Loopholes in God’s Law
One of the core convictions of the Protestant Christian faith is that salvation is a gift, and you cannot earn your way to heaven. So what do we do with the famous story of the Good Samaritan?
The story begins with a lawyer who stands up and asks straight out: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
We would expect Jesus to give the standard Lutheran answer: You cannot through your own understanding or effort, believe in God or come to him. It is the power of God’s spirit that calls, enlightens, and sanctifies. Salvation is a gift, not something you earn. You don’t do anything to earn it. End of conversation.
Instead, Jesus gives the guy what he is looking for: instructions for inheriting eternal life. First, he asks, “What does the law say?”
When our learned lawyer recites from the Torah: “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 says, “That’s right. Do this and you will live.”
“Do this and you will get eternal life?” Oops! You mean we’ve been wrong all this time about such a central issue of faith? You mean, you can earn your spot in heaven by what you do?”
The Good Samaritan story is a bit of a puzzle that we need to probe in some depth if we are to unravel it.
First of all, was this a sincere question from someone who wanted to know how to learn the truth from Jesus?
No, verse 25 says this guy asked the question to test Jesus. He seems to be another in a long line of skeptics who doesn’t like what Jesus teaches and is looking for chinks in the armor.
Eternal life was a touchy subject among the religious Jews—Pharisees believed in an afterlife—heaven, Sadducees did not. The Law of God was another hot botton issue. The Pharisees have come up with an incredibly rigorous and detailed code of behavior that is required God. Other Jews are not so much into that. The lawyer is trying to draw Jesus into controversial ground.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he asks
It is a question so full of holes that Jesus hardly knows where to start. What must I do to inherit? This guy is a lawyer and he doesn’t see the problem with that question? What do you do to inherit an estate? What do you do to inherit something from your parents?
With rare exceptions, you don’t do anything, except get yourself born into the right family, which really isn’t something you have any control over. Inheritance is a gift, a gift of love handed down from one person to another with whom there is a close bond. Only the crude and callous try to get an inheritance. Inheritance is something you accept, gracefully, if it is bestowed upon you.
Because the lawyer fails to understand this basic element of inheritance, the sad truth is that he is not likely to inherit what he seeks. He views eternal life as something he can get for himself. A prize to won. His motives are entirely selfish.
His attitude reminds us of the stereotypical comic plot where an old and eccentric billionaire has one foot in the grave, and the dysfunctional family gather like vultures to compete for the inheritance. They connive and scheme and backstab in an effort to convince the old man that they are the ones who are truly deserving of the fortune, and that all the others are despicable leeches, undeserving of the old man’s consideration. Each wants the fortune so badly they are willing to do almost anything to get it for themselves. Matters get even worse if the old man tries to plays their game by dangling the inheritance as bait for favors.
The result is disaster, because inheritance is not something to be won. It is something that is given as a byproduct of genuine relationship. The relationship always has to come first. You cannot form a true relationship when you view another person as a means to an end.
This is especially true of eternal life. In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives a very specific definition. In 17:3, he says, “This is eternal life, that they may know God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Eternal life is not a time or a place or a prize to be won: it is a relationship with God. It starts now and it does not end. Eternal life is living in the presence of God, now and forever. It is not something that you get as a reward for having put up with God all these years. Salvation is living in the presence of God.
The lawyer is in this strictly for himself. “How do I get it?” is his only concern. All he knows about eternal life is that it’s something good and he wants it for himself. His well-being and pleasure are at the heart of his quest for eternal life. No one else matters.
This is ironic because the main barrier to living in a true and loving relationship is selfishness. Preoccupation with self is the main barrier to eternal life. In phrasing the question the way he did, with all the emphasis on me, me, me, the lawyer showed that he is going to have a difficult time developing a true relationship with God and with creation; he will have a difficult time living in the presence of God. He will have a difficult time achieving the eternal life that he has been freely given as an inheritance.
Jesus steers him in the right direction. Selfishness is preventing you from living in the presence of God. All you have to do to claim your inheritance is get rid of that. Open yourself up to God and to creation, and you will find yourself in the kingdom.
The lawyer, however, does not get the lesson. He does not understand that relationships are built on love, and the only way you get love from a relationship is by giving it away. In fact, as this story goes on, he becomes even more obsessed with his own reflection in the mirror. How does he respond to Jesus’ open invitation to relationship?
“Wanting to justify himself,” we read. Jesus says, get the focus off yourself and think about others. And the lawyer’s response is to immediately shine the spotlight back on himself. When he asks, “Who is my neighbor?” he is not asking out of a desire to enter into this relationship Jesus invites him into. He does not understand the relationship aspect of inheritance. Like the dysfunctional children of the old billionaire—all he wants to make sure he looks good so that he can get the old man’s money.
He is astute enough to know that this “love your neighbor law” could potentially cause him some problems. Always thinking about himself, he looks for loopholes in that law. He tries to manipulate the law to justify himself so that he can get what he wants.
If he can define the term `neighbor’ in a certain, narrow, limited way, he can end up looking good, and it will be obvious that he deserves the great fortune that lies in store for him. And God will have no choice but to give it to him.”
