special emphasis on Jesus and the outcasts, outsiders, and outlaws. Two weeks ago, we learned God lifts up the humble and lowly. Last week we learned that Jesus understood we are all learning, and he judged carefully, making sure to really see a person as a child of God. He wants us to do the same. And today we are learning about what Jesus thought about following God and loopholes.
Luke 10:25 says an “expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.” He’s an expert in religious law. He didn’t ask an innocent question; this lawyer has an agenda. He is here to test Jesus, and he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers with a question, “What is written in the Law?” The lawyer says, “’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.’” Jesus says to him, “You have answered correctly, do this and you will live.” Verse 29 says, “But the lawyer wanted to justify himself.” He wanted to escape some of the demands of the law. So he asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” He is looking for the loophole. Who can I forget about loving? Who do I not need to waste my time with? Who can I write off?
So, Jesus tells a parable. A parable is a made-up story told to make a point. It’s the parable of the Good Samaritan. Have you ever heard of a hospital named Good Samaritan? Or have you heard of a Good Samaritan law? This is a very much-loved parable, so lots of stuff is named for it. Jesus says there is a man travelling the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It’s a dangerous road, at a time when it was dangerous to travel. No police force patrolled it to make it safe. Robbers grab this guy, strip him, beat him and leave him half dead. A priest goes down the same road, and when he sees the man, he crosses the street, so he doesn’t go near him. He walks on by. This priest has the duty to do sacrifices of animals to pay for people’s sins. If he were to touch this guy and he turns out to be dead, he would get religious cooties and he would have to go through a time of purification. He doesn’t want to take time off from his job. You might think a religious guy would care about a beaten man on the road, but he doesn’t.
Next comes a Levite. A Levite was an assistant to the priest. He sees the beaten man, and he also crosses the street to get as far away from him as possible. He walks on by.
Jesus says, “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.” This is the shocking part of the story: a Samaritan is the good guy! The Jews hated the Samaritans, and vice versa. They were at one time one kingdom of Israel; they were one people. But the Samaritans made the city of Samaria their capital, and their temple was on Mount Gerizim. The Jews always had Jerusalem as their capital, and their temple was on the temple mount. They each thought the other had gotten their faith all wrong!
So, it was shocking for Jesus’ listeners to hear that one of their enemies, a Samaritan, was the hero of the story. The Samaritan did the right thing. The Samaritan cleaned and bandaged the man, put him on his donkey and took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, which is two days wages. The Samaritan pays for a hotel room, not for himself, but for a stranger, who if he were well, might not want to have anything to do with him! And the Samaritan says, to the innkeeper, “look after him, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”
Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The lawyer replies, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” Even the lawyer, who wanted a loophole, can see which of the three men actually did what God wanted: it was the Samaritan. Jesus calls us to obey God from our hearts rather than take advantage of loopholes.
Jesus is calling for radical love. He actually wants you to act as if that person you wouldn’t even talk to is a beloved member of your family and treat them that way.
Jesus is telling us Christians to get out there and help the people we may not like. The people from the wrong side of the tracks. The people with the wrong faith, or the wrong political views.
Loophole faith is dangerous, because with it we justify being of no help to anybody! Once when I was in seminary, I did an internship with a neighborhood organization. They sent me out to do some interviews. I interviewed a man who had lived in the neighborhood many years and had a business. His business had been vandalized several times. He was angry that there was a church on the same block as his business. That church had a gym and he had asked them to invite the neighborhood youth in to the gym, to help them stay out of trouble. But the church never did. It seemed to me like he had a good point.
He was angry about it! I wanted to say to him, well, it’s not my fault! I’m not part of that church. I should be off the hook. Now as a pastor, sometimes I become aware of a neighbor in need, and I think, “Well, that’s for a bigger church to take care of.” Or “I’m busy enough.” And what does God say, “I’m talking to you!”
The pull of the church is always inward. That’s the danger, that we get concerned just with ourselves, or our holiness, or the church focuses in just on the church’s needs. The danger is that we think we don’t have any responsibility for the people around us. Jesus calls us to obey God from our hearts rather than take advantage of loopholes.
In this parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus wakes us up. He shows us, you don’t want to be like the priest or the Levite, crossing the road and ignoring the person right in front of you, who desperately needs your help.
If you don’t want to be a loophole Christian, what question do you ask? You don’t ask, “What can I get away with as a Christian?” Instead, you ask, “How is my neighbor doing?” “Who needs my help?” “If not me, who?”
My challenge for you this week is to think about times when you’ve said, “Someone should do something about that.” Ask yourself if you are the someone. Maybe God is calling you to be the Good Samaritan.
A lawyer asked Jesus, “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said love God and your neighbor. The lawyer asked, who is my neighbor? And Jesus told an inspiring story of an unlikely man who showed love and mercy and gave a 100% effort to turn someone’s life around. That story has been an inspiration that means you may have been to a hospital by that name. I was born in a Good Samaritan hospital. The story of the Good Samaritan captures our imagination. Jesus calls us to obey God from our hearts rather than take advantage of loopholes. Jesus sends us out to be the one who shows mercy. Amen.
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