Difficult Answers to Foolish Questions

7/27/2019 Difficult Answers to Foolish Questions

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Luke 10:25-37

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit

eternal life?26 He said to him, What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?27 So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your

soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,and your neighbor as yourself.28 And He said to him, You have answered rightly do this and you will live.

Parable of the Good Samaritan29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?30 Then Jesus answered and said: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell

among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half

dead. 31 Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed

by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and

passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.

And when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 So he went to him and bandaged his wounds,

pouring on oil and wine and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care

of him. 35 On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the

innkeeper, and said to him, Take care of him and whatever more you spend, when I come

again, I will repay you.36 So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell

among the thieves?37 And he said, He who showed mercy on him.

Then Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise.

We all ask foolish questions. When I was in grade school I asked a few not so bright questions,

and by others reactions, I knew they were pretty foolish. Some of these questions I simply

should have known the answer to. We also might ask decentquestions, but we have a

preconceived or expected answer in our minds before we even ask it. In high school, if I asked

my parents if I could go hang out with some friends, I expected yes for an answer. We all

asked questions like this. But if we get an answer that we werent expecting or werent hoping

for, what do we do? We ask another question, hoping to change the others opinion, showing

their supposed faulty answer. Can I go hang out with friends tonight? No, you need to work

on your homework. But mom, cant I do my homework later?

The lawyer in our text asked a foolish question, and he got an answer he didnt want. Then he

followed it up, trying to justify himself, and trying to trip the Lord up on another question, and limit

the answer.

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What shall I do to inherit eternal life? he asked. This was a foolish question. Not that it was an

unimportant question, eternal life is something we all need to be concerned about! This was a

foolish question because the expected answer was wrong. And that made the entire question

wrong. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? We can make guesses as to what his expected

answer was, but it may have included keeping some laws, observing the 10 commandments, or

perhaps as a lawyer, he was thinking he could defend his righteous acts, enough to let God, the

almighty judge, rule that he should receive his inheritance of heaven. But whatever his expected

answer was, implied was that he himself could actually do something to inherit eternal life. Hear

the question again: What shall Ido to inherit eternal life?

So our Lord responds to him with an answer he does not expect. [Jesus] said to him, What is

written in the law? What is your reading of it?

So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your

soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

What the lawyer is quoting is Law 101, as in Lawand Gospel 101. Every person would have

been trained from their youth up on this. Hes quoting, quite literally, the catechism of the Old

Testament. Just like we have Luthers catechism, they had this. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 says,

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your

heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And the lawyer adds the second greatest

commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. He admits that the Bible says in order to save

oneself, you must fulfill all the law perfectly. You must love God so much that you do with your

heart, soul, and mind everything that God wants and requires. And he adds, love your neighbor

as if he is you

Jesus replies, youre right! Go do this and you will live.

The lawyers question was a foolish one, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Not only should

he have known the answer to his question already, but his question was really the wrong

question to ask. And maybe even to us, Jesus answer seems like the wrong answer! It doesnt

seem Lutheran. If you would ask me on a day that I was not preparing for this sermon, How do I

get to heaven? I would probably not tell you to do anything. I would not tell you to follow all of 10

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commandments and the rest of Gods law perfectly, or to love God so completely that you never

do anything against him, and love others as much as yourself. But this is the Biblical answer.

The law must be fulfilled in order for us to enter heaven. If you want to be saved, its easy: Go be

perfect. The problem is, we cant do it. We cant be perfect. This is the crushing reality of the

law. God requires us to love Him with all of our heart, and with all of our soul, and all of our mind.

We should not have any other gods, we should not make idols out of anything or anyone, and we

shouldmeditate on Gods statutes day and night, without fail. And we should love others as we

love ourselves. But we dont, and we cant.

And Jesus says, go and do it. This is how you obtain eternal life.

