Author: Peter Burfeind

So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

At this point in the Gospel, this passage, Jesus stands at the fork in the road as a road, acting both as a figure of the Old Testament and the New Testament. “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

At face value that looks like something out of the world of the Old Testament. There is the uncleanness of leprosy, rituals for dealing with lepers, and protocols for being declared clean by the priests. Jesus, who was “born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law,” gave the right answer as far as the Law went. They came looking for healing; He in a sense winked at them and said, “You’re going to get your healing, because you came to me begging my mercy, so go on, get outta here and get your declaration of cleanness.”

In obedience to Him, they all departed. On the way they were healed. We assume they all rejoiced. Yet, nine of them, as they rejoiced, continued to obey Jesus’ words, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” Meanwhile the one Samaritan returned to Jesus. Was he disobeying Jesus’ words? Jesus said “Go to the priests,” and this Samaritan goes to Jesus.

Here, Jesus becomes a New Testament figure, and we see, just as we did about two thirds of the way through the parable of the good Samaritan, a new world dawning, arising out of the Old Testament world. We see new wine skins prepared to serve the new wine of the new creation.

The question is, what does this mean? What does the new world look like?

The axiom we’re working with, of course, is that Jesus is the true priest, and whether the Samaritan knew it or not, he was truly being obedient to Jesus. Jesus said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” and he did. He showed himself to the priest that fulfilled all priests, whose ministry coalesced every Old Testament rule, regulation, and ritual and in turn, was carried on by new “priests,” the apostles.

We like that axiom, don’t we? But as with all things Jesus does with us in the Gospel, it’s never as simple as it first appears. Because Jesus uses the plural for “priests.” “Go see the priests,” He commanded, and the Samaritan goes to one person, not to all “the priests.” Aside from possible cultural issues like, did each leper go to one priest? Or, were several priests involved in the declaration of cleanness? (That’s not what the Old Testament Law said: “This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest.”)

So what do we do with the plural?

Perhaps our axiom is wrong. In that case, we’d have some justification for saying Jesus endorses disobedience to Himself. Jesus commanded, “Go to the priests,” and the man disobeyed Jesus, and Jesus praises Him. What does this mean? Are there cases were we may disobey Jesus, when it comes to the Law at least, and He’ll praise us?

Maybe. Maybe faith covers a multitude of sins. Maybe being thankful for our healing and worshiping God in Christ Jesus trumps being obedient to Jesus. Because, after all, how much of Jesus’ teaching on the Law do we disobey? Who doesn’t get angry? Who doesn’t hate? Who doesn’t lust, get worried, and swear? Who doesn’t hate his enemies? Who doesn’t fall for Mammon’s temptations? Perhaps when we come to Jesus with our moral scars, and He says, “Here’s what the Law says,” and then forgives us, the proper response isn’t to go running still to the Law, but to go find Jesus and worship Him.

The pitfalls of this interpretation are its antinomianism, as well as the confusion of distinctions of laws. Going to the priest was a ceremonial law. Jesus consistently lessened the hardship of these laws: the disciples eating grain on the Sabbath, healing on the Sabbath, the Samaritan going near what looked like a corpse, Jesus’ teaching about what goes in the mouth not really mattering anymore. Meanwhile, Jesus’ moral teaching consistently upgraded the Law in more difficult ways: don’t get angry, don’t hate, don’t lust, love your enemies, and so on.

The antinomianism is the real danger, as if Jesus’ whole point was simply to free us from, and not fulfill, the Law. If we cannot discern how Jesus fulfilled every single Old Testament Law, we make Him into a liar, for He Himself said every jot and tittle of the Law will be fulfilled. So, when Jesus said, “Go to the priests,” at some point we have to believe, He absolutely meant it. Just as He completely endorsed the rules about corpses, eating grain on the Sabbath, and all other Sabbath Laws.

So our axiom should be able to remain. Jesus gave the lepers a command, one group obeyed in an “old wineskin” way, the Samaritan did in a “new wineskin” way. Jesus is the priest to whom He went.

But again, Jesus said, “Go to the priests.” Where were the other priests?

One solution is, perhaps Jesus fulfills all priests, as Hebrews puts it, “Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.”

This interpretation also has the benefit of getting Jesus back on track with Old Testament law, which required only one priest. But obviously the tone of the previous sentence is ridiculous. Jesus doesn’t get off track. No, there’s a reason for the plural. Consider, when Jesus healed the leper earlier in Luke’s Gospel, He didn’t use the plural. He said, “show yourself to the priest.”

Were there other priests with Jesus? Of course there were, His disciples. We hear from Revelation: “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

“Go show yourself to the priests” would, in this case, mean something to the effect of, “Go to church.” That’s where New Testament priests gather and offer their sacrifices. That’s where the power of healing resides, where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name. That’s where the declaration of our cleansing happens, in the Church’s creed and worship, in the mutual consolation of the brethren occurring liturgically.

Is Jesus teaching a new priesthood here? It seems He is, else we’re stuck in that conundrum of the Samaritan not obeying Jesus. If this is the case, it sort of builds off last week’s Gospel of the good Samaritan, but in reverse. There, the old priesthood left a man half dead because they lost their way on the Law – the Samaritan risked becoming unclean for the sake of love, representing Jesus’ new priesthood in which He became unclean on the cross so that we might have life.

This week, a Samaritan, now the one needing healing, recognizes the true priest to Whom He should offer His thanks and worship. The old priesthood was good; but this one is so much greater.

And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

We’ve meditated on this one before, but it can never be meditated upon enough – even as we can never say the Kyrie enough, which is sort of the whole point about the Kyrie as taught in the Gospels – but the story that begins with a “Lord, have mercy” almost always ends wonderfully. I only say “almost” because the one time it doesn’t end well is when the rich man cries it out to Abraham in the account of Lazarus and the Rich Man.

So we can revise… No episode beginning with someone or some people crying out “Lord have mercy” to the Lord ever, ever ends poorly. Ever.

