PROPER 10-C, July 15, 2007

Lawyers over the centuries having gotten a bad rap, some, it seems, justifiably so. The lawyer in this Gospel incident was being lawyerly, in the bad connotation of that word. He was asking an honest question but what he was really doing was baiting Jesus. He wanted to trap Jesus in his speech in order to make a fool out of him, or at least he hoped he would be able to do so.

After all, all too often Jesus had turned the tables on those who held themselves up as teachers and leaders. These men just wanted to get even, if only for once. One would think that they would have learned by now, but they simply could not resist. They knew Jesus had no formal education and that any he did have paled in comparison to theirs. He had to have an Achilles heel somewhere and they were out to discover it. That did not happen this time, either.

One would think further that by now, if they had truly been listening to what Jesus had been teaching, that they would have gotten the message Jesus was constantly trying to get across. That message was and is that being a faithful person does not demand some sort of sophisticated education or special knowledge. It is quite simple. It has always been quite simple. It will always be. Love God with all our being and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That’s it. That is the essence of everything Jesus taught.

The fact that it is not so easy to love so fully is another matter altogether. Yet it is also the reason why these lawyers tried as best they could to find exceptions to this simple law and rule of life. The parable Jesus tells is such an example of trying to find a way around following this simple law. The priest and the Levite each had legitimate excuses why they did not have to stop and help the injured man.

When we look at this man, this lawyer, it would be easy to take him to task but we would only be looking at a mirror image of ourselves. Like him we, too, try to find excuses for not loving as fully as we are called to and capable of loving. We look for exceptions to this law; and if we cannot find any, we make them up.

That is what sin is all about, is it not? We know what we should do but do not want to do it because it is too difficult or because we are too lazy. So we don’t act, don’t love, and then justify our inaction. We knew better but we did not do better. We sinned. It happens to everyone, not just to lawyers.

Again, we are all like the lawyer. We all want to justify ourselves, justify our actions. Even when we know better, especially when we know better, we attempt to find a reason to justify why we are doing what we are doing. Call it human nature. Call it what we will; but we all do it. The lawyer knew the answer to his question before he even asked it. He knew what the great commandment was and he knew what that commandment demanded of him in his daily life. And, I suspect, he also knew what Jesus’s response to his question would be.

So why did he ask? Why did he put himself in a position that would, in the end, make him look foolish? He knew Jesus had a habit of making his questioners walk away wondering why they engaged him in a conversation in the first place. They always, always lost. Did this lawyer think he would be different? Did he think he would be an exception to the rule? Of course he did! Don’t we all? When we try to justify an action that we, deep in our hearts, know has no justification, we do so because we want to believe that we are somehow an exception to the rule.

Whenever we come up with an excuse, any excuse, we do so because we want to believe it will excuse us from doing what we know we should do but for some reason do not want to do. Whatever that reason is, it has to be a strong enough one, at least in our own minds, to justify our non-compliance at the moment we choose to not comply. And then when we are forced to defend our actions, we try to justify not only what we did but why we believed what we did was the right thing to do.

The issue at hand in this parable is not so much why we often act like the priest and the Levite and think like the lawyer. The issue at hand, in truth, is what it means to love God and neighbor and self. We all find reasons why we do not whenever we do not. Jesus knew that. The lawyer knew that. That is why Jesus did not address the issue. He simply told a parable to explain what it means to be a neighbor; what it means to love fully

All of this brings us to our word for today: generous. As Christians we are to be noted for our generosity for freely giving of ourselves, giving abundantly. That is the real point of the parable Jesus told. The Samaritan went out of his way to help someone in need. More than that, he did even more than what would have been asked of anyone in a similar situation. He did for that injured man what he hoped others would do for him were he in a similar situation.

There is a word for that kind of behavior. It is "magnanimous". I can still remember my science professor is seminary preaching on magnanimity. He was preaching on this gospel passage. Sadly, what I most remember about that sermon was how he stumbled over the word and even joked about it. Yet almost every time I read or hear the story of the Good Samaritan, I remember that sermon and that word.

To be magnanimous means to go above and beyond. It means to be more than generous, abundantly generous, to do more than is expected. So often as human beings, even as Christians, we either look for ways to avoid doing what our faith demands of us or, if we cannot avoid doing something, we do the minimum required. Being generous, being magnanimous with our time or talent or treasure is not on our radar screen. It does not come naturally to any one of us.

It was on Jesus’ radar screen, of course, and it is the point of this parable. The parable is not about simply loving another as we love ourselves. It is not about simply seeing everyone as a neighbor or even as a brother or sister. It is about going above and beyond. It is about a different mindset, one that does not come either easily or readily to any one of us. It is a mindset and a way of life that must be believed in, worked at and fostered every single day of our lives. Given human nature, that means it will take hard work on our part. It will take the grace of God. And it will demand the love and support of our faith community.

God will always give us whatever grace and strength we need to go that extra mile, to go above and beyond, to be generous, magnanimous. Our faith community will always be there to support us in our magnanimity. For our part, we can always find excuses why we cannot or should not be so generous or magnanimous. What we need to do is find reasons why we should.