But just like us when we receive an answer we werent expecting, and we ask another question,

hoping to show the fault in the other persons answer, or trying to create a loophole for ourselves,

the lawyer asks a second question. Who is my neighbor? With this question, he is hoping that

the expectation wont be that high. Hes hoping that hell maybe have to show a little mercy and

compassion here or there to those people that are like him, and thatll be it. Then hell be able to

inherit heaven for himself.

Who is my neighbor? This question seems to us even more foolish than his first. But as

foolish as his question was, we ask questions like this all the time, too. In fact we ask even more

foolish questions. It doesnt really matter that I dont watch what I say when I speak, does it?

God will forgive me. Theres nothing wrong with getting a little drunk now and again, is there?

Its not like Im falling away from God. Whats so bad about a little sin here or there? I still listen

to what God says in his word... What foolish questions we ask. Every time we sin we have

failed to listen to what God says in His Word, and were guilty of breaking all of it.

So Jesus responds to us as he responded to the lawyer. He shows us what we are to do. In

this particular case, how we are to love our neighbor.

A man is robbed and beaten, and left to die, naked on the side of the road. Three men walk by.The two that should have known better and helped him a priest and a levite, pass by on the

other side. The man that does stop to help was regarded by the Jews as the enemy (and the

feeling would have been mutual). He takes this naked, poor, helpless man, bandaged his

wounds, pours (what would be to us) anti-bacterial creams on him, puts him on his donkey,

takes him back to an inn and pays the full price of the bill.

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And Jesus says this is loving your neighbor. Go and do it.

Helping and loving our neighbor is not as easy as we would like it to be. It means loving and

forgiving anyone whom we are mad at at the moment. It is anyone whom we look down on for

whatever reason, because they have offended us in someway. It means going to the persons

we know are living in sin. But it means when we go to them, not just to be nice to them and

ignore the sin and pretend it didnt happen. It means dealing with them in the same way that

Jesus dealt with this lawyer by giving them the law. Showing that sin is wrong and that it

condemns because there is no way that anyone can keep it perfectly and so save themselves.

And it also means giving them the Gospel, even though it may be harder for us to do than giving

the law. Telling them that Jesus has forgiven their sins.

Theres one more part to loving your neighbor as yourself: How do you love yourself? You do

whatever you can to keep yourself alive. As much as we give of ourselves forourselves, can we

ever give the same for someone else? Can we ever give the same for our enemies? Can we

ever give the same forallof our neighbors? Would we ever lay down our lives for all of our

friends and our enemies?

No, but this is what is required. Thankfully we have someone who did all of this for us. Jesus

laid down his life for those that counted him as an enemy...we were enemies of God...but he

calls us friends. Jesus saw us beaten, weak, and lying half dead on the side of the road. And he

had compassion on us. Jesus had compassion on you and me, not because we first did

something that made God favor us, but because we were so helpless and lost and beaten and

weak, just like everyone else. Jesus bandages our wounds He anoints us in the waters of Holy

Baptism, the eternal antibacterial liquid He lifts us and carries us when we are too weak to carry

ourselves and He brings us back to His inn, the church, where we are surrounded by fellow

believers who can watch out for us and take care of us.

So why does our Lord tell us to do these things when He knows full well that we cant do it? If we

cant possibly love our neighbors, (even our enemies) enough to inherit eternal life? God doesnt

need our good works, but our neighbor does. Our full bill has been paid by Jesus God doesnt

need our good works. Our neighbor does.1

1 Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation

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We all ask foolish questions. When we ask what shall I do to inherit eternal life? and who is

my neighbor, how can I love him as myself? we get some difficult answers. They are difficult

because we cant live up to the expectations and so gain eternal life for ourselves. Thankfully

Jesus has lived up to these for us. Jesus lived perfectly, loved His Father with His heart, soul,

and mind He gave up his life for His enemies and counted them as friends and He anoints us in

Holy Baptism, and He brings us back to His church where He keeps us safe until we finally

receive the inheritance earned for us of eternal life.

Amen.

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Difficult Answers to Foolish Questions