Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text is the Holy Gospel reading which has already been read.

Dear friends in Christ, the series finale of the show Seinfeld involved the four main characters finding themselves stranded in the tiny town of Latham, Massachusetts, waiting for their malfunctioning airplane to be repaired. In the meantime, the four witnessed an overweight man being carjacked at gunpoint. Instead of trying to help the man or even calling the police, those miserable misanthropes made jokes about the victim's size, while Kramer actually was filming the whole thing on video camera. After the attack, they walked away without even checking to see if the assaulted man was okay. Unfortunately for the foursome, the victim saw their indifference to his plight, and reported them to the police, who arrested Jerry, George, Elaine, and Cosmo and charged them with violating a "duty to rescue" statute, a law that requires bystanders to help out a person in peril, also known as a Good Samaritan law.

Of course, I am not aware of any laws that would require a regular citizen to intervene in a carjacking, but you may be surprised that similar "duty to rescue" laws are on the books in eight states (not Texas, though). These so-called "Good Samaritan laws" require everybody, not just doctors and emergency workers, to help an injured or stranded stranger. These "duty to rescue" laws go so far as demanding that anyone who happens upon the scene must help, in imitation of the Good Samaritan who rescued the man in the ditch.

But there is also a different type of statute with the same title of "Good Samaritan law"; these laws are designed to protect people who do help out a stranger in peril, by preventing lawsuits against the so-called Good Samaritan. These laws are much more widespread, and they are on the books to prevent rescuers from being sued if, during the process of rescue, the person in peril suffers incidental injuries.

These two different types of Good Samaritan laws are intended to encourage people to help people that are in dire need. And the fact that they are called Good Samaritan laws shows how common the interpretation of Christ's parable as a Law-oriented morality tale, designed to move us to help out our neighbor in need. Of course, it is easy to see how someone could reach that conclusion, since after telling the story, Jesus does give this law: "Go and do likewise." And since many think of Jesus as nothing more than a great moral teacher, and not the Savior of the world, it is not surprising that they conclude that Jesus would give the parable of the Good Samaritan as "Law," as in, "You get out there now and show that kind of mercy."

Of course, that Law is true enough; elsewhere Jesus tells His disciples to "be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful," and that God the Father is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. That is actually a higher moral standard than the one presented in the parable, since there is no sign of hostility from the man in the ditch toward the Samaritan or vice versa. That insight alone should clue us in that there is more going on here than Jesus giving some sort of commentary on the Law. And in fact, the Law application of the Good Samaritan story is secondary to the traditional Gospel interpretation, in which the Good Samaritan actually represents Jesus, who has shown mercy to us poor, miserable sinners.

If you end up with the Law understanding of this Gospel reading, then clearly you have started with the parable and worked backwards, but you can't do that with this reading; instead, you need to focus on what leads up to Jesus telling the parable if you want to get your conclusions right. And the question that leads Jesus into the parable is not a question of how to treat other people; rather, the lawyer's inquiry is, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Answer that, and we can get to the bottom of the Good Samaritan parable.

And to fully answer this question, we have to take into account the whole Bible's teachings on eternal life, and not isolate ourselves to just this story: God's Word teaches that in questions of eternal life, there is no room for Law, but only for Gospel-God's free gift of salvation to sinners for the sake of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life". Or as St. Paul says in our Epistle, "If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe". Only the precious, redeeming blood of Jesus Christ can set us sinners free from the guilt of our sin and give us eternal life. And so if we are hearing the Good Samaritan story as a how-to guide for earning eternal life, then surely we are not hearing it correctly. We certainly can see in this story of the Good Samaritan Law-but we also need to find in it the Good Samaritan Gospel-the Good News that Jesus is in fact our Good Samaritan, who has rescued us from sin, death, and the Law.

But the lawyer in the Gospel reading didn't get that; he viewed eternal life as something to earn rather than as a free gift. The lawyer asks, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He's asking what sort of life he must live that will eventually lead to everlasting life. Jesus answers the question with a question: "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" Now here we must note something confusing, but very important; note well that when Jesus says "Law" here, He is not speaking only of the moral law or Ten Commandments, but He is referring back to the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Old Testament Hebrew word Torah is usually translated as Law in English Bibles, but a better translation would be God's "teachings" or "doctrine." This Torah was not entirely rules and judgment from God, but also to His grace and mercy, particularly His Gospel choice of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and the children of Israel to belong to Him. God created all these people by grace alone, and He chose and called them all by grace alone, too. And so when Jesus asks the lawyer how he reads this Law that is the Torah, the question is about what the Old Testament teaches about eternal life.

Although the lawyer assumed eternal life was something gained by individual efforts, the answer the Old Testament gives is the opposite, teaching that God's grace alone grants all good gifts, including eternal life. There are many places in the Torah that this teaching is clear, but Deuteronomy 7 is as good a summary as any. God tells Israel, "You are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations".

