Sermon
of March 6, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: Luke 10:25-37
“Jesus
Came to Bridge the Gap Between... the Law and Love”
As I’m
sure you know, this is one of Jesus’ most familiar parables along with the
parable of the prodigal son and a couple of others.
It’s one that people know even if they don’t go to church very often,
even if they may not be Christians. Many
people are familiar with the idea of the parable of the good Samaritan.
In fact, there is a law called the Good Samaritan law that is named after
this passage about how we stop to help people.
I’m sure you also know that a parable is often fictional.
It’s a story that Jesus, or someone else in other cases, has created in
order to try to illustrate an eternal truth.
And in this parable Jesus has chosen events and characteristics of the
people he has involved in a very, very deliberate way to try and teach the
eternal truth about God’s love. So
let’s just take a few moments and just think about how this parable tells us a
great deal about our own human behavior, and of course how Jesus came to bridge
the gap between the law and love.
One thing
about our human behavior is that often our actions are responses to legal
requirements or some other obligation or commitment that we have made in our
lives.
If you
look at the first two people who pass by in this parable of Jesus, the Levite
and the Priest, you will maybe come to the conclusion, as many people have, that
these are heartless, uncaring, religious elitists who have no concern about the
plight of someone who has been robbed and is now lying hurt on the ground.
That is one conclusion you can come to.
However, another conclusion you can come to about the Levite and the
Priest is that they were bound by their religious law to not go near the person
who was hurt and lying on the ground. For
there are laws still in the Hebrew law code that prohibit certain officers in
the temple, such as Priests and Levites, from going near a dead body or from
touching blood. If someone is hurt
on the ground, and it might be the case that they are dead or bleeding, it would
be the obligation of the Priest or Levite to stay away and indeed pass by on the
other side so they can retain their ritual purity for doing the rites that they
celebrated in the temple.
So there
is a kind of human action that is illustrated by the Levite and the Priest that
is also true for us sometimes, in that we act in a certain way because we are
required to by some law, or other authority or other obligation we’ve made.
Coming up very soon, you and I have a legal obligation to file our
incomes taxes, don’t we? It’s a
good idea for us to do that, and it’s a good idea if along the way we have
been paying some towards that. That
is a very common thing in our lives that is a civic obligation, part of our
citizenship in our country. Paying
taxes to the federal government, to the state government, to the town and other
places is a legal obligation that we have in our lives and we respond to that
because we feel legally bound to do so, and because there are penalties if we
don’t. In churches sometimes there
are not legal obligations, but there are commitments we’ve made; people have
made commitments to serve on boards and committees, or made a financial pledge
to the church, or some other commitment. We
feel, as much as possible, obligated to follow those things and to follow
through on those commitments; it’s an obligation we wish to keep.
Those are a variety of modern day actions that we engage in because we
are legally or some other way obligated to do so.
There is a
second kind of action that humans get involved in and that is a spontaneous
action that’s not a requirement, but just a spontaneous outpouring of emotion,
usually compassion or love, and that is illustrated in the parable by the
Samaritan. The Samaritan is not
obligated by the same laws as the Levite and the Priest so the Samaritan
doesn’t have to go by on the other side. The
Samaritan can approach the person without breaking any of the law code, and
provide help and assistance. It may
have been, of course, that the Levite and the Priest also had compassion but
they felt that their obligation to the law would override that.
But not for the Samaritan; the Samaritan would act on his compassion in
this story and go near and provide care out of love and spontaneous concern.
It’s
almost like how we respond to special offerings that we have. When the tsunami
hit in
So, where
is the gap? Well, as I read this
parable there seems to be kind of a gap between these two actions.
There is the Levite and the Priest who pass by on one side, and then
there’s this big gap, and then there’s the Samaritan down on the ground
helping out of compassion and out of love.
Jesus teaches us how to bridge that gap in the story, by teaching the
story and asking the lawyer who he’s talking to – who is the one that is
acting correctly? And it is the one
who has compassion, the one who has love. So
Jesus teaches that the way you bridge the gap is actually through one of those
two actions, through love. Love is
what should reign in our lives. It
doesn’t mean necessarily that it should override our other obligations.
But how do we find love within even the obligations and requirements we
are bound to in our lives, and not see them as something we resent or grumble
about? When we have other
obligations, other commitments, other requirements in our lives, how do we see
them as opportunities for love?
The good
news today is that we can. We can
respond with love through everything we do.
There is a way you can feel love as you do things like fulfill legal
requirements when you file taxes and everything else, and I’m going to tell
you how, because I want you to feel
good when that happens. (And by the way I haven’t been paid by the government
to do this). But when you do that, think about where it goes and think about the
things you care about – and make a connection.
If you are someone who is grateful for service men and women who around
the world serving on our behalf and putting their lives on the line – if
that’s something that’s important to you, think about that when you pay your
taxes that you’re helping to support them and helping to provide them with
what they need, and hopefully more. Think
about what you’re doing when you pay your taxes is showing your love to those
who need our support. Or if you’re more environmental, think about how your
taxes help to pay for our National Parks, and preserving the beauty of our
country. Let love enter into those
things that are part of your obligations or requirements.
When you pay your state taxes, think about how you drove down the street
after a snowstorm and the roads were plowed – that was your town taxes.
Think about how it isn’t something you should grumble about, you
don’t have to like everything about it, but you’re helping to support
something you care about. Let there
be love in everything you do, Jesus teaches, even in things that are obligations
and requirements. Even when
you’re giving not to the One Great Hour of Sharing or Tsunami relief, but even
making your normal offering in for your pledge each week, think about how that
is transformed into something that helps a child in our Sunday School, or helps
with a baptism or a wedding, or a memorial service, counseling, worship or some
other service in our church. Think
about how love can be infused into everything we do, whether it is a spontaneous
act of compassion or some requirement you’re bound to follow through.
Let
yourself be a Samaritan at all times, even when you might be called to be a
Levite or a Priest.