Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

St. Luke 10:23-37

August 30, 2026

+INJ+ The first two verses of the Gospel seem disconnected from the Parable of the Good Samaritan. They’re not. They’re the interpretive key to the Parable. They’re the interpretive key to the whole Bible.

“Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”

The NT disciples see what all the righteous in the OT were waiting for. Our first parents heard the promise: a son would come and crush the serpent (Gen. 3.15). Abraham heard the promise: in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 22.18). St. Paul quotes this in today’s Epistle: the offspring is Christ.

But it’s everywhere: A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and He shall be called Immanuel, God with us (Isaiah 7). Surely He will bear our sins and carry our sorrows (Is. 53). They’ll pierce His hands and His feet (Ps. 22). He’ll be with us in the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23). Someone like David will come, to fight the giant. Someone like Jonah will come, to be swallowed by the monster and emerge on the third day. Someone like Josiah will come, and cleanse the temple. Someone like Elijah will come, healing the sick and raising the dead.

That Someone is Jesus. Son of the Virgin Mary, born into the household of Joseph, son of David, son of Man, son of God. The entire Bible is about Him. That’s what the disciples are seeing. And that’s what we should see when we read the Bible.

But what we’re tempted to do is read the Bible chiefly as a moral code. “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s the question the lawyer asks. He presumes eternal life is based on keeping a code. The right actions will be rewarded in the hereafter.

Jesus turns the question back on the lawyer. “What does the Bible say?” The lawyer does what lawyers do: he analyzes the law. And the law demands total love - love God, love neighbor.

But his analysis is cold. It assumes the purpose of life is to do what is necessary to get the reward. Every action, every interaction is calculated for personal gain. God is no longer god. He’s a means to an end, the end being some all-inclusive sky resort. And the lawyer wants to exclude as many neighbors as possible from his obligation.

This was not man’s purpose. It’s not your purpose.

When God made man, He outlined man’s purpose: Get married, have babies, cultivate the world into an ordered and beautiful garden, essentially expanding Eden.

That purpose doesn’t go away. But it becomes horribly hindered. Our desires are corrupted, and death like a weed is choking all life east of Eden.

That catastrophic fall is embedded in the parable. Man goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He’s not named, he’s not described, Jesus just calls him Anthropos, “Man.” Man goes down, he descends from the city of God to the city of wickedness.

As man descends, he encounters thieves. These are demons, like the one our first parents met. Demons are con artists. They promise you wealth and pleasure, but take your goods. They take your righteousness, they take your dignity. They promise pleasure and leave you traumatized, wounded in the ditch.

Man is dying, or in the language of the parable, “half dead.” The priest and the Levite pass by. They can’t help. It’s not because they’re selfish, or scared. The law isn’t enough. The sacrifices aren’t enough. That’s why Jesus has them pass by.

But the Samaritan – he has compassion. In the Gospels, compassion is always a divine characteristic. The Samaritan is Jesus. In many of the parables of Jesus, He is the main character.

The point of the parable isn’t, “Be more compassionate and you’ll gain eternal life.” The first point is, “You’re the dude in the ditch and you don’t even realize it.”

Everything that happened to our first parents stripped them of their righteousness, their dignity, their life. They began to die. And all of your problems - some of them of your own making, some of them happening to you - reveal the deep corruption pervading the world. It burns your esophagus like the acid of bad decisions. It haunts you in the night, as you worry, or replay grievances. It makes you sad and you don’t know why. Someone stops talking to you. You keep checking your investments. You doom scroll, but the dopamine hits get more difficult to maintain. We’re half-dead while we’re alive, yet are so used to the ditch we can’t imagine an actual new life. Thieves have stripped you, wounded you, traumatized you. You’re dying.

You need Jesus.

He has compassion.

Our school faculty took a first aid class last week. Apparently blood is dangerous. Before you help somebody, you need to don a hazmat suit. Well, nobody told the Samaritan. He just plunges into the ditch, no gloves, no mask. He’s always entering human problems like this. Letting the lepers draw near, touching dead bodies, everything that makes one unclean. He sees our plight and makes it His own.

He takes what is ours and makes it His own. Our traumas. Our wounds. Our death. And the sin that causes it.

The Lord Jesus bandages our wounds with His oil and wine, His Sacraments. He puts us on His own animal, and brings us to the inn which becomes a hospital. He leaves money, and a promise to return and pay all future bills.

Who is the neighbor? The One who shows mercy.

“Go and do likewise,” Jesus says.

The truth is, we’re all sick. We’re all dying. We’re all mortal.

Jesus has brought us into His hospital. He’s given us the promises.

He is healing us.

Becoming His disciple means we start to get jobs around the hospital. There are bed pans to clean, and wounds to wash. There are sins to forgive and slights to overlook. The church is the inn, the church is the hospital. Don’t be surprised when you find sick people in the hospital. Don’t be surprised when you find sinners at church.

One of the Reformation confessions reminds us, “Love overlooks, forgives, and yields to [others] … [Love] is not gloomy, harsh, and uncooperative toward people. It overlooks the mistakes of its friends…. Harmony in the Church cannot last unless pastors and churches mutually overlook and pardon many things” [Ap V.121-122].

In short, then, Jesus meets us in our crisis and descends to our degradation. He begins our healing and places us into His Church. Our foolish descent from the city of God is forgiven. As we are healed, He sends us out on little missions with all the wounded people around us. “Go and do likewise.” We keep coming back to the Inn, the Church. We receive the medicine, and also start helping distribute it.

The money doesn’t matter anymore. He’s been generous, and is coming back with enough to repay whatever we spend, whatever we give. He’s coming back. That’s good news. Death is defeated. The demons are put to flight. Stay out of the ditch. You don’t belong there anymore. Your home is the inn, the Church. +INJ+