We can count on His mercy because He has mercy on all, as St. Paul writes, “For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.” All!

Huh? you say? Me too. Paul too: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” This he writes immediately after his statement above.

Given this truth, that events begun with “Lord, have mercy” always have happy endings, why do some worship forms exclude this foundation for a happy ending? Why do some worship forms cut out the Kyrie, as so much “rote” material not fit for a true “heartfelt” worship?

Not only do the accounts of suppliants crying the Kyrie show us the way of true worship, but all the accounts together give wonderful dimension to this particular element of worship. The Canaanite woman shows us how to grab onto that one crumb of God’s grace with our Kyrie, even in the fact of disciples’ rejection, God’s silence, and God’s mockery. The man with the epileptic son shows us that even when the Kyrie is combined with doubting faith – “Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief!” – it ends well. The two blind men show us never to give up, even when the disciples themselves, or the crowds, or the creative worship team, wants to snuff out our Kyrie.

The Kyrie puts us exactly where our Lord wants us, relying on Him for mercy. If the humble will be exalted, then it behooves us to be humbled. Leprosy will do that. Blindness will do that. Demonic possession will do that. All these things arise from our disobedience, which as St. Paul says, God has “committed” us to.

Again, huh? Perhaps it’s a reference to the fact that God is the one who added that one little thing known as “and evil” to His creation, something beyond the goodness of everything He had created, something put there for some reason in His wisdom. But whatever His wisdom, we know the end game is that He might have mercy.

There’s our proof text for our many apologetic arguments that go something to the effect of, “I don’t know why God would do this, but I do know He’s a loving and merciful God and will work all things out for the good.” There it is, right there in Paul: “ For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.”

Because of the leper(s), we now know what proper faith and worship look like. Because God committed them to leprosy, we know what right looks like. It looks like (1) praying the Kyrie, (2) confessing Jesus as Lord and God, and (3) offering eucharist, a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Again, why would a creative worship team, with all the examples from Scripture about what worship looks like, exclude the Kyrie? Perhaps they feel God is moving them to different worship forms. If so, they are taking us away from the Gospel. They’re taking us out of that universe and putting us in a universe arising from their own heads, that and K-Love.

The liturgy puts us in the universe of the Gospel. How wonderful to know what heft is behind our Kyrie as we pray it in the liturgy. It echos back to the cries of those who were healed by Jesus, which is a guarantee that the same will happen to us.

Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off.

Leviticus 13 gives the guidelines of the Law regarding how to diagnose a leper. Leviticus 14 describes how a leper might be declared clean again. There are two dimensions of uncleanliness. First is the physical, health dimension – Leviticus 13 gets extremely graphic about diagnosing skin diseases, talking about raw flesh and subcutaneous infections and whatnot. Second is the spiritual dimension, for in Leviticus 14, the leper must offer a sin offering for atonement in order to be finally declared clean.

This is all good information providing background for all the events which conspire in our Gospel for this week. The meditation for today’s passage, however, focuses on a few select regulations, the first from Leviticus, the second from Numbers:

Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse.

Thus, the ten lepers were “afar off” because that’s where the Law put them. They were outside the community, even the community of faith. They were physically infected and contagious, but as we see above, also spiritually unclean.

What a powerful image commenting on the nature of sin! Sin is contagion. Sin has an effect on the physical body, which can transmit from one to the next.

It’s not that the lepers per se were extra sinful. It’s rather that their leprosy manifested the sin all of us have in ways unacceptable to the community of faith. The community of faith is a type of restored Eden, quite frankly, and so, if we may be a bit crude, has certain appearances to keep up. That is the nature of types. A type is ultimately a shadow, an insufficient forecasting of a greater fulfillment to come. A year old lamb, for instance, is just as part of the falling creation as anything – it will die. But as a type, a prophecy of the spotless Son of God, it had certain appearances to keep up.

So also the leper. Someone without leprosy represented a “clean” person, one forgiven of sin. A leper, by contrast, was a type of the one experiencing eternal death, whose “worm does not die.” Again, this is all at the appearance level. Even the “clean” person atoned for by the sacrificial lamb wasn’t truly taken care of, until Christ. Hebrews 10 really emphasizes this, particularly with this verse: “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” And again, “this Man [Christ] …offered one sacrifice for sins forever.”

Everything is in type, in appearance, as a public testimony of things to come. But the fact that it’s a public testimony underscores the important connection between the physical and spiritual. What was the Lord teaching, even if by type or appearance, by casting the leper out of the community? In a sense it was a replay of Adam and Eve – under the skin-falling-apart curse of “dust to dust” – being cast out of Eden.

And it’s ultimately a type of hell, being cast from the presence of God. Christ bore this curse by Himself being cast out of the community at Calvary, abandoned by God. Those who believe in Him – whose faith makes them well – will exchange their ostracism from the community with Him, gaining His right of access to the heart of the community, at the right hand of God.

But there’s another level of interpretation, and that has to do with the contagious effects of sin. Why the separation? Why the distance from holy things? Not only is it because God wants nothing to do with death, Him being a God of life, but to protect the community from evils.

The Bible repeatedly teaches that tolerated sin has a contagious effect. And interestingly, just as there was an “appearance” thing going on with the leper – insofar as we are all lepers – there is a parallel with sin as well. We use the expression, “open and unrepentant” as a tribute to this “appearance” factor. Everyone who lusts is an adulterer, but only the adulterer who lives in open and unrepentant sin is under church discipline. How is that fair? Well, how is it fair that only lepers are cast out, when everyone living is actually falling apart?

But the difference between the “open and unrepentant” sinner and the “keep up appearances” sinner is perhaps one of humility. Open and unrepentant sinners may recognize what they do as sin, but they don’t care; there’s a certain amount of pride going on. “Keep up appearances” sinners recognize the effect their sin will have on the community, so they keep their sin under wraps.

