Homily For The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2025
This morning Our Gospel is primarily concerned with the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan, but the Church for hundreds of years has included the conclusion of the previous section in the 10th Chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel with today’s reading. In the previous section, Jesus has sent the 70 out to prepare the way before Him - to announce the arrival of the long-expected Messiah. It is here that Our Lord says - “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.”
He then instructs them to trust in God’s provision by not taking any additional provisions with them. They are to rely upon the hospitality of those who will receive them. Conversely, he tells them to shake off the dust of their feet against those who refuse to receive them as messengers of the King.
After their mission is complete, they have a period of debriefing where the disciples declare the mighty acts of God worked in their midst. We read 17 And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. The seventy marvel that the power of the name of Jesus is greater than the weakness, the frailty of the 70. They were obedient and God blessed the effort - because even the great adversaries of God’s will in the world must submit. Jesus redirects their attention away from the power of his name in this life to the assurance that the 70 have on the day of Judgment. He says, “20 Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.” Jesus exulted, rejoiced greatly in the wisdom of God that, “hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” Truth revealed. Faith confirmed. All of this is the work of God as men obey the commandments of God. Knowing God comes from obeying him.
Not just the reception of facts, not just knowing for knowing’s sake. For all true knowledge from God is directed toward use. This brings us to the last sentence of this section which also serves as the first sentence in Our Gospel for today. Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: 24 for I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. In this benediction - Jesus declared the love of God toward his hearers when all the faithful in the Old Covenant would have delighted to see the Messiah - to hear his teaching. This passage is consistent with other events in the Gospel record where Jesus declared the Fathers would delight in His ministry. For instance, in John 8, Our Lord tells the religious establishment: “Abraham saw my day and was glad!” Wouldn’t Abraham have rejoiced to see the feeding of the five thousand! Wouldn’t Moses have enjoyed listening to the Sermon on the Mount! Wouldn’t Elijah have delighted to watch Jesus turn water into wine! Wouldn’t King Solomon in all his splendour have been willing to part with his riches for the opportunity of witnessing Jesus raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead!
We are introduced to a young lawyer who asked a question for the purpose of tempting Jesus - that is, the scribe wanted to catch Our Lord in some sort of inconsistency, thinking his question may incite some misstep in doctrine or speech. Of course, many tried with varied tactics, different approaches to trap Jesus in his words but the perfection of Our Lord is not only in his intentions and his integrity but in the perfection of his response in all circumstances. Always the right word in the right season. The lawyer asks: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus directs him to the Law and the Prophets, the testimony of the kings, prophets and priests of the Old Testament - those Our Lord had just said would have delighted to have seen his day- to see the Messiah come in accordance with the promises of God in ages past.
Here, the Law and the Prophets is to be understood as the totality of the Old Testament. Grace is the undercurrent of all elements of the Law. To be a part of God’s covenant people was a privilege and not an entitlement. The Law and Prophets have to do with love - love working though mercy. The Law communicated to God’s people what God was like - how he differed from the gods of the Egyptians, from those of the Canaanites. God’s Law was part of the marital covenant between Israel and God. God wanted what was best for Israel - God’s love was known by making Israel more holy, more distinctly His people in character. Love of God as commanded in the first table of the Law is manifested or worked out in the second table of the Law related to our duties to our neighbor. The Prophets called Israel back to love of neighbor that was the acid test of their profession of faith, its deficit indicated a wrong view of the covenant relationship with God. The prophets castigated Israel for its disregard of the weak.
Israel failed by curating their definition of who their neighbor was to include friends and family - to draw the circle of definition narrow. God’s people abused the poor, they were lacking in mercy, while adhering to doctrinal strictness. Formal, strict adherence to the Law became more important than the acts of mercy that the Law, in fact and in spirit, prescribed. The Law and the Prophets truly speak to what makes a man right before God, and what directs him toward the path of eternal life. For to love God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy strength - is to love and receive the person of Jesus, to love the one who can provide the righteousness that we need. Jesus speaks to this often in St. John’s Gospel to love the Father is to love the Son. To love the Son is to hear his words and obey them.
We read that the lawyer was not satisfied with Our Lord’s answer. He wants to know the limits of his duty - much in the spirit of St. Peter when he asks Our Lord about how many times he is obligated to forgive his brother.
