Luke 10:25–42
Presented February 4th, 2007, by J.D. Kline
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Have you ever agreed to do something, only to have second thoughts gain the upper hand? As I began thinking, early on this week, about today’s sermon, it was a time for second thoughts. I had agreed to base a number of sermons in January and February on the weekly texts forming the basis of the study in the new Gather ’Round curriculum. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but this week, as I began to consider the two familiar stories from Luke 10, I found myself wondering what new insights I possibly had to offer. Hasn’t it all been said before?
Consider the two stories, first what is arguably the most well known of all Jesus’ parables, the parable of the Good Samaritan. Perhaps the story of the prodigal son offers stiff competition, but the very terminology, Good Samaritan, has become commonplace even in the secular world. All kinds of agencies and ministries have Good Samaritan funds, for in many people’s eyes the story is reduced to a lovely tale of responding to a person in need. Certainly that’s a key element in the story, but there’s much more to be grasped, as we dig more deeply.
The second story, the conflict between Mary and Martha, is sometimes held in contrast to the story of the Good Samaritan, for it seems to be suggesting that Mary’s position, sitting at the feet of Jesus, is somehow superior to that of Martha, who, like the Good Samaritan, takes the more active role. Yet, if the two stories do indeed carry competing messages, why would Luke, the Gospel writer, place them side-by-side? Is there instead a connecting theme, something that binds the two stories into a unit?
Both stories speak of hospitality, with the Samaritan in the first story going the extra mile in caring for the man beaten and left beside the road, and with Mary and Martha, each in their own ways, making space for Jesus in their home. Still, the two stories offer very different pictures of hospitality.
Perhaps what most binds the two stories together is their response to what we have come to call the Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all you strength, and with all your mind; and [you shall love] your neighbor as yourself.” A teacher of the law comes to Jesus asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus turns the question back upon the lawyer, asking, “What is written in the law?” And the lawyer responds by asserting that the heart of the law centers on loving God and loving neighbor. Jesus agrees, and then offers the challenge, “Do this and you will live (10:25-28).”
A key line follows: “But wanting to justify himself, [the lawyer] asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ (10: 29).” It is a calculating question, one intended to draw limits upon this call to love one’s neighbors. Jesus reacts against a mentality seeking to narrow rather than to expand the reach of love—so much so that he tells a parable that would have shocked the hearers of his day. Because we have heard the story with some frequency, we may well overlook the shock factor.
Just verses earlier, in the previous chapter, a group of Samaritans, with whom the Jews had endured enmity for centuries, had refused to receive Jesus. Some of the disciples wanted to retaliate, but Jesus would have none of it. To cement the point, in a parable about the nature of love, Jesus now chooses a Samaritan as the model of true discipleship.
Enmity between the two groups—Samaritans and Jews—was intense, with both sides claiming to be the true inheritors of God’s promises to Abraham and Moses. So when Jesus tells the story of a traveler on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho who was robbed, beaten, and left half-dead, the last thing his Jewish audience expected was for the one who showed mercy to be a Samaritan. Yet that is precisely what occurs. The deserted road between the two cities, complete with many twists and turns as it drops several thousand feet, made a lonely traveler an easy target. And who can blame the priest and the Levite, Temple officials, from keeping their distance? Not knowing whether the attacked man was dead or alive, each chose not to take the risk, especially since Jewish law asserted that touching a corpse would render them impure.
Hearers of the parable by this time no doubt expected that the hero would be an ordinary lay person, a fellow Jew. Imagine the dismay—even disgust—when a hated Samaritan emerges as the model for faithful living and compassionate living. Truth is, two very different worldviews confront one another in this encounter between Jesus and the lawyer. The lawyer understood God to be the God of Israel, the God of a restricted community, while Jesus recognized God as creator, lover, and redeemer of the whole world. While the lawyer would limit God’s grace to those in the Jewish community, Jesus is urging him to expand his vision—to be in the business of tearing down barriers of division and hostility while affirming that all people, regardless of background or perspective, are neighbors.
