“Do This and You Will Be Living” - Luke 10:25-37
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This profound question, which we heard in our text for today, is hard to miss. It has an enduring and timeless relevance. In a lot of ways it is the question of the human race. Faced head-on with the reality of my own mortality, the reality that I will die, it is a question that lurks in the background of my entire existence: “How can I be certain that my life will endure on the other side of death? How can I live my life today so that I am on the path of life?”
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” In our text, Jesus was confronted with this question by an expert in the law. Though we may want to dismiss this question as ignorant because of our fear of the answer, it is important to note that in this instance Jesus himself does not dismiss this question like he often did with others. Jesus acknowledged this question by asking the expert in the law how he read the law, that is, how he understood the Word of God to answer this question. The expert in the law replied to Jesus: “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.” And to this succinct answer Jesus clearly replied: “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.” Or to put it more accurately: “Do this and you will be living.”
But this answer wasn’t satisfactory for the expert in the law and I am afraid that it does not sit well with me either. The possibility that this profound question and this simple answer are the whole truth scares me—scares me to death. Scares me because of what it means for my life. Scares me because of the unqualified obedience it demands from me.
Probably fearing the very same, we are told that the expert in the law wanted to justify himself, wanted to assure his own righteousness and standing before the Word of God, and therefore he asked another question—a question that seems logical and innocent enough, but a question that betrayed his lack of contentment for the simple and clear Word of God that he apparently knew so well. The man knew the answer to his own question—Jesus acknowledged as much!—but the man was afraid of what that answer meant, he was afraid of the demand it placed upon his life—and so he ran to the refuge of continued questioning. He thought to himself, “Maybe if I can show this Word of God to be ambiguous and unclear then I won’t be responsible for doing it, I won’t be responsible for obeying it.” And so he asked his question: “But who is my neighbor?”
By this question this man was hoping to spawn an ethical debate with Jesus, he was hoping to expose the endless possibilities: Is my neighbor my biological brother? Is it my best friend? Is it the person who lives across the street? Is it my sister in the church? Is it my enemy? Who is it? Jesus could have fallen into the trap of this question—but he didn’t. He refused to acknowledge any lack of clarity in the Word of God. And in order to show the complete misunderstanding of this second question and to reinforce the truth of the first answer, Jesus told a story…
One day a man was heading down the 17 mile road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was a winding road which dropped thousands of feet in elevation and was very notorious for its outlaws and robbers. Crusaders in the Middle Ages built a small fort at the halfway mark to try and protect travelers from the brigands who lurked around the many bends in the road. And even in 1857 there was an incident recalled by William Thomson where pilgrims who were traveling this very same road had one traveler fall behind the rest of the group only to be “attacked, robbed and stripped naked.” And it was no different for the man in Jesus’ story. As he went down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho a band of robbers jumped out from behind some boulders and ambushed him. They assaulted him. They took all he had, stripped him of his clothes, beat him to the brink of death, and left him for dead on the side of the road.
A little while after this attack a priest came riding around the bend. He beheld the scene: a naked, bloody, unmoving, unrecognizable man lying on the side of one of the most dangerous roads in the country. His stomach churned and his head swam. Then his mind jumped into action. “Is this man Jewish? Or is he a foreigner? He has no clothes and I can see no movement. Maybe if he responds I will notice his accent.” So the priest called out to the man. No response. His mind raced again: “Is he dead? I can’t see him moving or breathing and if I get too close I will become ceremonially unclean and have to spend the next week going through purification. And even if he is only unconscious, if he turns out to be a foreigner I will still be made unclean. And I really have no time for any of this. The people are expecting me. I need to be back at home to carry out the sacrifices. I have a job to do—I have responsibilities I need to attend to. And besides, what could I do to possibly help?” And with this, his mind was made up, and the priest quickly rode by the man on the far side of the road.