The open and unrepentant sinner parallels the leper, whose sin in a sense becomes subcutaneous. It’s not just a passing infection, but part of him. And it becomes contagious. It can threaten to corrupt the whole body. Again, the Bible is clear about the dangers of this situation, which is why it teaches church discipline, excommunication, staying separate from open rebels, and being careful with the company you keep.

As Jesus teaches, if a hand or eye causes an sin in the body, it should be cut off. It’s a leprosy of the spirit. Or as the wisdom of the Old Testament teaches, bad company can effect good character. Or as Revelation says, “Separate from Babylon, my people!” Over and over it goes.

There are spiritual lepers, open and unrepentant sinners. The Church – the community of God – is to keep them separate from her midst. This is for the good of the body. Their very proximity to the believer can have a negative effect. Of course, with the ubiquity of screens on every wall and in every hand, the leper is now brought in extreme and immediate proximity. What contagious effect will this have on souls? I think we know the answer to that.

 

The account of the ten lepers is another one of those comprehensive texts, painting a full picture of what the Gospel looks like and what faith looks like. It brings together several themes from the Gospel of Luke we’ve seen in the previous weeks. There’s the theme of mercy; there’s the contrast of Old Testament from New Testament; there’s another Samaritan; and finally there’s the theme of faith.

The account begins with lepers standing “afar off.” They stood afar off because that’s where the Law placed them. They were unclean, and to have contact with them would make you unclean. Therefore they stood separate from others.

And this isn’t some unenlightened aspect of God reigning in the Old Testament, along with the rules about handling corpses (as we saw last week). Rather, it’s a statement about the fall. God hates the fall and all its consequences. The fall results in death. God is a God of life, not death. That which He gives life, which is now returning to death because of rebellion, He has nothing to do with.

And in fact, the Old Testament provided the means by which the unclean might become clean, or how the sinner might become forgiven. The Old Testament was ultimately merciful. But as St. Paul spoke of it, it was a “pedagogue,” leading us to new ways. It was the training wheels.

In any event, that’s why the lepers were standing afar off. It’s where the Law placed them. When Jesus comes by, they cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” This is the kyrie, the “Lord, have mercy,” the beginning of all faith, the beginning of all healing. No story ends sadly that begins with “Lord, have mercy.”

Again, why contemporary “worship leaders” would edit this beautiful witness out of the church’s worship eludes us. The historic liturgy has it in three parts of the worship – the Kyrie, the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Agnus Dei – meanwhile, a typical contemporary worship service won’t have it at all. Not only do they remove the formal prayer, but they remove what it symbolizes as an article of our faith. The one praying “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” goes home justified. The one posturing himself at the zero point is the one lifted up. In contemporary worship there’s usually no humbling to speak of, no actions of humiliation, no words of humiliation. Not so the lepers.

Jesus answers the one praying the Kyrie, as He always does. Again, every story that begins with “Lord, have mercy” ends up well for the one praying it, except for the time the rich man said it in the fires of Hades. But then it was too late. But for those who still have a chance, “Lord, have mercy” always, always ends well for the one praying it.

Jesus sends the lepers to the priest. Why? Because that’s where lepers were to go, according to the Law, in order to be declared clean. One wonders why the lepers did as Jesus instructed. They could have gone to the priest any time. Why now? Why when Jesus told them to? They must have suspected there might be a healing on the way there. And in fact, because the priests were the ones who declared them clean, it was sort of like Jesus sending them with a wink. It would be like someone begging God for more money, and God says, “Why don’t you go check out your bank account.” And of course, they were healed on the way.

Now things get interesting. Jesus had commanded them to go to the priest. The nine lepers were obeying Jesus. And in fact, the priests would be the ones to declare them clean.

Or were they?

Because who is the true priest? And what is the true declaration of cleanliness? Well, here’s where we get another example of old wineskins not able to contain new wine. Yes, the nine lepers going to the priest for him to declare them clean was strict obedience to the law and in fact to Jesus Himself. But faith recognizes something greater. It recognizes Jesus as the focal point of God’s mercy on earth. It also, even if unwittingly, recognizes Jesus as the true priest, with true power, and true ability to declare a true cleansing.

The non-unwitting response of the leper is in fact the recognition of the greatest mystery, that Jesus is God in human flesh. Look at the language, “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks.”

Notice, he glorified God, and then worshiped Jesus and gave Him thanks. To glorify God is to worship Jesus. And this mystery trumped even obedience to Jesus, Who Himself was simply mouthing Old Testament Law. Here’s a perfect example of Jesus fulfilling and moving beyond the Law. He Himself administers the Law; but He also reveals something greater at hand.

The unwitting response of the leper is that in fact Jesus was the priest he needed to go see. For as Hebrews tells us, “We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.”

And the second unwitting response of the leper is that Jesus’ declaration of cleanliness is actually the true cleansing he needed. “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” Jesus declares him well, by faith.

Now, if we understand “made well” simply as “healed of leprosy,” then what made the other lepers well? Did they too have faith? Or just obedience to the Law? Clearly Jesus is singling out the Samaritan’s faith as something above and beyond that of the others. Which stands to reason that he got a “wellness” above and beyond that of the others. What healing did he get beyond being healed of leprosy, which all ten got?

We suspect it’s eternal salvation, because, well, that’s what the Gospel is all about. It’s also what results when someone comes in faith to Christ and recognizes in Him the merciful work of God on earth, that is, the Holy Trinity. Although Jesus doesn’t specifically say what the wellness He gave entailed, it’s safe to assume this is what He meant.

So, let’s look at the pattern:

Pray the Lord for mercy. Get healed. Worship Jesus as God in flesh. Glorify God. Anyone see the pattern there? They should, because it’s the same pattern as the liturgy, at least the first third of it. Kyrie, absolution, Gloria in Excelsis. There’s also a creedal element in the leper’s actions, insofar as he recognized in Jesus the work of God.

Whereas in last week’s Gospel, the Samaritan was the merciful one, this week, the Samaritan is the one who is dealt with mercifully. In both week’s the theme is similar. There’s a new dynamic at hand that’s lifting things out of the Old Testament arena with its laws. Mercy is fulfilling the Law and bringing it to completion.

