Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
Audio File of Matins & Ante-Communion for Trinity 13
“Mary hath chosen the better part which shall not be taken from her”
The Christian ethic of compassion is illustrated most profoundly in the familiar parable of the so-called ‘Good’ Samaritan, so-called because the word, ‘good’, actually doesn’t appear in the text but rightly belongs to its meaning and interpretation. We take it for granted, perhaps, and don’t always appreciate its deeper and more radical meaning. “Go and do thou likewise” is our usual and immediate take-away but without realizing just what that means. In the illusions of our pragmatism and over confidence in practical matters, we oppose the practical to the theoretical and miss the nature of their necessary interrelation and reciprocity. As such our practical activities are often as not more like the distractedness of Martha as opposed to the collectedness of Mary.
A corrective to our simplistic approach to the parable of the Good Samaritan may be found in thinking about the connection between it and what follows immediately upon it in Luke’s Gospel here in Chapter 10. What follows is the story of Martha and Mary, a story which illuminates for us the reciprocity between action and contemplation which is so easily overlooked when considering the parable by itself. Yet the parable is set within a powerful ethical consideration about the understanding of the Law in its profoundest sense as God’s will for our humanity, our good in its deepest meaning. Thus Mary’s better part corresponds to the question and answer between Jesus and “a certain lawyer” about our reading and understanding of the Law.
“A certain lawyer”, “a certain man”, “a certain Samaritan.” The repetition of the word ‘certain’ is suggestive. It is the language of fable and myth but with an ethical purpose. The certain man and the certain Samaritan belong to the parable which is told in relation to Jesus’ encounter with a certain lawyer. In a way, these are all types or symbols. Jesus is being put to the test about the purpose and meaning of the Law.
The question asked to test him is “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The question, even in the hostility of the encounter, reveals something profound about the Law. It is not simply about the ordering of our practical and worldly affairs; somehow it belongs to our life with God in his eternity and to our end with God. This brings out the implicit universality of the Law. Thus readings which pit Jew against Christian in the interpretation of the parable are limited readings. Jesus’ questioning response brings out the deeper and more radical truth of the Law. His immediate question in response to the “certain lawyer,” who is symbolic of the tensions and questions within late Judaism about the ethical extent and meaning of the law, is precisely about “what is written in the law” and about how we read or understand what is written. Ultimately, it results in the exchange out of which comes the parable as the illustration of the true understanding of the Law in its purpose and intent.