Shortly after the priest, a Levite came walking down the road. His breath caught in his throat and his gut seemed to drop to the ground as he took in the bloody scene. His eyes immediately darted to the boulders and hills along the road. There were hiding places everywhere. “Was this a trap?” The robbers could be anywhere. Then he thought about the priest he had seen riding a ways ahead of him at the last precipice: “Where was the priest? Had he been attacked too? Or had the priest determined that this man was beyond help? Was this man dead and unclean? The priest didn’t help this man, so who am I as a simple Levite to question his decision? And besides, I am on foot—what help could I possibly be? This is all far too dangerous—I need to get out of here!” And so, the Levite hastily moved past on the other side of the road, warily scanning the dangerous terrain.
Finally a third man stumbled across the horrific scene. This man was not a Jew—and he was not just a foreigner either, he was a Samaritan—not just an unbeliever but a heretic and schismatic. This was someone who had not just rejected the Jewish faith; this was one who had perverted the faith and was bringing division within it. The Mishna was clear: “He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like one that eats the flesh of swine.” And to make things worse, the Samaritans had defiled the Temple just a few years before this time by scattering human bones in the Temple court.
But when this despised Samaritan, traveling in Judea, the land of his enemies, saw the bloody man lying on the side of the road—his heart went out to him. Shunning the potential danger of robbers and overlooking any concern over un-cleanliness, the Samaritan ran to the man’s side. There he immediately bandaged the man’s wounds, pouring oil and wine upon them. Humbling himself to the level of a servant, the Samaritan then placed the man on his donkey and led him to an inn. At the inn the Samaritan didn’t just drop the man off, but he stayed on for the night and took care of the man. In doing this, the Samaritan willingly exposed himself to the possibility of retribution from the Jewish community, if they assumed that he, the hated Samaritan, was in fact the culprit. Just think—this would be as if a Plains Indian in the 1800s would have walked into Dodge City with an injured cowboy on his horse and then checked in to the room over the local saloon. Or as if a black man in the 1960s would have carried a beaten and bruised white woman into a small hospital in Alabama. This was an act of kindness that was socially very dangerous—and yet the Samaritan didn’t stop there. To top it all off he paid in advance for the man to stay at the inn for the next couple of days with the promise that he would return to get him and pay any final expenses.
With the completion of this remarkable story, Jesus then looked at the expert in the law and asked him which of the three men he thought was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by robbers. With the picture painted so vividly, the expert in the law was forced to vaguely respond: “The one who had mercy on him.” He couldn’t even bring himself to verbally acknowledge that it was a hated Samaritan who had been the neighbor over and against the priest and the Levite.
And then, in this moment of vulnerability, Jesus let the other shoe drop. He looked at the expert in the law and declared: “Go and do likewise.” The expert in the law was speechless. Jesus had blocked off his every escape. Every excuse was now impotent. And now he finally saw how his question was all wrong. The issue was not “who is my neighbor?” the issue was that he himself had been called to be a neighbor to everyone in his life. No longer was he an outside party who was approaching this question theoretically. Now it was personal. Now it was the expert in the law face-to-face with the word of Jesus. All that was left was obedience or disobedience. Life or death. The way of the cross or the way of selfishness.
We are not told what happens with the expert in the law after this final word of Jesus, and honestly, it’s none of our concern. We now have too much to worry about ourselves. The story has served its purpose; it has brought us to the same point as the expert in the law. Now it is you and me face-to-face with the word of Jesus: “Go and do likewise.”
This word leaves me no escape. I so often try to scramble and avoid the call of this word upon my life. I am constantly devising new excuses and new methods to approach the word of Jesus as an outsider. And sometimes the best method seems to be in avoiding and ignoring the word altogether. But this running is exhausting. And every time I run away trying to ignore the word, I inevitably get caught again: “Go and do likewise.” And as long as I run from the word of Jesus I am restless. In the back of my mind I am constantly checking to see if I have done enough to escape the word. Have I gone far enough? Am I there yet? Have I done enough to get this word to leave me alone? The word suffocates me as I try to run. My selfish desire for control, my desire to get away, my desire to be my own lord cannot breathe under the weight of this word: “Go and do likewise.”