Yet, there’s also a subtle teaching going on in this week’s Gospel that we shouldn’t forget. Yes, there was a truer healing the Samaritan was experiencing. Yes, Jesus is the true high priest. Yes, the nine should have returned and recognized Jesus is God in flesh, and gave Him thanks. But they simply did not have the faith that the Samaritan had. Yet. (Let’s be optimistic!)

Did that mean the Lord reversed their healing? Did He undo His work of grace? Due to their lack of faith, did He take away their healing? Of course not. Why? Because the Lord is good. He is good to those who are not faithful to Him. He causes the sun to shine on the good and evil alike. He gave out a goodness and a mercy today that was reacted to at two different levels, all of it good, some of it way better.

The “way better” goodness and mercy was at the level of faith. May we all have such faith, a faith resulting in glory of the Triune God, and so have the true healing.

 

So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

What exactly was the lawyer supposed to “do”? Remember, his question was, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ answer is, “The one who shows mercy is your neighbor.” And then says, “Go and do likewise.” Does that mean, do as the Samaritan did or do as the wounded man did?

The “Be the Samaritan” answer, the answer that makes most sense, actually requires that Jesus changes the premise of the text. The lawyer was asking who his neighbor was. Upon discovering that it’s the one who has mercy, Jesus says, “Go and do likewise,” meaning, “Be like the Samaritan.” That wasn’t what the lawyer was asking.

Yet, Jesus never accepted the premises of those who tried to test Him. Never. Watching Jesus answer the questions of those trying to test Him is like watching an unsuspecting animal wander near a hidden snake. He shatters their premise and takes them to new heights.

He doesn’t really answer the question. He turns it on its head. When we want to focus on the minimum we need to do in order to be obedient to the law, Jesus re-frames the issue. It’s not about what you need to do, but new ways of defining neighborliness, that is, having mercy. The Samaritan exemplifies new way; the lawyer was stuck in an Old Testament way of thinking.

So, when Jesus says, “Go and do likewise,” He simply means, “Join the new way of doing things, a way centered not on the minimum requirements of the Law, but on mercy. So yes, be the Samaritan who had mercy.”

The “be the wounded man” answer takes us in a different direction. Here, when Jesus said, “Go and do likewise,” He meant, “Rather than defining down your neighbor, be prepared to be the object of his mercy when you need him.” This is probably an overly literal way of interpreting it, but it does fit the words of the text. Who is my neighbor? The one who shows mercy on you when you’re bleeding on the side of the road. Go and be that person! Be the wounded one dependent on another’s mercy.

This clearly fits the overall tone of the Gospel as such, and even the Gospel of Luke. Who went home justified? The one who begged for mercy and beat his breast. Who is the one who went home healed? The one who was given long term care by the Samaritan.

Both directions clearly highlight important aspects of the Gospel, each unified by the general principle that our Lord is merciful and wants mercy to be the mark of His people. As Jesus spoke in His sermon on the plain, in Luke, “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” This is a bit different than what Jesus said in His sermon on the mount, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

But then again, it’s very much similar. The lawyer wanted to know what he must do to gain eternal life – what is God’s perfection, so that we may be saved? Jesus begins with the lawyer’s own premises rooted in Old Testament law. Love God and love neighbor. The lawyer – representing all those stuck in the old way of thinking, including our old selves and old Adams – wants to know the limits of that love. Jesus delimits love with His parable, revealing unconditional mercy as the norm. “Go and do likewise,” He says. He ends with mercy.

To be perfect as the heavenly Father is, is to have mercy. What is mercy? To look after those injured on the side of roads. To give them long term care. To get to this point, you first have to recognize that you yourself are that injured one at the side of the road, and have been taken care of by “the one who has mercy.”

Who is that? Well, that brings us to the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. It’s the one the healed leper returned to and gave thanks. It’s Jesus Christ.

Go and do likewise. What does this mean? Receive mercy from the Lord and give it to others. “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful.”

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.”

Now we get to the Samaritan. The interpretation we’ve been going with throughout our meditation on this week’s Gospel, is that the priest and Levite passed by the other side because they did not want to come in contact with something unclean. It’s not that doing so would cause them to do something illegal according to the Law, but it could make them unclean.

Their lovelessness comes on two fronts. First, they assumed the man was dead and gave him no benefit of the doubt. When they saw him, they could have thought, “Oh, here’s what looks like a dead body, but what if there’s still life in him? I should help him.” Rather they thought, “Oh, there’s a dead body. The Law says I become unclean if I go near it. Better cross the street. And if there’s life in him, I’d still better be safe than sorry.”

Second, even though there was protocol for them to touch bodies – Jewish caretakers of corpses did it all the time (as we’ll see in this coming week’s Gospel) – they chose not to go that path. All they had to do was ceremonially wash and be clean by the next day. Instead, they chose to go the easy way.

But now the Samaritan comes, and he has mercy. He wasn’t as bound by Jewish Law as the Jews were, so his constraints were fewer. Here’s a question: why does the Lord introduce a Samaritan? What’s his purpose?

The traditional interpretation is, Jesus is doing a little “what goes around comes around” with the lawyer. The lawyer is wanting to limit the “love your neighbor” command to just Jews (or so it is assumed), and so Jesus turns the tables on him by introducing this Samaritan and asking, “What limits did the Samaritan place on ‘love your neighbor’?” The answer is, “none.” And the lawyer should do similarly.

This isn’t a bad interpretation but I think it’s a bit removed from the deeper theological point Jesus is making about the Law in general. It’s not so much “what goes around comes around” Jesus is teaching, but “If you live by the Law, you’ll die by the Law.” Or as I’ve been putting it, how will you fare in the universe arising from your own principles?

