Pentecost 8
Romans 12:9-21
July 19, 2015 at St. Matthew, Port Washington, WI
Love Your Neighbor!
It’s impossible.
It’s possible.
We are all pretty familiar with the term Good Samaritan. Many hospitals
are called Good Samaritan. There is even a Good Samaritan Law. If you
happen to hurt someone when you are trying to help them (e.g. breaking
someone’s ribs while performing CPR), you can’t be sued for hurting
them. you were trying to help them. We are familiar with the term Good
Samaritan, but to the first century Jew there was no such thing as a good
Samaritan. To them, all Samaritans were bad. So when Jesus told the
story of the Good Samaritan it seemed like he was talking about snow in
July.
In this morning’s Gospel, an expert in the law, like a professor of the
Bible, tried to trap Jesus with a trick question. He asked Jesus what
someone had to do in order to earn his way into heaven. No matter what
Jesus said, he was going to point out something that he missed. Jesus
turned the question on him. “You’re the expert on the Bible. What does it
say?” He was proud to prove that he knew the answer by quoting from
Deuteronomy and Leviticus, “Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your
mind, and, love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus told him that he was
right. If you want to get into heaven, love your neighbor perfectly. The
teacher wanted to justify himself. He wanted to convince himself that he
was good enough so he asked, “And who is my neighbor?” You see,
many Jews defined a neighbor as someone who was nice to them or who
was at least a fellow Jew. But Jesus pointed out that a neighbor does not
just mean someone who is friendly to you. He told the story of the Good
Samaritan to teach us that your neighbor is anyone who needs help from
you.
As the Apostle Paul encouraged the believers in Rome to live as the children of God that they were, I imagine that he was picturing the story of
the Good Samaritan. Here in Romans 12:9-21, Paul describes all the
qualities of the Good Samaritan. As we take a closer look at Paul’s words
to the Romans, we will see that loving our neighbor is both something
that is impossible as well as something that is possible.
It’s impossible.
The teacher who tried to trick Jesus was trying to convince himself that
he was good enough to earn his way into heaven. He was trusting in himself. Jesus needed to show him that he wasn’t good enough to earn his
way into heaven. Jesus told that heart tugging story about the Good Samaritan who went out of his way, spent a lot of money and put his own
life in danger to help the man who was lying on the side of the road
about to die. When Jesus told the teacher, “Go and do likewise,” he
slammed the door of heaven shut on him. The man realized that he
couldn’t do as much as the Good Samaritan. He couldn’t earn his way
into heaven.
When he hear Paul’s list of divine directives for godly living in Romans
12, we also realize that we can’t earn our way into heaven. Paul describes some things that we are supposed to do – outward actions – (:13),
“Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
(:17,18), “Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.” But
Paul especially aims at our thoughts and the attitude of the heart. (:9),
“Love must be sincere.” (:10) “Be devoted to one another in brotherly
love. Honor one another above yourselves.” (:11), “Never be lacking in
zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” (:16), “Do not be
proud. Do not be conceited.”
Even if we could always do the right thing outwardly (which we prove
every day that we can’t do), we certainly can’t always have the right attitude. There are times when I do something nice, but I only do it so I
don’t get into trouble, or so that the other person will think nice things
about me, or maybe even do something for me in the future. There are
plenty of times that I’m lacking in zeal. And there are lots of times when
I don’t want to be nice to those who have hurt me. But the Lord doesn’t
just want us to be fair and equal. We are even to be nice to those who
don’t deserve it. (:14), “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not
curse.” This list in Romans 12 is all encompassing. It would be impossible to try to list all the possible examples for each phrase. It’s even more
impossible to try to live it. And that’s the point. It’s impossible for us to
love our neighbor the way we should.
Recently a man was complaining to me about his neighbors in his apartment complex. He was on quite a roll complaining about this and that. I
wanted him to slow down and think about things from a different perspective. I explained, “Jesus says to love your enemies and bless those
who persecute you.” The guy just shook his head no. “I can’t do that.
That’s going to be too hard.” It is impossible for us to love our neighbor
the way God wants us to. We can’t love others perfectly. We can’t earn
our way into heaven. The door to heaven is slammed shut on us.