Jesus is challenging the lawyer—and all who would hear—to embrace a new understanding. The challenge, in the words of biblical scholar Tom Wright, is “to see that the way of confrontation with Samaritans, Romans, and pagans of whatever sort is not the way of living and showing God’s grace. Jesus is urgently offering the way of peace….”
There are two radically different notions of what it means to be the people of God. One would restrict God’s love merely to those like us, in the process drawing lines that keep others out, while the second—the vision of Jesus—announces again and again that God’s love is for all manner of people, and that God is calling us to embrace ways of peace and reconciliation.
The first story—the parable of the Good Samaritan—is therefore a story that redraws the boundaries of God’s love, that sends the clear and vivid message that God’s love and compassion reaches far beyond traditional borders. The second story also redraws boundaries, but it does so within the faith community of that day. Jesus visits the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha. Martha, you will recall, busies herself with the tasks of preparing and hosting a meal, while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus. Martha becomes irritated, crying out to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me (10:40).”
It’s not just that Martha is stuck with all the work; something more is happening here. There continue to be struggles in our day with male/female roles, but in ancient Palestine in the days of Jesus, things were much more rigidly defined. There was strict delineation between male space and female space. The public room was where men would gather, while the kitchen and other quarters unseen by guests belonged to the women. For Mary to settle down comfortably at the feet of Jesus, in the realm of men, was to cross an invisible but critical boundary. Indeed, it was an act bordering on the scandalous (Wright, Luke for Everyone, 130). To sit at the feet of a rabbi was to become a disciple of that teacher; it was to embark upon a journey of becoming like the teacher.
Jesus not only responds affirmatively to Mary’s desire to journey with him; Jesus also invites Martha. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing” (10:41), Jesus says. The repetition of her name, “Martha, Martha,” may well suggest a call to discipleship, much as the name of Saul is repeated on the road to Damascus—“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4)—as Saul hears the call to take on a new identity as the apostle Paul, proclaiming the gospel to the Gentiles. Even more, Martha’s “need of only one thing”—is not that one thing the call to journey in discipleship?
In the first story Jesus is redrawing external boundaries, expanding lines of grace and compassion well beyond the Jewish community. In the second story Jesus redraws internal boundaries within the community, boundaries between men and women. In effect, Jesus is asserting that God’s love shall not be restricted by any human-made lines of demarcation. All manner of people are invited to discipleship.
In their book Resident Aliens Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon remind us that
In Jesus we meet not a presentation of basic ideas about God, world, and humanity, but an invitation to join up, to become part of a movement, a people . . . . With a simple Follow me, Jesus invited ordinary people to come out and be a part of an adventure, a journey that kept surprising them at every turn of the road.
Sadly, there are many in the church today who would reduce the faith to a matter of what we believe about Jesus. Such persons have a checklist, and commitment to Jesus becomes a matter of agreement with each conviction on the list. But for the early church, the key was not a matter of doctrinal purity, but the willingness to step out in faith and trust, to join the journey of discipleship. Jesus spoke of denying self, taking up the cross, and following in the ways of justice and peace, compassion and self-giving love, mercy and grace. Again and again throughout his ministry Jesus challenges his hearers to look at life differently, to be open to surprising new truth at each turn of the road, to journey along paths of loving God and loving neighbor.
The lawyer who approached Jesus was eager for a debate, but he was little prepared for a response that struck him as scandalous, a response that required him to stretch and to grow, to expand his horizons. And tragically, so it is with many today who are inclined to embrace the faith, asking little more than what’s in it for me. Jesus, on the other hand, challenges us to move beyond self-preoccupation, to grapple instead with what it means to live—as the Brethren of old suggested—for the glory of God and the good of our neighbors.
Acts 17 tells the story of two apostles, Paul and Silas, entering the city of Thessalonica, proclaiming the story of Jesus and inviting the people to embark upon the adventure of following Jesus. But the response was to accuse the early Christians of creating furor and unrest. “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also” (17:6).
To embark upon the surprising adventure of life with Jesus is to love God and serve neighbor wholeheartedly. It is to find the one thing most needful; it is to show mercy; it is to join in a movement that may well turn the world upside down—or perhaps more accurately, right side up. Are you ready to join the adventure?