This takes the personality out of the interpretation. It’s from this interpretation that we get the cliched type of pious, but loveless, religious people, as if to be religious means to put rules and rituals above real people. This in turn feeds that silly narrative in which on one side you have the type of all those loveless, judgmental, hypocritical “church people” with their morality, rituals, and rote religion, who aren’t authentic, would never go to a soup kitchen, or who would never welcome a poor person into the church. On the other hand you have the type of the poor and alienated, not bound by their rules and rituals, who showed true love.

I don’t buy it. Wasn’t Nicodemus a Pharisee and didn’t he take care of Jesus’ body after his death, becoming unclean? Meanwhile wasn’t Judas, the one concerned about giving to the poor and fighting against “the man,” um, Judas? It’s a bit too clean of a trope. But that’s what I fear happens when you turn the Levite and priest versus the Samaritan into character types rather than theological types.

What are those theological types? It’s as we’ve been contemplating. The priest and Levite represented a certain view of the Law, a view that “tithe[s]… mint and anise and cummin,” but neglects “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” Jesus even adds, “These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.” In other words, yes, you can remain faithful to the Law while observing justice, mercy, and faith. You can check and see if a dead person has some life in him, become unclean, and become ceremonially clean again through the washing.

But how does the Samaritan fit in this interpretation? What is the “Samaritan theological type”? Well, Jesus tells us what that type is. It’s the one who has mercy. And it’s a mercy defined by full care, unconditional care, as we see in our passage for meditation today. And not just immediate, but long term care.

The Samaritan is introduced not so much as a positive character type as he is a counterpoint to the Jewish theological types who represent the Law. We assume Jesus is doing a comeuppance thing with the lawyer as He uses this Samaritan – “You lawyer, you want to limit love away from the Samaritans, but what do you think if the tables were turned?!!” – but that’s not necessarily the case. The lawyer was just being lawyerly and wanting to define the limits of love. The Samaritan is thus a stand-in not for the lawyer’s comeuppance, but for the non-Jewish-Law way to think about things.

By this interpretation, the lawyer was not loath to speak the word “Samaritan” when Jesus asked, “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” Rather, he was answering theologically and properly recognizing what Jesus was teaching. In other words, the purpose wasn’t to praise Samaritans as such, as a certain type of alienated demographic group who are truly authentic good people – this in fact borders on the Marxist tendency to romanticize the poor. But it was to grasp the bigger point Jesus was making about being merciful.

The Samaritan’s world wasn’t bound by Jewish Law. That’s all. And if we would be healed from our wounds, we would need a world unbound from Jewish Law as well. Which is exactly what Jesus does. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10: 4)

He ended it by fulfilling it, “without leaving the others undone.” That is, He lived and died under the Law to redeem us from the Law, so that He could show mercy and justice and faith, binding up our wounds, paying for our stay, and coming back to pay the full cost of our recovery.

The Law had every importance, to get us to Christ, and for those with ears to hear and eyes to see (even as Jesus said the prophets and kings longed to hear and see such things), the Law had within it the very seeds of this future glory in Christ.  The priest and Levite did not hear or see these things, got caught up in what in effect were the training wheels, and so created the world where men were left for dead on the side of the road.  Not so the one who showed mercy.

Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side.”

One always wonders to what extent Jesus is loading meaning on the seemingly innocuous details of His parables. Does it mean something the “certain man” went down from Jerusalem to Jericho? Is there some “descent” theme going on? Is there something going on with the meanings of Jericho, as “City of Fragrance” or “City of the Moon”? I suppose we could run around all over the map in terms of interpretation on this score.

One new age website interprets it thus: “Jericho is the opposite of Jerusalem. One represents the spiritual; the other, the material. We often start from Jerusalem with high spiritual resolves, but are robbed by outlaw thoughts on the way.” [http://www.truthunity.net/mbd/jericho]

Who would have thought the priest and Levite represented “outlaw thoughts”? In fact they represented an (albeit misguided) adherence to the Law, insofar as they were attempting to stay clear of what appeared to be a dead body.

I do think we may be able to mine some interpretive gold from the idea of “descent.” In the Gospels, you didn’t just “go to Jerusalem,” but very often you “went up to Jerusalem.” Why? Because it was literally higher. But this did have spiritual meaning as well. The temple was the highest part of an already high area, so it was like literally going up to heaven.

Therefore, the “certain man” going down from Jerusalem to Jericho could be understood as a distancing from the divine truths of Sinai to the abuses of the Law we get with the priest and Levite.

Also, given the “certain man” ends up being the lawyer, that adds a dimension. The further the lawyer gets from the spiritual heights of the Law, represented by Jerusalem, the more he is open to being robbed of his person through a conspiracy of bad people and bad theology.

Of course, one of Jesus’ big points is that He came to fulfill the truly spiritual heights of the Law, and do this in Jerusalem, through His death. But in the meantime, the lawyer has to descend into the depths of his own thinking. Lets probe that.

The lawyer’s methodology, as witnessed in the Gospel for this week, is to see the Law as a limit on love. “Who is my neighbor? Who exactly do I need to love? How do you define ‘neighbor’?” This is the lawyer’s game, and it was an abuse of God’s Law. What Jesus teaches here is, the one who descends into this game will always end up hurt.

Consider how some abuse biblical rules on marriage and sexuality. They’ll play games of exegetical Twister to justify a divorce, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, or all number of abuses. But in a world created out of that thinking, they will surely end up hurt, as we see over and over again in our sexually promiscuous world. And of course, the children have gotten most hurt, to say nothing of our pre-born children. “What really is sexual intercourse? And what really is the purpose of marriage?” OK, great. And now we have a society of wounded spirits lying on the side of the road dealing with the fallout.

The same goes for all the commandments. “What does honoring parents really mean? They have to earn respect!” OK, then don’t complain when the police lose all authority and we descend into a feudal society run by drug lords cutting the faces off people.

“What does killing really mean? What is human life?” OK, then don’t be surprised when suicide becomes a celebrated rite of passage for the truly woke, or when mass extermination of certain demographic groups becomes the norm, or when humans are harvested for body parts, or when cannibalism to prevent global warming becomes a thing.

