What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Luke 10:25-37

20th Sunday After Pentecost

“What shall I do to inherit eternal life”?  In today’s Gospel, a lawyer asks Christ this question.  It is a good question, and one that we should all be asking.  What should we do to inherit eternal life? We find many, many other concerns and questions that tend to take priority, rather than this essential question. We may find a complete indifference towards eternal life, and life is lived in complete denial that there is a life beyond the grave, and life consumed with the pursuit of pleasure, comfort, or riches, and satisfying our own wants and desires. Or, we find quick and ready answers, telling us to just say this or do that and we will have a ticket for eternal life. Others may prioritize political movements or social causes as the most important question. But how does Christ answer this question? How does he instruct us in today’s Gospel on what we must do to inherit eternal life?

He first responds by saying that we must love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, strength and our mind; in other words, with every part of our being.  In addition to this, we must also love our neighbor as ourselves. The lawyer— and here we must bear in mind that this person is an expert in the Mosaic Law, and would have know the commandments in the Law of Moses to do these very things. So far, nothing new here. The lawyer then asks Christ an additional question: who is my neighbor? As we see so often in the Gospels, Christ teaches not with a direct answer but with a story. Why does he answer this way? Because we take a story and we dwell on it; the story’s meaning stays with us as we ponder it and reflect upon it. Christ tells the story of a certain man who was taken by thieves and robbed and beaten severely. The first two who encounter this bloodied and bruised man are both figures of religious authority—in other words, the very people we would expect to be kind and merciful. First comes a priest, then a Levite (who would have been an assistant to the Jewish priests). Both of these men do the same: they ignore the poor man, even passing by on the other side. We all know what that’s like; we see a beggar, or someone we want to avoid, so we make the effort of crossing to the other side of the street so that we can avoid him. Next comes a Samaritan. The Samaritan goes to great lengths to help the poor man. He shows real compassion. He attends to his wounds, carrying him to a nearby inn and paying his costs. He even comes back and checks on him! Christ ends the story by asking which one was merciful, and the answer is clear. We are told to go and do likewise.

What do we learn from this story?  First and foremost, we learn what it means to be compassionate and to show mercy. The Samaritan takes care of the man’s wounds, pouring on them oil and wine. The wine helped cleanse the wound, the oil helped heal it. He carries the man to an inn and covers his costs. The Samaritan goes to great lengths, giving of himself without concern for himself. Now, the Samaritans were a hated people, a people who were seen as the worst offenders since they were once part of the Jewish faith but had mixed their faith with outside, pagan elements. Consequently, it would have been a shock to hear of a Samaritan performing these great acts of mercy, while a priest and levite, figures of religious authority, pass by on the other side.

This Gospel gives a stern warning. We must not be like the priest and levite who pass by on the other side. We should not content ourselves by thinking:  we have the true faith, we keep the traditions, we follow the proper rules. Very good; all of this is important— the priest and the levite were strict keepers of the law, but that was not enough. It was the despised Samaritan that Christ chose to give as an example of the neighborly love that leads to eternal life. Without compassion, without love for our neighbor, our keeping of tradition and our calling ourselves true Christians mean little, without this love for our neighbor, which is foundational to everything else. Who is our neighbor? All of mankind. We all share the same nature, we are all created in the image and likeness of God. So we must be compassionate and merciful to al mankind; not just those near us or close to us, but to everyone.

Today’s Gospel reading prepares us for the upcoming season. Beginning this week, on Friday, we start to prepare for the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.  At the center of our preparations should be this concern with inheriting eternal life. This is why we prepare ourselves, this is why we fast; we deny ourselves not simply to punish our bodies and to see how well we can keep the fast, as a kind of endurance test. We must never forget why we undertake these fasts and times of preparation.  We do all of this so that we can better focus on time and attention on the things that matter, the things that lead to eternal life. Prayer and fasting are always tied to almsgiving. It is so easy to get caught up in thinking about fasting alone—what we will eat, what foods are allowed on this day, and so on. But this is not the essence of why we fast. We should not let food be our focus; we want to think less about food and be less concerned with our food so that we can focus more on loving our Lord God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind; to focus more on being generous and compassionate to others. We have many ways specific ways we can do this. There are opportunities to increase our almsgiving— whether by giving to special appeals, such as the Orthodox Stewards, an initiative that supports many aspects of our national Church, or donating to the International Orthodox Charities; or more locally, by supporting Stewards of the Diocese of New England, who do work in our own diocese, or by giving to local food banks and shelters. Our giving can also take other forms; we can visit the sick or those in need; we can simply reach out and be there for those who are lonely or in despair.

The question posed to us in today’s Gospel is about eternal life—but it is also about what we do here and now. The Gospel reading concludes with these words: “Go and do likewise.” We don’t hear what motivated the Samaritan to act in this way, but it doesn’t appear that he was motivated by reward, with the expectation that he would get something in return. Elsewhere in the Gospels Christ tells us “be merciful, as your Heavenly father is merciful.” We should be merciful for this reason— not with the expectation of reward, doing good deeds to earn something in return. Salvation is not about something later on, in another place. We are to be merciful, as God is merciful; in another place, Christ tells use “be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect” (Mt 5.48) This perfection is an on-going process of becoming like God, through divine grace. We were created in the image and likeness of God,  but through our free choice we turned away from God and lost the likeness. On account of the incarnation, when the Son of God takes on our human nature, it is possible to be renewed, to be re-created in the image and likeness of God, to be “partakers of the divine nature” as St. Peter says. Today’s Gospel provides practical steps in how to embark on this process of becoming like God— as Christ tells us at the conclusion of the story of the Samaritan who was merciful and compassionate, “go and do likewise.”