“Good Question” (Luke 10:25-37), February 15, 2009
In organized baseball, I never got past first base. Ever.
Today’s Scripture lesson turns on four questions during an exchange between a lawyer and Jesus. I see those four questions as first base, second base, third base, and home plate. How sad when Christians get stuck on first base, or second, or third!
Stuck on first base
I don’t think I have ever related publicly the story of my entire career in organized baseball. It won’t take long.
During my senior year in high school, I voluntarily transferred from the public school to a Christian high school. In fact, I worked part-time at a department store to pay the tuition myself. $75 a month.
Alliance Christian School in Portsmouth, Virginia, was relatively new and small. There were maybe 30 boys in the whole school, grades 7-12. I was fairly good in basketball, and even though we didn’t win a lot of games, I was co-captain of the basketball team and scored 15 points a game.
So when it came to baseball season, naturally people assumed I would have some applicable skill. Bad assumption. Having grown up as a missionary kid in Pakistan, I had never played Little League, never picked up a bat in an organized baseball game. Softball, yes, but not baseball. Furthermore, our little school had only one pitcher on the roster. So we couldn’t waste his arm in practice.
The first few games were all away games, and I was usually put in the game during the late innings, maybe getting one at-bat per game. Always a strike out. Never got on base.
Until we had our first home game. Construction on the baseball field at the school ran behind schedule, and at the time we played our first home game the back stop had not been completed. The frame was there, but there was no fence.
This time when my one at-bat came around, I struck out as usual. But the catcher missed the ball. I knew enough about baseball rules to know that if the catcher misses the ball on strike three, the runner may attempt to advance. Since there was no backstop, the ball definitely got away, and I was on first base.
The next batter actually made connection with the baseball, and I took off running. I slid into second base and broke my ankle. That was it – my entire baseball career. True story.
That’s pretty sad, isn’t it? I never got past first base. Ever.
Today’s Scripture lesson turns on four questions during an exchange between a lawyer and Jesus. I see those four questions as first base, second base, third base, and home plate. How sad when Christians get stuck on first base, or second, or third!
How do I gain eternal life? (v. 25)
The section begins with an expert in the Jewish law (some translations say “lawyer,” which is fine if you’re thinking about the first century context instead of our context) asking Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Good question. First base.
Luke also tells us that the lawyer asked this question “to test Jesus” (v. 25). This was a good question, but it was not an innocent question. More lay under the surface. As an expert in the law, this man knew what his answer would be, what he considered to be the right answer. Would Jesus pass the test and answer correctly?
Before we get to Jesus’ response, let me say again: this is a good question. It is, perhaps, the first question for any religious quest or system. At some point, the human soul realizes there’s something or Someone out there. Life on this earth is short and quick, and I want it to continue. How do I gain eternal life?
I remember asking this question as a child. In elementary school I lived apart from my parents six months of the year in a boarding school for missionary children. Such an experience has a way of shaping a child more than he is aware at the time.
Perhaps separation anxiety prompted my soul searching. Boarding school, though not horrible, certainly was hard at times. I was a bed wetter all through elementary school and beyond, and you can imagine that was rough when rooming with other boys my age.
But the question I remember torturing my spirit in fourth or fifth grade was “How do I gain eternal life?” I was taught that a simple prayer to ask Jesus into my heart was the way to know for sure I would go to heaven when I died. But I asked him over and over again, night after night, and still agonized with no inner peace.
It would be years later before I understood fully. It wasn’t anything I could do – not even praying the right words. Don’t take this wrong, but I’m not even sure you find a clear and satisfying answer to this question in the Gospels. After Jesus died and rose again, early apostles like Peter, Paul, and John taught us that the way of eternal life is to stop trying to do something or say something.
The satisfaction comes when we accept what Jesus did for us. It’s not what I do, it’s not a prayer I pray, it’s not an experience I have. It’s the realization and acceptance that God in Christ did everything necessary to forgive my sins and make me ready for eternal life.
How do I read the Bible? (v. 26)
Let’s go to second base, and perhaps you’ll understand more of what I mean when I say that the Gospels do not clarify a satisfying answer to the question about eternal life. I’m not saying the answer is not there – it’s just not as clear, even in the words of Jesus himself, as later Christian teachers and writers make it.