“What does bearing false witness really mean?” OK, then I guess the world is nothing but an illusion crafted from projected constructs and narratives, and we are all two-dimensional characters in an the internal psycho-drama of the elite message-makers. Police man = bad oppressor. Have fun not ending up injured in that world!

“What does coveting really mean?” OK, then let’s live in a world of pure desire, with minds numbed by the “I want” drug, living in an online bubble arising solely from my personal desires, a world surrounded by gods of my own making that I worship non-stop. Who can even see his injured neighbor outside of that bubble?

A descent indeed!

The point is, when someone plays that “What does [x law of God] really mean?” game, someone ends up hurt. Always. And Jesus doesn’t like people getting hurt, nor does the Father, which is why the Lord didn’t set up the Law this way.

He set up the Law in response to a fallen world, to teach what is. Corpses are unclean because God is a God of life. Corpses are where Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, reigns, and God wants nothing to do with Beelzebub.

But the finger of God – that is (as we learned last week), God made flesh – casts out demons. Jesus defeats death. He did this by dying Himself, but not being subject to corruption. Flies came rushing to Jesus, sensing death, but did not find decomposing material. They found life. Therefore in Christ the dead are no longer unclean. Baptism makes that happen.

And in the Old Testament, there were given instructions on how His gracious act of salvation could been done, albeit in type. That is, anyone could become unclean for a day, in order to take care of a corpse properly, and then be clean the next day after a ceremonial washing of water. Why did the priest and Levite not take advantage of that aspect of the Law? Because they were not compelled by mercy, which is what love of God and love of neighbor entail.

Jesus had that ceremonial washing of water in His baptism, and the baptism of His death, and we do as well. He became unclean – a cursed thing hanging on a tree – so that He might have contact with us, reach down into our grave and save us. That is the true way of loving neighbor. That true way of love leaves no one injured.

The Old Testament Law, given from the heights of Sinai and taught from the spiritual heights of Jerusalem, truly allowed for that understanding. But indeed, something happened with Israel’s thinking – it descended down from there, and got hurt.

But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

This passage introduces the doctrine of justification. St. Luke was a companion of St. Paul, who has the most refined theology of justification in the Bible. It’s likely the two of them dialogued often on the subject, and it shouldn’t surprise us if Luke included teaching on justification in his Gospel.

Here are the usages of the Greek word group for “justify” in Luke:

[Jesus said,] “For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” And when all the people heard Him, even the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John

“For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by all her children.”

Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things [i.e. the Parable of the Unjust Steward, Jesus’ teaching on Mammon, et. al.], and they derided Him. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

“I tell you, this man [the tax collector in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector] went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Three of the passages quoted above relate, led by the phrase, “this man went down to his house justified. Which man? The tax collector who humbled himself. He was exalted in his justification. This parallels the first verse quoted above, when the tax collectors “justified God” after Jesus declared them greater than the great John the Baptist – truly the humble were exalted! And then when Jesus is declared a friend of tax collectors, He says wisdom is justified by all her children. Well, “Wisdom” (God in Christ) had just indeed been justified by her children (the tax collectors) in the first passage above, when the tax collectors justified God.

The point is clear: the righteous way of God is to exalt the humble, and the humble are those who confess their sins and turn to God, seeking His righteousness. In other words, righteousness is not what we do, but what we seek God to be for us.

Twice we get an interesting use of “justify,” where “God” or “Wisdom” is justified. Usually it’s the other way around. To justify God is to declare that God is good, merciful, and just to those who repent. Yes, to the tax collector who prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” God is merciful and just, insofar as He justifies the tax collector. And the tax collector in turn declares God just.

In other words, as St. Paul teaches, it’s God’s righteousness at work in our salvation, not ours. As St. Paul writes to the Romans, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed.” What is this righteousness? Its “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

And that leads us to this week’s Gospel. The lawyer wanted to “justify himself.” That’s always a wrong way to begin. It’s wrong on St. Paul’s terms because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It’s wrong on Jesus’ terms because it leads to people staying injured on the side of roads. Also, it leads to self glory, self glory masquerading as gratitude to God, as in the case of the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector.

But let’s probe that first wrongness on Jesus’ terms, how self-justification leads to people getting hurt on the side of roads. This is to say, self-justification is ultimately loveless. Why? Because to justify self, you have to establish a standard of self-righteousness you believe you can live up to. Well, those who don’t live up to your standard by necessity fall through the cracks. We are all made in God’s image and retain the temptation that we can be gods, so we’re always mimicking Him in deficient ways. In this case, we become judges, as God will be judge. And when someone fails our standards, we sit in the judgment seat and declare them condemned, leading to whatever loveless behaviors we would have with them.

This is exactly what Jesus exposed with the lawyer in the Gospel. His standard of righteousness left people hurt, condemned. The Pharisee’s self-justification in the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector too led to him degrading the tax collector. Self-justification always leads to a certain elitism: I’m better than thee, and you’re not worthy of anything more than being injured on the side of a road.

Jesus’ standard of behavior, by contrast, is to not judge, but save. He’s the friend of sinners. He exalts the one who confesses his sins and turns to Him. And those who do not “live up to” this standard – who reject the mercy of God and the work of the Holy Spirit; who do not “go and do likewise” – will indeed be judged, not because of their behaviors, but because they rejected the proper theology of Who God is for them.

In Matthew, Jesus says by our words we will be justified. That introduces a new dynamic into today’s theme. It truly does boil down to theology and doctrine, what we say. Again, we’re all made in God’s image and reflect Who He is in fallen, deficient ways. As God created the universe by His Word, we are always creating worlds by our words. What sort of world is created by the one who justifies himself?

Well, we see exactly what sort of world that is in this week’s parable. It’s a world where people get hurt. The lawyer’s words created that world; his theology and doctrine created that world.

What sorts of worlds do we create by our words? What sorts of worlds arise from the standards we have by our self-justification? Who ends up injured on the side of the road because of the words we’ve spoken into our lives, creating the world we want to live in? Would we want to live in that world?