This word squelches my every attempt to get away and be neutral towards the commandment because in the end I know the truth: this word is addressed to me. “Go and do likewise.” And it will not let me rest until I realize that my life is not all about me. As long as my focus is on me and as long as I try to run away to protect myself from this word—this word will crush me under the weight of its call. Jesus’ word will in one way or another catch up to me and teach me to deny myself—to realize that life is not all about me. It will teach me to bear my cross and to live as a neighbor to my fellow man.
But once this word catches me, kills my focus upon “me”, and teaches me to focus on Jesus and my neighbor, it then brings life and gives rest. True rest is found only in the word of Jesus—only by living in the word of Jesus. This command of Jesus, this word of Jesus is life, life that is whole and complete because it is what you were made for, it is what you were designed for by your heavenly Father. Jesus himself gives you the promise: “Do this and you will be living” and “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). To live every day no longer focused on “me” and totally focused on God and your neighbor is life and rest.
And Jesus does not and will not leave you on your own. Through his word he is picking you up, placing you on his back and taking you to the cross to die to yourself so that you will be raised to new life—living for God and your neighbor. The word of Jesus is killing your selfish desire to control life and make life all about you. But the word of Jesus is also raising you to new life. You have been baptized. You dine at the Lord’s Table. You are dead to yourself and alive to God. You are a new creation through Jesus Christ your Lord.
So, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer is simple: come, die to yourself with Jesus in the Lord’s Supper and then freely live life focused on loving God and your neighbor. That was the difference between the priest and Levite and the Samaritan. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it: “The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But then the Good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” The priest and Levite were full of fraught and concern over themselves and so their lives were restless—the Samaritan, on the other hand, knew he had a heavenly Father who was caring for him and so he was able to restfully and peacefully serve the man fallen amongst the robbers.
You are alive in Jesus Christ and you have a heavenly Father who loves and cares for you in all things; therefore, Jesus’ word to you is life: “Go and do likewise.” Amen.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” In our text, Jesus was confronted with this question by an expert in the law. Though we may want to dismiss this question as ignorant because of our fear of the answer, it is important to note that in this instance Jesus himself does not dismiss this question like he often did with others. Jesus acknowledged this question by asking the expert in the law how he read the law, that is, how he understood the Word of God to answer this question. The expert in the law replied to Jesus: “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.” And to this succinct answer Jesus clearly replied: “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.” Or to put it more accurately: “Do this and you will be living.”
But this answer wasn’t satisfactory for the expert in the law and I am afraid that it does not sit well with me either. The possibility that this profound question and this simple answer are the whole truth scares me—scares me to death. Scares me because of what it means for my life. Scares me because of the unqualified obedience it demands from me.
Probably fearing the very same, we are told that the expert in the law wanted to justify himself, wanted to assure his own righteousness and standing before the Word of God, and therefore he asked another question—a question that seems logical and innocent enough, but a question that betrayed his lack of contentment for the simple and clear Word of God that he apparently knew so well. The man knew the answer to his own question—Jesus acknowledged as much!—but the man was afraid of what that answer meant, he was afraid of the demand it placed upon his life—and so he ran to the refuge of continued questioning. He thought to himself, “Maybe if I can show this Word of God to be ambiguous and unclear then I won’t be responsible for doing it, I won’t be responsible for obeying it.” And so he asked his question: “But who is my neighbor?”