Jesus doesn’t even answer the lawyer’s question. Well, he does, but he answers with a question of his own – really two questions. “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” (26)
Remember, the lawyer thought he was testing Jesus. Jesus turned the test back on the questioner. And when the man rattled off his summary of the Law, “Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself” (27), Jesus said, “Right. Do that and you will have eternal life” (28).
The problem is a rather obvious one. Who really does that perfectly? Who loves God fully – emotionally, spiritually, physically, intellectually? Who really loves neighbor as much as self?
What Jesus is doing, in my view, is what he does all through his ministry in the Gospels. It’s what the Bible does in the Old Testament as well. It’s all a set up for grace. It is, in one way or another, a reminder that God’s law is perfect, and Jesus’ life is a perfect example of how to live it. But no one else lives up to it, and therefore what we need is a Savior.
But Jesus’ response to the lawyer still frames for me the question that consumed my own spiritual journey after I figured out the answer to the eternal life question. How do I read the Bible? Good question. Second base.
I went to Bible college to earn my baccalaureate degree, and later earned two advance degrees related to the Bible, Christian thinking, and ministry. There I learned to trust the Bible completely as my final authority for what I believe and how I live.
But I learned something else. I learned that people who read the Bible and trust the Bible nevertheless understand the Bible in very different ways from each other. What often happens is that they learn a system that ties everything together in a neat little package. In seminary these systems have “ism” names – Calvinism, dispensationalism, Arminianism, Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and a bunch of others. Once people adopt a “system,” they end up reading the Bible through the lens of that system.
Outside the Bible college or seminary, the descriptions may be different, but the issue is the same. Someone may say, “I believe everything in the Bible is literally true.” Or, “I’m a progressive thinker when it comes to the Bible.” Or, “I like Joel Osteen” (or some other famous preacher). It’s just a way of saying, “This system or person is how I read the Bible.”
With this lawyer, Jesus is challenging exactly that kind of thinking. He had a ready answer based on a particular way of reading the Bible. Jesus needed to expose his system by pointing out that his neat little framework didn’t answer all the questions of life satisfactorily. Nor does any other, because God’s Word is broader and more profound than our man-made simplistic summaries of it.
What does God really expect? (v. 29)
The middle part of this conversation is really quite fascinating. Let’s review. The lawyer asks, “How do I gain eternal life?” Jesus responds, “How do you read the Law on that question?” The lawyer answers, “Love God and love neighbor.” Jesus says, “You’re right. Do that and you’ll have eternal life.”
You would think that at that point the lawyer would walk away satisfied that his predetermined way of reading the Bible has just been affirmed by Jesus. Instead, he realizes that his way of thinking may have some intrinsic difficulty. Or at least he’s aware that the whole loving your neighbor thing has been understood in different ways. Are there exceptions? So he asks, “Who is my neighbor?”
Good question. Except that Luke notes he asks the question with a desire “to justify himself” (29). In Jesus’ time, one’s spiritual satisfaction with loving one’s neighbor included some allowable exclusions. A man didn’t need to treat a woman like he treated another man, for example. (Half the human race just got excluded.) And certainly loving a Gentile or Samaritan was not required. (There goes 99% of the rest of humanity.) Loving a prostitute or tax collector couldn’t be what God wanted. In other words, loving your neighbor was taken rather literally. “Neighbor” means the one near you.
The lawyer wanted Jesus in some way to affirm all these exclusions – or at least some of them. So he asked Jesus the question, “Who is my neighbor?” to justify the fact that some people are not included.
So the question behind his question is, “What does God really expect?” Good question. He knows my “stuff,” right? He understands my background, my experiences, my limitations, and my hardships. He forgives my sins and he knows I can’t be perfect. What does he really want from me?
For most of my professional life, I have been wrestling in some form or another with that question. I know I have eternal life through Jesus Christ. I know the Bible is my guide and I need to be careful about reading it just looking for the answers that fit my system. But what does God really want from me?
It’s a good question. Nothing wrong with it. It is borne out of a desire to please God. What does my personal life look like if it pleases him? What career should I choose that is in “God’s will” for me? It’s not only where we do, but maybe where we should spend a lot of time. What does God want from me? How can I honor him?
But it’s still only third base.
Who needs my love? (v. 36)
In response to this question (remember, the lawyer’s version was “Who is my neighbor?”), Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. You have probably heard or read the story many times. You probably already know that the way from Jerusalem to Jericho was a dangerous path – both physically (it descended 3300 feet over 17 miles) and criminally (there were many good hiding places for bandits).