The opposite of self-justification is God-justification, us humbling ourselves and recognizing our “nothing” status before God – and therefore before one another – and God in turn lifting us up – and by implication all others as well, for all are creatures of God and redeemed by Him.

 

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

There are three “do”s in the Gospel for this week. (1) What shall I do to inherit eternal life? (2) Do this and you will live. And (3) “Go and do likewise.” The Greek word for “do” [poieo] is used each time.

We cannot escape the “do.” Why would we want to? Because “doing” something places the burden of salvation on us, and that (a) frightens us because we are sinners, and (b) seems to take glory away from Christ, who is solely responsible for saving us.

But there sits the “do” offering no escape. We’d hope Jesus would say something to the effect of, “It’s not what you do; it’s what I do for you.” But He doesn’t. In fact, He endorses the lawyer’s “do” answer – He Himself contributes to it! The lawyer asks, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus effectively answers, “Do this: love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you will live.”

Love God and love neighbor is the fulfillment of the Law. That is not only the lawyer’s reading of it, but Jesus’ as well. A good Protestant will lead us away from the Gospels and run to St. Paul. But there’s no reprieve from him either. As he writes:

“God…will render to each one according to his deeds: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness – indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek.”

He also writes, “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

Yet, obviously, there’s more to the “do,” else Jesus wouldn’t have been needed. If eternal life simply came down to loving God and loving neighbor, something any Jewish lawyer would have rightly recognized, what was the purpose of Jesus? Was it just to make the Law more difficult to keep? “You have heard it said you can obey the Law this way, but I say to you something way more difficult.” Wow. That’s good news?

Obviously not. And obviously the whole point of the parable of the good Samaritan, as wel as the whole Gospel, is to do what Jesus says He came to do, which is not pour new wine into old wine skins. The whole point of the parable is to lift us up to a greater fulfillment of the law, and the reason the whole episode is recorded in the first place is to demonstrate how Jesus’ teaching lifts us out of that of the law and its scholars. Again, this is sort of obvious.

And in St. Paul’s case we get a similar dynamic. After all, the first of his passages quoted above, if you follow the development of his theology after it in his letter to the Romans, does not end there. Yes, St. Paul wraps up his point, anchored in that passage quoted above, with “the doers of the law will be justified.” Whoa! That’s not exactly Reformation doctrine!

But then read what follows, from Romans 2: 14 to Romans 3: 19. His argument is, in a nutshell, “Yeah, doers of the law will be justified, but no one does the law!” And so his conclusion is, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” And then he proceeds to “the righteousness of God apart from the law” centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So that takes care of Paul. But what about Jesus? Jesus is ultimately doing the same thing St. Paul is doing, but in a different, less systematic, manner.

Jesus too begins with the premise that the Law is authoritative and gives the recipe for salvation. “Love God and love neighbor.” And Jesus’ purpose in coming wasn’t just to say, “Hey, you people, you need to love God and love neighbor! And you, you lawyers, this isn’t just Jewish neighbors, but Samaritan ones too!” Don’t be racists. Oh how today’s left would love it if that was the big point of this week’s Gospel and all the Gospel. But it isn’t, of course.

No, the big “new wine not fitting old wine skins” teaching of Jesus wasn’t that we should love people of different cultures. The Jews had that teaching already. As the law says, “You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

What then? What’s the “new wine”?

Recall that Jesus had just gotten done saying, “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

There’s the “new wine.” The “new wine” is what, ironically, the disciples were filled with on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filling them and their message with the realities restored when Jesus sat down at God’s right hand, the vision of our restoration with the Father, our justification before God.

The new wine is centered on Jesus, not the law. But Jesus is the fulfiller of the law, so it’s not to be discounted. Rather, it’s to be built on. Which is exactly what Jesus does in our Gospel for this week!

The key comes in the phrase, “But he, wanting to justify himself.” This parallels the point in St. Paul’s argument when he argued no one keeps the law. “For all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.” What St. Paul teaches in systematic theology, Jesus demonstrates in His dealings with the lawyer. He fell short of what God intended, by seeking to use the law to limit whom he should love: “Who is my neighbor?” The law shows the way, but everyone falls short of the law, always. Jesus made this same point when He taught what the Law truly means in the Sermon on the Mount.

And just as in the Sermon on the Mount, where righteousness is not something “done,” but something “done to” those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness (that is, for Jesus), Jesus does something similar in this parable. He places the lawyer in the parable not as the one who must decide what to “do,” but as one who can only be done to.

There’s the new wine that doesn’t fit old wineskins! The way of the Law is, “Love God and love neighbor,” and we hear “do.” We hear a “you” understood, understood in the imperative. “You shall” is the heartbeat of the Law. But we never really fully “do,” do we? We fall short as subjects of the Law’s sentences. This is why the Lord in Jeremiah had to promise a new covenant rooted not in us teaching each other the law, but in a new “teaching of the heart” rooted in forgiveness – that’s the “blood of the everlasting covenant” in which we learn fervent love for one another.

So Jesus puts us as the objects of the sentence. Wow, that’s different! That’s like putting new wine in old wineskins. The old wineskins are us as the subject; the new wine is us as the object; the twain don’t quite fit.

But look at what Jesus does. “Which of these three do you think was neighbor to [the injured man]?” We never think of the actual neighbor in the commandment, “Love your neighbor,” do we? We only think of him as some abstract object of our love. Jesus puts flesh and blood on the neighbor, showing him who he is. And now WE’RE the one helpless, lying on the side of the road, only able to be passively worked on. Now “WE’RE” the object: the neighbor loves you as He loves Himself (as the Father loves the Son?).

Jesus even gives us a choice. Which one do you want as a neighbor? The one who interprets the law like the way the lawyer wanted to? Or the one who is willing to risk becoming unclean so we might live?

I, like the lawyer and anybody not suicidal, choose the Samaritan. Actually, the lawyer doesn’t say “Samaritan.” He rightly (or maybe unwittingly, as perhaps he simply didn’t want to admit a Samaritan is the good guy in the story) abstracts the Samaritan and says, “the one who showed mercy.”

