“Freedom in Mercy”

Luke 10:25-37

July 15, 2007

Pastor Bruce Kochsmeier

 Purpose: For people to be set free by learning to let themselves love and be loved in Jesus’ name in places and with people they resist so that they may be truly free.

      Is there a more beloved story in God’s word than this?  Is there a more graceful word in all the world?  The Gospel; that is the good news of Jesus Christ is a word of grace.  That is, it is about being loved extravagantly when we least expect or deserve it.  It is about getting what we need; not what we deserve.  And this is the freedom in God’s mercy that is offered us today.

      A man who knows about justice; a lawyer asks Jesus about how to inherit eternal life.  He is on the right track because he asks Jesus about inheriting.  He doesn’t ask about earning or qualifying.  Inheritance is a gift that someone gives us just because they want to.  Jesus tells the man, “You know the law.  What does it say?”  And the man says, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus tells him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will LIVE.”

      I think what Jesus told him was, “If you really will make this LOVE the center of your living, you will know what life is about; you will have LIFE.”  Apparently the man didn’t have much trouble with the part about loving God.  Maybe because no one could see whether he did or not.  But the second part of the law; the invitation to LIFE includes walking the talk; not earning eternal life but living in a way that shows we know what the life truly is that Jesus is offering.  I think the man that day wanted to know what our whole world since the dawn of time has wanted to know.  How far are you going to ask me to take this love?  He asked, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus gave him more than he bargained for, but exactly what he needed to know.

      The Jericho road was and IS a tough, dry, dirty and even now a dangerous place.  It goes down from Jerusalem below sea level.  NOTHING grows on it.  It is marked by narrow passages, sheer walls, places where robbers can hide and ends in a city that is known for being defeated.  It is not a place you waste time on and try not to travel if you can avoid it.  The scene Jesus describes is one no one would want to be faced with because it puts us on the horns of a dilemma.  Even if we might want to help someone who has been beaten, there is a good chance WE might experience the same if we stop.  We don’t know what the first two men in Jesus parable were thinking.  He just tells us they didn’t stop for one of their own people.  What Jesus does tell us is that the one who did stop was a Samaritan; a people who had been shunned by the nation of Israel for their compromised beliefs.  They were the black sheep that Israel avoided contact with.  But Jesus tells us this Samaritan stops for someone who would not be expected to stop for him.  It doesn’t make sense!

      And this is Jesus’ point.  The Gospel doesn’t make sense to our minds.  No one is going to give us something we don’t deserve; especially if we are in some way their enemy.  But to show us where life truly begins this is exactly what Jesus shows us.  He shows us the last person we would imagine stopping to care for this man.  And he doesn’t just call 911, he gets involved.  He bandages and soothes and PAYS the bill for a man who likely would call this Samaritan his enemy or as least would ignore.

      When Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which one of these three was the broken man’s neighbor” the answer is obvious, “The one who showed him mercy”.  And then Jesus told him, “You go do this, too.”

      Jesus was calling his questioner not to a guilt-ridden state of ethical behavior, but to a freedom that comes from extending mercy.  For all our technology and power and abilities our world today is more imprisoned by fear of one another than ever before.  We are more isolated from one another than perhaps at any time in history and it is only getting worse.  As the scramble for autonomy increases our sense of trusting let alone NEEDING one another decreases.

      Jesus tells us this parable to invite us to freedom.  He invites us to do the most unlikely thing – he invites us to go and do for the last person we can imagine, the most generous and gracious thing we could do.  He invites us to see them as ourselves, broken, beaten, and left for dead, and he invites us to do what he is doing for us.  He invites us to come into their lives with our life and to risk ourselves for them.  He invites us to forget about being estranged from one another; he invites us to let go of power as we define it so that we can discover it on God’s terms by loving and forgiving and healing and getting involved in one another’s lives where it just isn’t comfortable.  Jesus invites us to forget about political ideologies and parties.  He invites Israeli and Palestinian to bind up one another’s wound and to care for one another’s children as their own.  (Israelite and Samaritan would be Israeli and Palestinian today.)  Jesus invites Americans to love Iraqis and all Muslims.  He invites us to not only forgive those who have hurt us but to reach out and ask, “How can I help and support you?”  To know the freedom of his love God in Jesus Christ invites us to forget about ourselves and risk loving as he did.

      Who is my neighbor?  The person who needs to be loved when it is most difficult for me to love.  Why?  Because God knows that when we will let his love pour out of us like this; as healing ointment out of a jar we will not only be agents of healing, we will be healed.  We will be free as we let God’s mercy pour out of us.

     Pastor Mark Buchanan tells of how this can happen speaking of Paul Yonggi Cho who is  pastor of the largest church in the world. Several years ago, as his ministry was becoming international, he told God, "I will go anywhere to preach the gospel except Japan." He hated the Japanese with gut-deep loathing because of what Japanese troops had done to the Korean people and to members of Yonggi Cho's own family during WWII. The Japanese were his most bitter enemy.

      Through a combination of a prolonged inner struggle, several direct challenges from others, and finally an urgent and starkly worded invitation, Cho felt called by God to preach in Japan. He went, but he went with bitterness. The first speaking engagement was to a pastor's conference—1,000 Japanese pastors. Cho stood up to speak, and what came out of his mouth was this: "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you." And then he broke and wept. He was both brimming and desolate with hatred.

      At first one, then two, then all 1,000 pastors stood up. One by one they walked up to Yonggi Cho, knelt at his feet and asked forgiveness for what they and their people had done to him and his people. As this went on, God changed Yonggi Cho. The Lord put a single message in his heart and mouth: "I love you. I love you. I love you."

      Sometimes God calls us to do what we least want to do in order to reveal our heart to reveal what's really in our heart. How powerful is the blood of Christ? Can it heal hatred between Koreans and Japanese? Can it make a Samaritan love a Jew? Can it make you reconciled to well, you know who?

      Let God empower us to live like this may be the hardest thing we will ever do, but it will also be the most liberating.  It does not call us to excuse destructive behavior, but it does call us to bring that brokeness to a place where it can be treated.  It calls us to do as Jesus did; to be willing to spend ourselves for the sake of the most broken and perhaps least deserving so that we may capture a glimpse of what he did for us.

      May eternal life begin today for you as you let Jesus Christ lead you to the people and places where he uses you and me together to bind us the wounds of the world and bring them to Jesus in word and deed.  May it be so.  Amen.