It was a road that cautious people would never travel alone, although it’s interesting that the way Jesus tells this story, all four characters were alone. The original traveler not identified by his race or any other characteristic. We can probably assume he was Jewish.
The man was stripped, beaten, and abandoned, left for dead. A Jewish priest walked by on the other side, presumably because he didn’t want to be defiled and prevented from carrying out his religious duties. A Levite, part of the tribe that cared full-time for “God’s work,” also passed by on the other side.
Jesus’ listeners may well have assumed that at this point his story would have had a Jewish layman stop and be the hero. Instead, his story took a quite unexpected turn when a Samaritan, part of a half-breed race considered worthy of disdain by Jews, stopped and helped the suffering man. He went beyond the call of duty, moving the man to a place of shelter and healing, and providing for his physical and financial needs.
Then Jesus asked this question: “Which of the three travelers – the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan – was a neighbor that day?” The lawyer couldn’t even bring himself to say the word “Samaritan.” He simply answered, “the one who had mercy.”
Jesus answered, “Go and do likewise.”
If I could see the four questions raised in this passage as four steps in Christian maturity, I would frame the last question like this: “Who needs my love?” Good question. Home plate.
This is where I would like to believe I am right now, and where I believe we are as a church. It’s amazing to me what is happening right now in this year when our congregational priority is “Serving in God’s World.” Let me share with you some of the new ministry teams that have developed in the past few weeks – many of them directly related to difficult economic developments.
§ Job Seekers. We have had about 30 individuals participate in the first two sessions to provide networking, support, and counsel to those looking for employment. About a third are from Corinth, and we have a number of members who are not currently looking for jobs helping with the group.
§ Entrepreneur Network. This group wants to offer an alternative to Job Seekers – getting the hands-on help and experienced counsel it takes to start your own business.
§ Micro Loans. Whether it’s for starting a business or dealing with some other financial need that goes beyond what our Good Samaritan Fund can provide, a ministry team is discussing how we can lend money to people for whom the traditional system is not working right now.
§ Management Network. We may forget that those who operate the businesses are having a hard time now as well – making tough decisions that affect their own futures as well as the futures of long-term and valued employees. This network is for them.
§ Budget and Finance. We have a team meeting about how to help families plan and manage their money wisely in turbulent times.
§ Health Care Support. People who lose their jobs still need to turn somewhere for health insurance and primary care. Some of our members have some ideas to make a difference for them as well.
§ Habitat House. An initiative started right here at Corinth and is spreading throughout the community to have Catawba County churches build several Habitat houses this year. Compassion breeds compassion. Now is a great time to give money and time to make a practical difference.
§ Saturday Soup Kitchen. The downtown Soup Kitchen operates Monday through Friday to provide a hot lunch. What about Saturday? We have a team working on ideas to provide a weekend meal as well.
§ Military Support. With several families having active duty soldiers and seamen, including one active military chaplain in Iraq, we have formed a support team.
§ Tutoring. Children living within walking distance of our church live in families where no one else speaks English. We want to offer some after school homework help to them.
§ Gay and Lesbian Welcome. We have a team in the initial phases of talking about how we can be more intentional about showing welcome to people who often feel unwelcome at a church, which is precisely where they need to be.
All of these are new initiatives in 2009 at or through Corinth. We also have ongoing ministries of caring. Will you join me in loving them? I am put here on this earth to identify and love those who need the most.
Home run
There is a sense in which this last question, “Who needs my love?” is the best question. But it’s not the first question, and sometimes we need to go back and make sure the other questions have been properly addressed. In other words, don’t try to get to home plate without first rounding the bases.
First base – How do I have eternal life? (Through faith in what Jesus Christ has done for me.)
Second base – How do I read the Bible? (It is God’s Word, but I must guard against reading it through my own prejudices.)
Third base – What does God expect of me? (This is a critical step, honestly asking what matters to him instead of simply seeking to justify my own behavior.)
Having rounded third, I’m ready for home. I am certainly at a place in my life where I am more ready than ever to ask, “Lord, who needs my love?” Not, “Who is comfortable or convenient to love?” but “Who needs me?”
Which base are you on? The right question can take you to the next level in your relationship with Christ.
Amen.
(© 2009 by Robert M. Thompson. Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible,
New International Version, Copyright 1978 by New York International Bible Society.)