It's Unpossible!

            There are lots of times in the gospels where people came up to Jesus and asked him questions.  Our story for tonight, the story of the Good Samaritan, is an example of that.  Someone who’s described as an expert in the law comes up to Jesus and asks what he has to do to inherit eternal life.

           

Did you ever notice that Jesus almost never gives a straight answer?  He could have.  He could’ve said to this guy, “Well, here’s what you should do.  You should love everybody.  Then you’ll get eternal life.”

           

That’s not what Jesus did, though.  Instead, Jesus did what he usually did.  First, he turned the question around.  He said to the guy, hey, you’re the expert in the law here.  What’s the law say about your question?  When the guy answers, Jesus says, as he often did, well, there you go then.  Do what the law says.

           

As usually happened, though, the questioner was not done.  He says to Jesus, yeah, I know I’m supposed to love my neighbor, but here’s the thing.  Who’s my neighbor?

           

And right there, we can see that this guy really is an expert in the law.  You give him a legal standard, and the first thing he does is look for a loophole.  We’re told he was trying to justify himself, so he obviously did not want to have to love everybody, and he thought maybe this “love your neighbor” thing was his way out.  You can just imagine him thinking, “Hmmm.  Love your neighbor.  Maybe that just means the people who live next door.  Maybe it just means the people in my neighborhood.  That sounds reasonable, right?  Maybe ‘love your neighbor’ is not such a hard thing after all.”  So, he asks Jesus “who is my neighbor?”

           

Again, Jesus does not give him a straight answer.  Instead, Jesus does the other thing he usually did.  He tells him a story, a story designed to make a point.

           

He tells him a story about a guy who’s going from Jerusalem to Jericho and is robbed, beaten, and left for dead.  This would have seemed familiar to the guy Jesus was talking to.  The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a dangerous one.  It was a common trade route, but there were lots of places for bandits to hide and ambush people.  Then, Jesus tells about three people passing by the man who was beaten, a priest, a Levite, and one other person.

           

I read once that this was a common form of storytelling back in Jesus’ time.  You know how we have jokes today that start out with something like, “A doctor, a lawyer, and a businessman go into a bar”?  Well, they had kind of the same thing back then, except it was not necessarily a set-up for a joke, it was just a form of storytelling.  The way it worked was that you’d have a priest, a Levite, and a “good Jew”.  The “good Jew” was a sort of everyman, someone the average person could relate to.  The “good Jew” would be the hero of the story.

           

So, when Jesus starts telling this story, the expert in the law, and everyone else listening, think they know what’s going on.  First the priest passes and by and does not do anything.  Then the Levite passes by and does not do anything.  So, next will come the “good Jew”, who saves the day and is the hero.

           

Except, that’s not what Jesus says.  Jesus says the third guy is a Samaritan.  And the Samaritan turns out to be the hero of the story.

           

Remember, the Jews hated the Samaritans.  The Samaritans hated the Jews, too.  This was not how the story was supposed to go.  There are two people here who are supposed to hate each other.  Yet, when one of them is in trouble, the other comes to his rescue.  He not only helps, he goes way above and beyond what mere duty would’ve required.  He not only helps him, he in effect takes him to the hospital and pays for all his medical care.

           

Jesus’ message could not have been more obvious if he’d put up a billboard.  We are supposed to love everybody.  It does not matter what race, what color, what gender, what sexual preference, what anything.  We are supposed to love everybody.  No exceptions.  And that love is supposed to be shown in our actions.  We’re not just supposed to do the bare minimum, either.  We’re not just supposed to act out of duty or obligation.  We’re supposed to do whatever it takes to help people in need.

           

That’s a tough standard.  Can any of us say that we measure up to it?

           

I cannot.  Remember last week, when we said that we are all sinners in need of God’s forgiveness and mercy?  Here’s why that’s true.  We are supposed to love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our strength, with all our minds.  We’re supposed to love our neighbors just as we love ourselves.  Any time we fail to do that, we commit a sin.  That’s what sin is, really:  failing to act or speak or think in love.

           

Loving God completely and totally, and loving others—all others—completely and totally, is the way to inherit eternal life.  That’s what Jesus says in this story.  Yet, I don’t know that any of us can claim to do that.  So, logically, none of us can inherit eternal life.  It’s not possible.

           

That’s why God’s so incredible.  This is not the only time Jesus set up the way to heaven in a way that it’s not possible for us to get there.  Remember the story of the rich man?  It’s not really a parable, so we did not do it in this sermon series, but this rich man goes up to Jesus and asks, just like the expert in the law does, what he needs to do to inherit eternal life.  In this case, Jesus ultimately tells him to sell everything he has, give it to the poor, and follow him.  Again, the message is the same—the way to inherit eternal life is to love God completely and totally, and to love others completely and totally.  No exceptions.

           

We’re told that when they heard what the standard was, the disciples were astonished.  They recognized how impossible this was.  They asked Jesus straight out, well, then, who can be saved?

           

And Jesus admitted that it is impossible.  For humans.  What makes it possible is not humans.  It’s God.  With God, all things are possible.

           

We’re coming to the end of our summer worship series.  I hope you’ve gotten something out of the music, and the poetry, and the messages, and all that.  But if there are just a couple of things you’ve gotten out of these Wednesday evenings, I hope it’s the things we’ve talked about tonight.

           

God wants one hundred percent of our lives and one hundred percent of our love.  God wants us to give other people—all other people—one hundred percent of our love, too.  But God knows we flawed, imperfect humans are not capable of giving one hundred percent of our love to anyone.  We’re not even capable of giving one hundred percent of our love to ourselves, much less to others.  It’s not possible for us.

           

But it is possible for God.  So, God helps us. God enters our lives.  God puts God’s Holy Spirit into our hearts.  God says to us that if we’ll just keep trying, and give as much percent of our love as we can to him and to others, God will use God’s love to make up the difference.  Our love plus God’s love will make that one hundred percent.

           

God is so incredible.  God is incredible beyond our imagination.  God is so much bigger and stronger and more powerful and smarter and wiser and better than anything we can ever imagine.  And yet, God loves us.  No, it’s better than that.  God does not just love “us”.  God loves you, as an individual.  God knows each one of our names, God knows everything about us, and God loves each one of us.  God loves each and every one of you.  And God loves me, too.

           

We’ve done nothing to earn that love.  We don’t deserve it.  We never could.  It would be impossible for us to be good enough, and loving enough, to deserve God’s love.  But God loves us anyway, because that’s just who God is.

           

God cannot love imperfectly.  God cannot love conditionally.  God cannot love less that totally.  God asks us to love God totally and completely, and God asks us to love each and every other person totally and completely, because to God, that’s what love is.

           

So, God asks us to do the impossible.  Then, God enters our hearts through God’s Holy Spirit, and makes it possible.  Because nothing is impossible for God.

           

If you remember nothing else from our Wednesday worship services, remember this.  Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  And remember that nothing is impossible for God.