I mentioned earlier that we are familiar with the term Good Samaritan.
We can’t really comprehend what the Jews thought of when they heard
the word Samaritan. Maybe “militant Isis terrorists would be about the
same for us today. A Samaritan was someone who was bad, someone
who didn’t believe properly. And that is what we were like when we
came into this world. We were bad, a natural enemy of God. We didn’t
believe the right thing. We were spiritually blind and dead.
If a typical Samaritan saw a Jew dying on the side of the road, we would
expect him to kick the Jew and finish him off. But there was something
different about the Samaritan in Jesus’ story. When he saw the dying
Jew, he showed compassion and mercy. Something had changed in his
heart. Something changed in your heart too. The Samaritan in Jesus’ story stopped and stooped and cared for the wounded man. He poured wine
on his wounds as an antiseptic to kill the germs and poured oil to sooth
and help healing. In baptism, God stopped and stooped down to your
level and gave you individual attention. He cleansed you from your deadly sins and healed you with the soothing message of forgiveness.
trusted in Jesus as his Savior and he knew that he was supposed to keep
the commandments. But he also knew that he couldn’t. He felt bad. Being a Christian was frustrating to him. We’re never going to be perfect so
why even try. To help understand. I told a story. I’ll share it with you.
Once upon a time there was a loving father who had a seven year old son
who loved him. He asked his daddy what he wanted for his birthday. The
dad replied, “How about you clean your room.” After dad went to work
on his birthday, his son worked very hard to clean his room. He cleaned
under the bed and straightened the closet and dusted, etc. When dad
came home from work, he met his father at the door and took him by the
hand to show him his super clean room. The dad gushed, “Wow! It’s
beautiful! I love it! It’s the best birthday present I’ve ever had!” as he
dropped to his knees and hugged his son. The dad never mentioned some
dust he noticed on the dresser or the dirty sock under the bed. The room
was not perfectly clean, and still the dad was still thrilled. Why? Because
his son demonstrated his love. The father / son relationship was not
based on how perfectly clean the room was. It did not depend on good
works or merit. It depended on love. The father loved his son, his son
loved his father and tried his best and his father only saw a clean room.
The key to Paul’s list of divine directives here in Romans 12 is found a
few verses before verse 9. In :1, Paul explains, “in view of God’s mercy.” Showing love to others is a natural response to the love that Jesus
showed to us. Loving others is not a burden. Because God loved us, it is
possible for us to love our neighbor. When we see others who are hurting, we remember how Jesus helped us. We want to show kindness and
love to others just as Jesus showed loving kindness to us.
Likewise, we respond to our heavenly father’s love by doing our best to
live as his child, to be kind and caring toward others. Sure, we’re not perfect. We still sin. But God isn’t standing over us with a club threatening
to smash us if we aren’t perfect. God is smiling on us with his favor. All
of our imperfections are replaced by the perfect life of Jesus. All of our
sins were washed away by the blood of Jesus. In love, through faith, God
sees our heartfelt efforts to love our neighbor and he is pleased. Because
of Jesus, your heavenly Father looks at your life and sees that you do
love your neighbor. Because of Jesus it is possible to love your neighbor.
It’s possible.
In Romans 12 Paul describes the love that the Good Samaritan showed to
the guy dying on the side of the road. The Samaritan in Jesus’ story did
not look at some sort of checklist that he had to complete. As he did each
act of kindness for the poor fellow, he did not ask, “There, have I done
enough?” He did what whatever the poor victim needed. He kept asking,
“What else can I do?” The Samaritan did not hold back anything.
I mentioned that the term Good Samaritan is really a contradiction. Good
and Samaritan (bad) don’t go together. But do you see that Good Samaritan is a good description of you? You are a Samaritan – Bad. You were
born a sinner and sin every day. Yet Jesus washed you clean and made
you good. You are a Good Samaritan. And just like the Good Samaritan
in Jesus’ story, when you see someone who needs help, you will love
your neighbor. Amen.
No matter how hard we try, we still can’t be perfect. We’ve established
that. So how is it possible for us to love our neighbor properly? I was
once speaking with a man who was troubled by this conundrum. He