By this question this man was hoping to spawn an ethical debate with Jesus, he was hoping to expose the endless possibilities: Is my neighbor my biological brother? Is it my best friend? Is it the person who lives across the street? Is it my sister in the church? Is it my enemy? Who is it? Jesus could have fallen into the trap of this question—but he didn’t. He refused to acknowledge any lack of clarity in the Word of God. And in order to show the complete misunderstanding of this second question and to reinforce the truth of the first answer, Jesus told a story…
One day a man was heading down the 17 mile road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was a winding road which dropped thousands of feet in elevation and was very notorious for its outlaws and robbers. Crusaders in the Middle Ages built a small fort at the halfway mark to try and protect travelers from the brigands who lurked around the many bends in the road. And even in 1857 there was an incident recalled by William Thomson where pilgrims who were traveling this very same road had one traveler fall behind the rest of the group only to be “attacked, robbed and stripped naked.” And it was no different for the man in Jesus’ story. As he went down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho a band of robbers jumped out from behind some boulders and ambushed him. They assaulted him. They took all he had, stripped him of his clothes, beat him to the brink of death, and left him for dead on the side of the road.
A little while after this attack a priest came riding around the bend. He beheld the scene: a naked, bloody, unmoving, unrecognizable man lying on the side of one of the most dangerous roads in the country. His stomach churned and his head swam. Then his mind jumped into action. “Is this man Jewish? Or is he a foreigner? He has no clothes and I can see no movement. Maybe if he responds I will notice his accent.” So the priest called out to the man. No response. His mind raced again: “Is he dead? I can’t see him moving or breathing and if I get too close I will become ceremonially unclean and have to spend the next week going through purification. And even if he is only unconscious, if he turns out to be a foreigner I will still be made unclean. And I really have no time for any of this. The people are expecting me. I need to be back at home to carry out the sacrifices. I have a job to do—I have responsibilities I need to attend to. And besides, what could I do to possibly help?” And with this, his mind was made up, and the priest quickly rode by the man on the far side of the road.
Shortly after the priest, a Levite came walking down the road. His breath caught in his throat and his gut seemed to drop to the ground as he took in the bloody scene. His eyes immediately darted to the boulders and hills along the road. There were hiding places everywhere. “Was this a trap?” The robbers could be anywhere. Then he thought about the priest he had seen riding a ways ahead of him at the last precipice: “Where was the priest? Had he been attacked too? Or had the priest determined that this man was beyond help? Was this man dead and unclean? The priest didn’t help this man, so who am I as a simple Levite to question his decision? And besides, I am on foot—what help could I possibly be? This is all far too dangerous—I need to get out of here!” And so, the Levite hastily moved past on the other side of the road, warily scanning the dangerous terrain.
Finally a third man stumbled across the horrific scene. This man was not a Jew—and he was not just a foreigner either, he was a Samaritan—not just an unbeliever but a heretic and schismatic. This was someone who had not just rejected the Jewish faith; this was one who had perverted the faith and was bringing division within it. The Mishna was clear: “He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like one that eats the flesh of swine.” And to make things worse, the Samaritans had defiled the Temple just a few years before this time by scattering human bones in the Temple court.
But when this despised Samaritan, traveling in Judea, the land of his enemies, saw the bloody man lying on the side of the road—his heart went out to him. Shunning the potential danger of robbers and overlooking any concern over un-cleanliness, the Samaritan ran to the man’s side. There he immediately bandaged the man’s wounds, pouring oil and wine upon them. Humbling himself to the level of a servant, the Samaritan then placed the man on his donkey and led him to an inn. At the inn the Samaritan didn’t just drop the man off, but he stayed on for the night and took care of the man. In doing this, the Samaritan willingly exposed himself to the possibility of retribution from the Jewish community, if they assumed that he, the hated Samaritan, was in fact the culprit. Just think—this would be as if a Plains Indian in the 1800s would have walked into Dodge City with an injured cowboy on his horse and then checked in to the room over the local saloon. Or as if a black man in the 1960s would have carried a beaten and bruised white woman into a small hospital in Alabama. This was an act of kindness that was socially very dangerous—and yet the Samaritan didn’t stop there. To top it all off he paid in advance for the man to stay at the inn for the next couple of days with the promise that he would return to get him and pay any final expenses.
