Go and do likewise
(Luke 10:25-37; James 2:14-26)
Sometimes it is important to say the obvious. Anyone who has been married for a while knows that. Of course I love her. It’s obvious. We’re married. What more’s to be said? Well, nothing more. But still it needs to be said, and it should be said, and it is well that it be said often: ‘I love you!’
What I have to say this morning is obvious. We all know it. We have heard it before. But still it needs to be said. And it is this. The love of God is a show and tell affair. It always has been and always will be. The love of God must be lived in practice as well as spoken in word. Their inseparability is given brilliant expression by Jesus. Jesus is the word of God made flesh. It is a word to be sure, a message, but a message embodied, concretely enacted, lived, in the world. Jesus is God in show and tell mode.
The gospel story is full of this unity. The passage we read from Luke is typical. We probably know these words as well as any in the NT. The lawyer asks Jesus, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ That question could be expressed in a number of ways. What must I do to be part of the kingdom of God? What must I do to follow Jesus? What must I do to be a human being who reflects the image of God? They all more or less ask the same thing. Who is God and how do we relate to God?
In the Luke passage Jesus give two answers. First he replies to the lawyer by reminding him of the whole tradition of the OT. There are two great guidelines to live by. The first is to love God above all else. And the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. There it is: show and tell. To talk about God in any way at all that can be judged responsible, means, according to this view, also to love our neighbor as ourselves. They’re not separable.
Then the lawyer puts his other question: ‘But who is my neighbour?’ And Jesus replies with a story that has become justly famous, and well beyond the church. The Good Samaritan. In contrast to the self-designated religious figures in the story, the Levite and the priest, who, coming across the man in need, ‘pass by on the other side’, the Samaritan steps up and does something. The implication is clear. My neighbor is someone on my path who is in need.
But Jesus’ story answers another question, even more clearly. Not just: who is my neighbor? But how should I treat my neighbor? What does the love of God, about which we talk, look like when it is enacted? Again the story is clear: it looks like compassion that addresses the concrete needs of the neighbor with relevant action and selfless generosity.
For Christians, the ultimate reason this is a compelling story, is that the action of the Samaritan toward the man attacked is exactly the action of God towards us, and the whole world, as shown in Jesus’ life. When John the Baptist sent his friends to ask Jesus whether he was really the messiah, or whether they should be looking for another, Jesus did not give a sermon on the love of God. He said to John’s friends: ‘Tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them’ (Luke 7:22). The telling of the love of God is in the showing of the love of God.
So, the two great love commandments, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the ministry of Jesus all say the same thing. To know God is to participate in a love that acts with compassion and care, especially for those in difficult places. This is who God is as we see it played out in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
This is why the work of BCS, and other such missions, are central to our calling as a church. They are an integral part of God’s show and tell operations in the world.
Finally, let us note one other important thing. It is pretty pointless talking to the world about the love of God if we don’t show it. Telling without showing is empty. ‘Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead,’ says James bluntly. The implication of this Jamesian theology for the Levite and the priest in Jesus’ story is pretty stark. Officially both claim to have faith in God and to speak the truth of God. But their actions in relation to the man attacked makes that faith and word empty of real meaning, according to James.
Whereas the reverse is not true. The Samaritan says nothing directly about God or the love of God in the entire story. Such words as he does speak are directed to the immediate situation and its needs. He talks to the innkeeper, but it’s all about how to look after the wounded man.
Of course our mission is both show and tell. But—reflecting on our readings today—it is a worse failing in obedience to God to tell of God’s love but not bother to show it, than it is to show the love of God but not explicitly tell it.
This is why we in the Christian tradition can rejoice in the common causes we have with many people of other faiths, or no faith at all. The concrete love of God active in the world is not confined to those who know and tell the story of Jesus. Of course we believe it is important to do this. To know of the love of God in the cross and resurrection of Jesus is to know the depth of God’s being as nowhere else revealed. And that needs to be told with gusto and joy. But God acts in God’s world always and everywhere in deeds of love, compassion, healing and peace.
Is God really with us? Remember Jesus’ word: ‘Go tell John the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the poor are aided.’ This is God’s love visible; and all who support and participate in this, support and participate in God’s action in the world.
How shall we show and tell God’s love? Said Jesus to the lawyer, ‘a man fell into the hands of robbers who beat him up and left him half dead. But a Samaritan came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.’
Jesus’ parting words to the lawyer were: ‘Go and do likewise.’
To be sure it’s obvious. But it needs to be said. Even more it needs to be done.
Graeme Garrett
Canberra Baptist Church
Fourth Sunday after Easter
15 May 2011