I’ve included a link to a podcast with Heath Curtis on Reclaiming Allegory because in it he discusses the role of parables in the teaching of our Lord. He specifically refers to the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It think it’s worth a listen while you’re chewing on how to preach the text. The podcast is a discussion about his essay included in the FritzSchrift. If you’d like to read a more in-depth analysis of what you’ve heard in this podcast, order your copy.

Here’s basically what I preached last year. Hopefully it will help get the juices flowing on bringing your study to the point of proclamation.

+ IN NOMINE IESU +

A lawyer, desiring to justify himself, asked our Lord, “And who is my neighbor.” And our Lord, desiring to justify the lawyer, flipped the question around and asked him, “Which of these three proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 

This interchange arises because the lawyer wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. Since the lawyer wants to know what he must do, our Lord asks him what is written in the Law—the Law is about doing? And the lawyer answers correctly. If you are to receive eternal life, you must 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 your self. Then comes the lawyer’s question about defining precisely who his neighbor is. 

But notice what is assumed by the lawyer here. He wants to know precisely who his neighbor is but assumes that he knows who God is and has loved Him with his whole heart, soul, strength, and mind. And with that assumption, he demonstrates not only his ignorance but also his sin. He did not recognize that the one whom he was putting to the test was God incarnate. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” 

As Jesus said to the 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.” 

God became a man. Prophets and kings had known it would happen. They longed to see the day when it did happen. But they didn’t. Jesus’ disciples did. They saw. They heard. In seeing and hearing Jesus they saw and heard God. They knew Jesus. Therefore they knew God. They knew eternal life. They didn’t know with the knowledge of a scholar or a philosopher. They knew God as only his children know him.

But the lawyer proved not to be a child of God. He did not see God when he saw Jesus. He did not hear God when he heard Jesus. He saw only a man, a man who might be used to justify himself with.

The parable of the Good Samaritan serves a twofold purpose. First, it teaches us that Jesus is the one who shows us mercy: Jesus is the Good Samaritan. Second, it teaches us that having received the mercy of Jesus, we are to be a neighbor to other by showing mercy to those in need.

We travel through life and are mugged by the devil. He leads us into temptation, and we often willingly conform our will to his as we commit all sorts of sins against God and neighbor. We respond to our neighbor’s needs with indifference, tossing the Golden Rule aside as if it means nothing at all. Instead of asking how we would want our neighbor to treat us if we were in his shoes, we ask what our neighbor can do to benefit us. Thus we sin and are trapped in it and lie on the pathway of life suffering terribly from our guilt.

The law walks on by. He tells us to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.  But he does not help us to love.  He passes by on the other side of the road.  The law walks by again.  He tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  But he does not help us to love.  He passes by on the other side of the road.

Then the Samaritan walks by.  He is despised.  He is held in contempt by the most respectable religious leaders.  But he willingly bears their contempt.  He is set on one thing: to show mercy.  The Samaritan sees us in our need.  He doesn’t see us in our worthiness because we are unworthy.  But we are needful.  This is what he sees.

He is merciful to us.  He lifts us up out of our sins.  He washes them away.  He cleanses them with the oil of forgiveness that soothes the pain and heals the wounds.  He pours in wine to disinfect the wound, and that hurts, but it is the blessed pain of repentance that is overcome by peace.  He sets our conscience at peace.

He bears us to the church, whose ministers care for our needs.  He pays for those needs.  The gospel we hear and the sacraments we receive obtain their power to save us from Jesus Christ and his obedience all the way to his death on the cross.  And he always gives the church all that she needs to be our inn of refuge.

Jesus is the Good Samaritan.  He tells the story to show us what it means to show mercy.  He tells the story to show us his mercy.  The two go together and cannot be separated.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?  What a foolish question!  It isn’t a matter of doing.  It’s a matter of receiving.  The man asked a law question and got a law answer.  Had he known who he was talking to he would have asked, “How can I receive eternal life?”  Jesus would have given him a gospel answer:  “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father, except by me.”

And as we approach God the Father through faith in his dear Son Jesus, we are always directed to find Jesus in his condescending mercy.  He is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters.  Even when we are covered with sin and wounded by the judgment it brings, he comes to us and washes us clean.  The sins he bore on the cross are the sins he forgives.  This is his mercy.  It is ours by faith and by faith alone.  It brings us eternal life.

This is the mercy we show to those who need it from us.  We forgive.  We consider our need and how our Lord met it.  Our greatest joy as Christians is in giving what we have received.  This is the beginning and end of love and everything in between.