He sees the loophole he seeks in this vague word “neighbor.” He thinks, “There are some people that I treat pretty much the way the law prescribes. I just have to make sure that the concept of “neighbor” is limited to the people that I can love and I’m all set.
My neighbor is someone who lives near me. People who live a long ways away are not neighbors. I don’t need to be concerned with them.
My neighbor is someone with whom I have something in common. That’s the way neighborhoods are set up. We live among people who are of similar economic and social status. Slaves are not neighbors, for example. Even if they lived in the neighborhood they’re not, you know, neighbors, they’re just the hired help. I don’t need to worry about them.
My neighbor has to be a responsible, respectable member of society. If he’s not, then he’s not a neighbor in good standing, and I don’t have to bother with him.
When we talk about loving the neighbor, we’re talking in religious terms. You can’t really practice religion on people who aren’t religious or are not of your faith. You’re just wasting it on them, so they don’t really count, either.
All of this just plain common sense. You cannot expect me to love people I do not know, and with whom I really have no connection. If love is a relationship then you can’t expect me to love those with whom I have no real connection.
Define neighbor correctly, says the lawyer, and I’m home free. I treat these people well and since I do such a good job of it, you have to give me eternal life. It’s the law.
This is not, however, Jesus’ idea of living and sharing in the
presence of God. He sees what the lawyer is trying to do, and he closes
every single loophole that could possibly exist by telling an outrageous
parable of the Good Samaritan. “A
man was going down from
The men who passed by him and left him to die were his own countrymen—his neighbors according to the lawyer’s definition.
A Samaritan came along and saved the man.
Which of these three was a neighbor to the one who fell into the hands of robbers, Jesus asked. The answer was obvious enough that even this confused lawyer could figure it out. “The one who showed him mercy,” he answered.
There’s the answer to your question on who is your neighbor whom you are to love as yourself.
Proximity does not matter—the Samaritan was not from the same country as the man he helped.
Nationality does not matter—the Samaritan was a despised enemy of the victim.
Social status does not matter— The victim was not a respected member of society. If he were, he would not have had to travel this dangerous road alone. Unlike the victim who could not afford protection, the Samaritan was wealthy enough and so well-connected that he could run up a bill at the inn and no one questioned whether he was good for it. They did not run in the same social circles.
Responsibility does not matter—the
victim wasn’t a responsible citizen who made good choices in his life. What
kind of idiot travels the most dangerous road in
Religious beliefs do not matter—the men who passed him by were devout men—one a priest, and the other a Levite. Both of the same religion as the victim. Neither did anything. The Samaritan was a member of a different religious group—and Jesus doesn’t bother to tell us if he was particularly devout or not.
The message is clear. There are no loopholes in the love your neighbor clause. There are no loopholes because eternal life is not a benefit you are working toward. It is an inheritance that you are called to accept now—the joy of living in the presence of God. And living in the presence of that means loving all of God’s children as ourselves. Russians, Iraqis, Nigerians, and illegal aliens. Moslems, Buddhists, and atheists. Low lives, criminals and drug addicts. The homeless, the obnoxious, and the unlovable.
In 1912, when the Titanic
hit an iceberg and sank in the
Meanwhile, Cosmo Duff-Gordon got into lifeboat #1 with his wife and an employee. Although the boat had a capacity of 40, the boat shoved off with just over a dozen passengers, rather than wait for some of the 1500 passengers left with no lifeboat. After launching, rather than pick up desperate passengers struggling in the water, the occupants rowed away, worried that when the ship sank, it might suck them under the water.
Duff Gordon had the cramped definition of neighbor held by the lawyer in Luke—by his actions he showed love for a few people he knew well, people like him. When word of what happened that night got out, however, he fell into disgrace. He was scorned by everyone, his business went bankrupt, his marriage failed, his health disintegrated, and he soon died.
The engineers accepted Jesus’ definition of neighbor. They did not know whom they were saving—whether they were good or bad, foreign or countrymen, Christian or atheist. But they knew what eternal life was—living in the presence of God. They lived in the presence of God and are living there even now.
We dare not criticize either Duff Gordon or the lawyer in Luke too harshly. Each of us has moments when we live fully in the presence of God, when we go the path of the Titanic engineers. And each of us has times when we shove off in our own lifeboat leaving the rest of humanity behind. We have many excuses for doing so. We all squeeze the definition of neighbor to justify self-centered behavior, to justify ignoring the desperation of others with whom we share this earth.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” If you want to save yourself by doing, you’re going have to love every person on this earth as you love yourself. Think you can do that? The good news is you don’t have to. The lawyer unwittingly had it right when he asked, “What must I do to inherit the kingdom?” We do not do anything to inherit.
We live in the presence of God, which means loving God and our neighbor. And when we fall short, and shove our little lifeboat away from our sinking neighbor, we plead for forgiveness, for God to save us from ourselves. God takes on what we cannot and completes it, and draws us back into God’s presence.
What I have is yours, says God. You will inherit it. You will inherit it by giving it away, that’s how love works. That’s what it means to live in the presence of God. That is what it means to enjoy eternal life.