Sometimes I would really rather not read the gospels.  The gospels are the four books of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—that contain the life and teachings of Jesus.  And if you read them carefully and take them seriously, Jesus is just so difficult! 

          Jesus gave the religious leaders of his day fits, and if we really listen to what he says, he sometimes gives us fits, too.  They were so sure that they had everything figured out, and Jesus constantly messed with their minds.  Aren’t we a lot like them?  Don’t we think we have this “Christian thing” pretty well figured out?  We have come to a place in our lives where we think we’re good enough.  We know we’re not perfect, but we know that Jesus has forgiven our sins, and we figure we’re living our lives close enough to good.

          And then, we read the words of Jesus.  And Jesus is quite impossible.  I find it interesting that many people today like Jesus but they don’t like churches.  My guess is that they have not really read the gospels very carefully.  They have seen churches that they didn’t like—and certainly, if we are honest, that is understandable.  Churches, after all, are full of sinners like you and me.  And we don’t always get things right. 

          Church is the place where you have to dress nicely, sing songs you don’t know and maybe wouldn’t like even if you did, shake hands with people you don’t know, and sit quietly and listen to long boring sermons, where the pastor tells you just how bad you are.  Then everyone goes out and drinks bad coffee and talks about everything except church.  Is it any wonder the church in America is losing ground?

          Yet most people claim that even though they have no interest in going to church, they like Jesus.  My guess is that most of them have not spent much time learning what Jesus actually said and did.  The Jesus they like—and to be honest the Jesus most of us like too—is a caricature of the real Jesus.  It is a Jesus who loves the little children and turns water into wine (who wouldn’t like that Jesus?) and tells us to be nice.  This nice, gentle Jesus that everyone likes is all about peace and love and goodwill.  But the real Jesus cuts right to the heart of things and always, always challenges us.   

          There’s a great story in Luke, where Jesus has a conversation with a young lawyer.  Like a typical lawyer today, this fellow wants to test his wits against Jesus.  This is in Luke 10.

 ²⁵On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus answers this question with his own questions.

 ²⁶"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

 ²⁷He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

 ²⁸"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

Now, if that young lawyer had really been smart, he would have stopped right there.  But this guy had a feeling that there was more to it.  He had a feeling that Jesus was not telling him everything, and he was right.

 ²⁹But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

And isn’t this what we would like, too?  If I have to love my neighbor as myself, then give me a definition.  Who exactly must I love?  Is it the one who lives in the house or apartment next to mine, or are you going to include the whole block?  What about relatives?  Does it include cousins?  Second cousins?  What about members of my church?  Some of them, or all of them?  Just how much loving do I have to do, Jesus?

 ³⁰In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹A priest [a Baptist pastor?] happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³²So too, a Levite [that was the church moderator, I think], when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

Well, wasn’t that the prudent thing to do?  This guy by the side of the road looks like a mess.  There doesn’t seem to be anyone around—but you never know, do you?  Best not to get involved, thought the pastor and the church moderator.  Best to just pretend you didn’t see anything and mind your own business.  Surely Jesus would understand that this is dangerous territory.  One guy has already been beaten and robbed; I better keep moving and get home as soon as possible.

 ³³But a Samaritan,

Now, let me interrupt one more time, because in order to really understand just how audacious this story of Jesus’ is, we need to understand who this Samaritan was.  Jesus, as you know, was a Jew, as was this young lawyer.  The Jews lived side by side with a people group called the Samaritans.  Like the Jews, the Samaritans traced their lineage back to Abraham.  But for four hundred years, the Jews and the Samaritans had been bitter enemies.  So now, Jesus tells a story and the hero of the story is not a good, upstanding Jew, but one of these hated Samaritans.

 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

 ³⁶"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

 ³⁷The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
      Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

            Do you see what I mean about Jesus?  He has impossible expectations.  The guy lying by the side of the road does not fit our idea of who our neighbor is, does he?  Surely Jesus understands that there are times when we shouldn’t get involved—doesn’t he?  But apparently he doesn’t.  Jesus seems to think we should get involved with those difficult neighbor, even when it costs us.

          And then there’s the hero of Jesus’ story.  What was it that the Samaritan did?  The Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

          The Samaritan really put himself out.  He looked at the man instead of looking away.  And when he really looked at the man, he had pity on him.  And then the Samaritan took charge of the situation and did everything he could to see that the man was taken care of.