In response, Jesus presents the expansiveness of the love of God that does seek to limit mercy and kindness but to expand them beyond human comprehension. Jesus tells of a man attacked, robbed and left for dead on the road to Jericho. Our Lord then introduces two characters familiar to his hearers - two men of the priestly class. One a priest and one a Levite. The priest was returning home from Jerusalem after taking part in the proper sacrifices appointed by the Law. This law commanded love “for the stranger in giving food and raiment” “because Israel was once a stranger in the land of Egypt.” The law commanded a love made known in acts of kindness and mercy. Instead of acting in love, the priest, perhaps fearing ceremonial uncleanliness, passes by without offering any help. Next, Jesus tells us of a Levite who arrives on the scene. He takes time to give some cursory examination of the wounded.
The Levite takes the time to examine the wounded man but determines that it is either too difficult or too expensive to help the victim. On the surface, it would seem that he shows greater concern for the wounded for he draws near. Yet, he is more culpable because he is a working servant of the temple. His job, his vocation is to do the rougher work like carrying the sacrificial animals, killing and preparing their bodies for the sacrifice. He would have had the physical strength and vocation to carry burdens and would be readily able to take him to the inn. Yet, like the priest, he does nothing. He may have felt something but he didn’t show mercy through practical help.
In the hearts and minds of the hearers, what hope would there be for the wounded, the victim? The two most likely agents of mercy passed him by and then Jesus introduces the least likely of characters to show mercy - a Samaritan. The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans was well documented.
They had a history of antipathy and conflict. One of the great insults levelled against our Lord was that he was born of a Samaritan. That he was an ethnic and religious half-breed. Here, it is the least likely candidate, in the Jewish estimate, that offers help. Not only does he offer help - his care, concern, tangible mercy is extraordinary. He personally treats his wounds. The Samaritan puts the wounded on his own horse. The Samaritan takes initiative to provide him protection, food, shelter in the inn and the Good Samaritan gives over and above - providing additional money should the victim need more care. The Good Samaritan shows what mercy looks like. The mercy and love of God is infinitely more expansive than the narrow conception, the confines of man’s desired limitation of the Law. It is broader and deeper. It is love beyond measure, mercy unfathomable.
Jesus is the Good Samaritan, and in this parable we find all that Christ has done for us. Without apparent pedigree, he was born as a priest in the order of Melchizadek, was neither Levite nor priest according to the Mosaic Law. He appeared to be an outsider; he appeared to the less astute, but he was to be the means through which the abundance of God’s love might be known. He was a carpenter from Galilee; people marvelled that he taught as one having authority because he did not carry the mantle of the Mosaic priesthood. Veiled in humility, hidden as it were in a Galilean's countenance, was the strength of God for achieving mankind’s salvation. In a most unlikely frame came the Saviour of the World. He, the true Good Samaritan loved and served to the uttermost. In the fullness of time, he came to us. As Augustine says so beautifully, Robbers left you half-dead on the road, but you have been found lying there by the passing and kindly Samaritan. Wine and oil have been poured on you. You have received the sacrament of the only-begotten Son. You have been lifted onto his mule.
You have believed that Christ became flesh. You have been brought to the inn, and you are being cured in the church. The Church is tended by the clergy who function as the innkeeper. They are stewards of his holy mysteries; they received from him the two coins of the canon - the Old and New Testaments “revealed within them the image of the eternal King, at the price of whose wounds we are healed? The next day when the Samaritan returns is the promise of Christ’s second return in which we live anticipation in the present.
Jesus, at the conclusion of our Gospel, asks the lawyer who was a neighbor to the victim on that road to Jericho. He admitted that it was the Samaritan - the one who showed mercy. God, in Jesus Christ, shows mercy to us because of his goodness, his inexplicable love for us. And as we have received, so we too will show mercy. Love and mercy are wedded; inseparably bound.
If we love God, it is because he first loved us. He showed his love for us while we were yet sinners because Christ died for us. He seeks us out and saves us, lavishes his love on us. Because we have received love from God, we in turn love Him. As we love Him, we show mercy to needy sinners around us. So this morning, imagine the love of God in Jesus Christ for us. All the ways he showed his love in coming to us, saving us, providing shelter and restoration in the church. Look out into the world, and work as His body, as those redeemed by His grace, and ask how we might show love, mercy to others in the smallest token of that which we have received. Ask God to bring you opportunities for mercy, opportunities for Christian love into your life this next week. As we encounter others in our daily life, may he make it crystal clear that this person is before us so that we might show mercy and love in response to the great love and mercy we have received. Amen.