We choose the one who shows mercy. To which Jesus says, “Yeah, that’s right. Go and do likewise.” Huh? “Do” what? The question is “Who is my neighbor so I can properly know what to do to him and inherit eternal life?” The answer is, “Our neighbor is the one who shows mercy to us when we’re lying half dead on the side of a road.” OK, so now how do I “do” that?

Well, I guess to “do” that we would need to “do” being half dead on the side of the road and “do” choosing option “C” over against the priest and Levite. The part about being dead on the side of the road is pretty easy to do, I guess. I guess we embrace that status. Of course we would need to recognize the spiritual dimension: “I am dead in my sins and cannot save myself. Have mercy on me!” But who can have mercy on us in our sins? Obviously not Samaritans.

Duh. The Lord. The Lord Jesus who died for our sins. So, what should we “do”? We should pray, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

That’s what we should “do” rather than “justify ourselves” as the lawyer did. That’s the new wine that doesn’t quite fit the old wineskins of the law as given and unfulfilled.

And isn’t that exactly who we learned a few weeks ago goes home justified? The one who prays, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner”?

The Gospel is consistent. Perhaps this passage from Hebrews sums up this devotion best of all: “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”

The little passage beginning this week’s Gospel makes more sense with what precedes it than with what comes after. Jesus says these words after sending out the seventy, who come back rejoicing that the demons submitted to them. Jesus says He saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven, but then says the disciples should rejoice not that demons are subject to them, but that their names are written in heaven.

Jesus then prays to the Father: “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

Here we get a thread of a link to what follows in the parable of the good Samaritan, which perhaps we can follow. The Gospel is hidden from the wise and prudent, like the lawyer, but revealed to babes, like the disciples and those who receive their message.

In any event, who sees and hears and who does not comes down to one thing: the Son willing to reveal the Father to them. If the Son wills to reveal the Father to someone, someone can know the Father and the Son.

The disciples, the babes, were the ones to whom Jesus willed to reveal the Father, and therefore to whom the Father revealed “these things,” that is, the fall of Satan’s kingdom. Even the Old Testament kings and prophets did not get this blessing. This gets to a theme coming up in several places in the New Testament, that the Gospel was veiled in the Old Testament, a hidden mystery.

Imagine being Moses, knowing of another prophet to come, but not knowing who. Imagine King David, receiving inspirations about the cross in type, without a full clue of what it all meant. Or imagine Isaiah hearing of a suffering servant who would save Israel. What did it all mean? The greats of the Old Testament ached to know what it all meant, but that knowledge was reserved for humble fishermen and the like, the disciples, the babes relatively speaking.

And make no mistake. All things center on Christ. Christ is the mystery made manifest; specifically Christ crucified is the mystery made manifest. And this does set up the parable of the good Samaritan nicely, providing something of a bridge from what precedes to the parable.

The lawyer, after all, represents the “wise and prudent” scholars of Old Testament law. Unlike prophets and kings (like David), who desired to know what the mystery was – who therefore longed for Christ without really knowing what this meant – the lawyer was content to settle on Old Testament law as it was. This meant getting pedantic about it: who is my neighbor? What are the limits of the law in terms of whom I’m forced to love?

Jesus gives the lawyer his world, a world where his ideas on the law rule, and that leaves an injured man on the side of the road, passed over by the priest and Levite because he looked unclean, possibly dead. That “ruling principle” gets toppled, however, like lightning from heaven, when Jesus introduces the Samaritan, the one who’s willing to risk becoming unclean in order to have mercy. When the lawyer is placed in the world of his own making – with those demonic ruling powers – as the injured character, he’ll take the merciful one any day of the week.

It’s not that the Old Testament Law is “demonic ruling powers,” but that the way it was understood by the Jewish scholars became demonic. Jesus, after all, called the Jews a “synagogue of Satan.” And consider how this passage from St. Paul fits our theme for today: “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” The “rulers of this age” – which are the demons – were the ones who crucified the Lord, including Jews and Romans. (See also, John 14: 30, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.”)

Or again, consider this passage from Colossians: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. …[I]f you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations – ‘Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, …’ ”

Whereas the ones desiring to see and hear what the disciples did – the prophets and kings – understood they were in the shadows at the time, but truly wished to see the dawning light, the lawyer types were content in the shadows. They were obsessed, like the priest and Levite, with rules like “Do not touch or handle” a corpse, for instance. Hence, their crossing the road away from the half dead man. They were obsessed with pedantry like, “Who really is my neighbor?”

That’s demonic, and needs to be toppled down.

It becomes toppled with the knowledge that the substance of the shadow is Christ, Christ crucified. If that’s the case, then mercy always reigns. And this the Samaritan represents. This truth came crashing in on the lawyer like lightning falling from the heavens. His previously held opinion about who his neighbor was changed on a dime to including the dirty Samaritans. Think of that!

One has to wonder whether the lawyer went away and did as Jesus said, “doing likewise.” He, after all, did change course in his thinking, answering correctly that the Samaritan was the true neighbor. We assume the “bad guys” in the narrative – those, for instance, who are out to “get” Jesus with their little tests – remain bad. But Jesus was a “toppler” of arguments, in the spirit of St. Paul’s words, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”

This passage, in fact, helps us understand the bridge between the mission of the seventy and the parable of the good Samaritan. The “ruling principles” (Satan, demons, false Old Testament theology) were the strongholds of arguments exalted against the true knowledge of God (revealed only in Christ to babes, by His will); Jesus casts down these strongholds, arguments, and thoughts, and down they come like lightning, in obedience to Him, even as the lawyer ends up answering correctly about who was the neighbor. What the disciples did in the preceding passage Jesus does with the lawyer in this parable.

What sorts of strongholds is the Lord casting down in our minds? What sorts of “lightning” strikes are going on? They surely happen, and when they do, blessed are those eyes which see it.