With the completion of this remarkable story, Jesus then looked at the expert in the law and asked him which of the three men he thought was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by robbers. With the picture painted so vividly, the expert in the law was forced to vaguely respond: “The one who had mercy on him.” He couldn’t even bring himself to verbally acknowledge that it was a hated Samaritan who had been the neighbor over and against the priest and the Levite.
And then, in this moment of vulnerability, Jesus let the other shoe drop. He looked at the expert in the law and declared: “Go and do likewise.” The expert in the law was speechless. Jesus had blocked off his every escape. Every excuse was now impotent. And now he finally saw how his question was all wrong. The issue was not “who is my neighbor?” the issue was that he himself had been called to be a neighbor to everyone in his life. No longer was he an outside party who was approaching this question theoretically. Now it was personal. Now it was the expert in the law face-to-face with the word of Jesus. All that was left was obedience or disobedience. Life or death. The way of the cross or the way of selfishness.
We are not told what happens with the expert in the law after this final word of Jesus, and honestly, it’s none of our concern. We now have too much to worry about ourselves. The story has served its purpose; it has brought us to the same point as the expert in the law. Now it is you and me face-to-face with the word of Jesus: “Go and do likewise.”
This word leaves me no escape. I so often try to scramble and avoid the call of this word upon my life. I am constantly devising new excuses and new methods to approach the word of Jesus as an outsider. And sometimes the best method seems to be in avoiding and ignoring the word altogether. But this running is exhausting. And every time I run away trying to ignore the word, I inevitably get caught again: “Go and do likewise.” And as long as I run from the word of Jesus I am restless. In the back of my mind I am constantly checking to see if I have done enough to escape the word. Have I gone far enough? Am I there yet? Have I done enough to get this word to leave me alone? The word suffocates me as I try to run. My selfish desire for control, my desire to get away, my desire to be my own lord cannot breathe under the weight of this word: “Go and do likewise.”
This word squelches my every attempt to get away and be neutral towards the commandment because in the end I know the truth: this word is addressed to me. “Go and do likewise.” And it will not let me rest until I realize that my life is not all about me. As long as my focus is on me and as long as I try to run away to protect myself from this word—this word will crush me under the weight of its call. Jesus’ word will in one way or another catch up to me and teach me to deny myself—to realize that life is not all about me. It will teach me to bear my cross and to live as a neighbor to my fellow man.
But once this word catches me, kills my focus upon “me”, and teaches me to focus on Jesus and my neighbor, it then brings life and gives rest. True rest is found only in the word of Jesus—only by living in the word of Jesus. This command of Jesus, this word of Jesus is life, life that is whole and complete because it is what you were made for, it is what you were designed for by your heavenly Father. Jesus himself gives you the promise: “Do this and you will be living” and “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). To live every day no longer focused on “me” and totally focused on God and your neighbor is life and rest.
And Jesus does not and will not leave you on your own. Through his word he is picking you up, placing you on his back and taking you to the cross to die to yourself so that you will be raised to new life—living for God and your neighbor. The word of Jesus is killing your selfish desire to control life and make life all about you. But the word of Jesus is also raising you to new life. You have been baptized. You dine at the Lord’s Table. You are dead to yourself and alive to God. You are a new creation through Jesus Christ your Lord.
So, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer is simple: come, die to yourself with Jesus in the Lord’s Supper and then freely live life focused on loving God and your neighbor. That was the difference between the priest and Levite and the Samaritan. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it: “The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But then the Good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” The priest and Levite were full of fraught and concern over themselves and so their lives were restless—the Samaritan, on the other hand, knew he had a heavenly Father who was caring for him and so he was able to restfully and peacefully serve the man fallen amongst the robbers.
You are alive in Jesus Christ and you have a heavenly Father who loves and cares for you in all things; therefore, Jesus’ word to you is life: “Go and do likewise.” Amen.
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