Two things come clear in this passage: 1) Israel didn't choose God, but He elected them, purely by grace; 2) only those who love and keep God's commandments can inherit eternal life. So the lawyer is technically correct when he answers with Deuteronomy 6:5: "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" (the phrase "and with all your mind" is not actually in Deuteronomy 6:5). So Jesus responds, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." But then the lawyer opens his mouth and shows the depths of his lack of understanding; Luke tells us that the lawyer, "desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'"

Now by the lawyer asking Jesus for this clarification, he reveals two things about himself. First, the lawyer thinks he has already got the first part of God's commandment down pat. He glosses right over the command to love God with all his heart, soul, and strength and doesn't think he needs any further insight as to how to fulfill that commandment. And there we see the lawyer's self-righteousness, because he is convinced that he can be right with God on the basis of his love for God, which means he would have to keep the First, Second, and Third Commandments down to the letter: perfectly fearing, loving, and trusting God above all things.

What remarkable self-deception this man performs! He can't really even keep the first three commandments but obviously thinks he can, because he zooms right on to the Fourth through Tenth Commandments, and asks, "Who is my neighbor?" And clearly he is implying by this question that there must be someone out there who is not his neighbor, and he needs to know whom, because he realizes the enormous demand given in that commandment if anyone could potentially be his neighbor. He needs to chop the law of loving the neighbor down to a manageable size so that hopefully he can manage to keep the law to love his neighbor well enough to enter eternal life.

And so Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to show the lawyer how impossible it is for a sinner to completely love God and neighbor. Jesus shows the lawyer, who was a Jewish teacher of the Law, that he is more like his peers, the priests and Levites, who were not willing to defile themselves by helping a stranger in distress. In fact, a Samaritan, whom the Jews despised, was willing to show more mercy than the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. And then Jesus says, "You go and do likewise." In other words, He says, "Look, you haven't even started showing mercy the way God expects, so you aren't even fulfilling the law of loving your neighbor, much less the law of loving God with all your heart, soul, and strength."

And Jesus says the same to you: "Go and do likewise." And how have you done at the law of loving your neighbor? Are you ready to justify yourself, and say that you have never passed by an opportunity to help someone in far less need than the man in the ditch? But let's move to the first table of the Law, the Law of loving God with all your heart, soul, and strength-have you feared anything more than God; have you loved your family or possessions more than God; have you trusted in your strength, money, or works more than God? Have you called upon God in every trouble, prayed without ceasing, praised God's gifts rather than boasting of what you have, and given thanks even when you are suffering? Have you always paid perfect attention when God's Word is being taught and read; have you done everything in your power to make it to church to receive the Lord's Supper; have you taught God's Word patiently and clearly to your children? Because that's what it means to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength: to keep the commandments perfectly.

Repent. There is no sinner, not you nor I nor the lawyer in the Gospel reading, who can even begin to say that we have kept God's commandments adequately, by loving Him and our neighbor. And that is the Good Samaritan Law Jesus shows with this parable: you can't live up to it, and for your failure, you deserve not eternal life, but eternal death in hell. And the reason you are in this ditch is because the devil, that bandit of bandits, has attacked this world and made it captive to sin and death, from which we cannot free ourselves.

But the Good Samaritan Gospel is that Jesus is the one who came down into the ditch to save you from sure and certain eternal death. For Jesus was always merciful toward His neighbor, as His Father is merciful, and He also loved God with all His heart, soul, and strength. He kept the commandments perfectly, and He went to the cross to rescue His enemies from eternal death. Yes, the reality is even greater than the story, for Jesus is even more merciful in real life than the Good Samaritan in the story is because He comes to save His enemies. St. Paul wrote, "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life".

Now that Jesus has kept the Law perfectly and answered for all of your sins, He comes down with mercy to you who were dead in sin and grants you everlasting life in Holy Baptism, as His Word and Holy Spirit is poured over you with the water. When you have sinned against Him and recognize and confess your guilt, He comes to you here in the Church and pronounces Holy Absolution, "I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." And He comes not merely with oil and wine to bind your wounds, but He comes with the Medicine of Immortality, His own true body and precious blood, under the bread and wine, to deliver forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation into your very mouths. Yes, the Good Samaritan has taken care of everything for you, so that you may have eternal life in heaven.

And the truth is, He did all of that for Old Testament Israel as well, though so many of the lawyers and Pharisees would not believe in this free gift of righteousness. As Jesus says to you disciples in our text, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it". The faithful people of the Old Testament were chosen by God as His holy people, and they received His saving grace and mercy by faith alone, but they were not as blessed as we are, for we have seen the whole story unfold, the full revelation of God's grace in Christ Jesus. Those Old Testament saints, like us, lived by faith in the Messiah, not by confidence in the quality of their works of mercy, as the lawyer had misread the Torah to say.

But what about the statement of Jesus, "Do this and you will live"? That is, "If you do love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, you will live." What about the failure of all sinners to keep that? How, then, can we live eternally? It is only by God's free grace and favor in Jesus Christ; for the sake of His perfect obedience and atoning work, God credits Christ's righteousness to you. For those who have been chosen by God as His people, like Abraham, Isaac, Moses, you, and me; for those who live by faith in His promise of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, He looks at them with delight, and says, "You will love Me, and you will love your neighbor. You are set free from your sins by My mercy. Believe it, and be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful." For St. Paul says to you Christians: "I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ". Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.