          I hope you are starting to feel some sympathy for that young lawyer who asked Jesus all the questions.  He has gotten way more than he asked for, hasn’t he?  All he wanted to know was what Jesus thought he needed to do in order to inherit eternal life. 

          It is, after all, the basic question that every religion seeks to answer. 

          What Jesus is doing is helping this sharp young lawyer to see that even though he thinks he is a good person—probably he’s a lot better than the average guy—he can’t inherit eternal life based on his goodness.  Over and over, Jesus does this to us in the gospels.  He sets up these impossible standards that we know we can never meet.

          Does this mean we should just give up?  No way.  It means we should have enough humility to realize that we are sinners and we will always be sinners in need of a Savior.

          Jesus is not just trying to destroy our self esteem—to make us feel bad about ourselves.  Jesus wants us understand the holiness of God and he wants to call us to a higher standard of behavior.  Not so we can be assured of eternal life, but so that we can know the heart of God.  Our salvation—our claim to eternal life—is based, not on our goodness, but on the grace of God; on the blood of Jesus shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  But there is more than salvation, and Jesus calls us to move towards knowing the great and merciful heart of God.

          As I reminded you last week, I want to share with you some of my thoughts on Muslims, based on the study I have been doing.  This passage says a good deal to us about how we look at the issue of Muslims.

          The passage begins with the lawyer asking the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

          Based on his Jewish education in the scriptures, the young lawyer gave the best possible answer—to love God and to love his neighbor.  Jesus showed him that there was no way he could really do this.  In the end, we are, all of us, at the mercy of God.

          The difference between Christians and both Jews and Muslims is that Christians believe Jesus died for our sins and rose from the grave, triumphant over sin and death, and that he offers us eternal life based, not on our goodness, but on the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  Neither Jews nor Muslims believe this.  Muslims depend on hoping that their goodness outweighs their badness, and that God will have mercy on them.

          Probably one reason Muslims are so devout in their religion—praying five times a day every day, for example, is that they are not sure just how good they need to be in order for God to accept them.  I am grateful that as a Christian, I can know for sure that my sins have been forgiven and when I die I will receive eternal life based, not on my goodness, but on the blood of Jesus Christ.

          Christians, when they think of Muslims, have two natural reactions.  Either they want to ignore them and wish they would just go away, or they believe they should try to win them to Jesus Christ.  I have certainly considered both of those options.

          When the women in head scarves started showing up here and there in our area, it was at first a novelty.  They were sort of a charming oddity, and I didn’t give them much thought.  But they kept coming.  And coming.  It started to seem like, in certain places at least, there were Muslim women all over the place.  And it started getting annoying.  If these people want to be Americans, I asked myself, why don’t they get rid of those silly headscarves and just blend in?

          Then there was 9/11.  As a nation, we were caught completely off guard.  Suddenly, we became aware of an enemy in our midst, and they were Muslims.  Granted, these women in our community wearing head scarves did not seem to be terrorists, but who knows?  So we had to deal with fear.  Fear of an enemy that we didn’t know—and enemy that, for some reason, hates us and wants to destroy us.

          But somehow God seemed to be calling me to think this issue through more carefully and to become informed.  I began to see that there was a third alternative, beyond either ignoring Muslims or trying to convert them, and that was learning to treat them as my neighbor.

          In our story about the Good Samaritan, Jesus does not talk about the religious beliefs of the Samaritans.  Instead, he considers this very good, compassionate man, who just happens to be a Samaritan, and holds him up as an example.  He holds the Samaritan up as an example of the one who knows what it means to be a neighbor.

          I believe Jesus would say the same thing to us today with regard to Muslims, and every other people group that may seem “different” or even repugnant to us.  The first thing we need to do is learn to respect them. 

          When I see a woman who wears a head scarf, I need to learn to deal with it.  It is her choice, and I need to learn to respect her choice.  Maybe even learn to admire her willingness to be considered odd because of her faithfulness to her religion.  And I need to realize that Jesus, if he was telling me the story about the Good Samaritan, would probably make the story to be about a Good Muslim, because he knows I need to learn respect for all of the neighbors he has put in my neighborhood.

          We have much to learn about our Muslim neighbors.  Our world keeps changing, whether we like it or not.  We know that God is at work in our world—here in our church and in the wider community.  It is our task to allow him to work in our hearts and conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.

          When you see a Muslim on the street and maybe you, like me, are a little bit uncomfortable, remember these words from Micah 6:8:

          What does the Lord require of you?

          To act justly and to love mercy

                   and to walk humbly with your God.