Jesus and the Trojan Horse

Jesus and the Trojan Horse--August 16, 2016

"Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he said, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, 'What is written in the law? What do you read there?' He answered, 'You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.' But wanting to justify himself, he asked, Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' Jesus replied, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on this own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?' He said, 'The one who showed him mercy.' Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise'." [Luke 10:25-37]

There is no doubt about it: Jesus is trying to change us.

Yes, Jesus is trying to change you.  And he is trying to change me.  He does not deny it or hide it, but usually we miss the ways he is doing it.  Jesus has a way of getting under our skin, of getting beneath our defenses, and then captivating our hearts from the inside like the Trojan Horse. 

We often think Jesus is a mostly harmless messiah, telling quaint stories that we could put on flannel boards to teach children lessons about being nice... lessons which we would then feel free to disregard ourselves when we got into "real life" situations in our jobs or in adult society.  We imagine that Jesus' stories are like Aesop's fables--safe stories with common sense morals meant to make us into successful, respectable grown-ups. But Jesus is more crafty, more clever, more subversive than we usually give him credit for: he has a way of getting inside our heads and our hearts when we are looking the other way.  And, yes, it often comes through stories, stories that wriggle their way into our minds and change our ways of thinking and seeing. 

Think about how potent this story--the one we usually call the Good Samaritan--really is, if we let it speak. Remember, this story is given as Jesus' answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" The man who had asked Jesus that question was looking for boundaries--a solid, bright line he could use to determine who is "in" and who is "out," and who he has to care about... as well as who he can write off and ignore.  He wants Jesus to give him a list, an itemized catalog of who he is required by God's law to be nice to, and who is eligible to be forgotten. And the man who asks this question of Jesus wants to do it while keeping his standing as a respectable, decent, sensible figure in the community. He basically wants to know what bare minimum amount of caring is necessary for him still to be seen as a man in good standing around town.

And you know how the story goes. Jesus dismantles that whole way of thinking. Jesus erases all the lines, all the boundaries.  Jesus gives the first two passersby in his story as warning of what "respectable people" will do.  The priest and the Levite aren't wicked villains--they are respectable, decent, upright men in their communities.  They aren't trying to be evil--they are just busy with their own lives.  They have jobs to think about! They have their own families!  They have their own interests, and bills to pay, and calendars to keep with lots of respectable appointments they have to keep!  They can't be bothered to throw all of that out the window, be late to their next obligations, risk becoming unclean by helping the man in the road, or possibly miss out on doing their very, very respectable jobs.  You can hear all the excuses they would offer... because they are the ones we tend to offer. "I would help... but I am already very busy with my own life!" "I would show up for you... but you know, I have somewhere to be." "I would stay... but don't I deserve a little me time anyway?" Those are all perfectly respectable things to say, and I'll bet we all would nod our heads that they all seem completely reasonable excuses.

But Jesus doesn't tell a story about respectable people doing reasonable things.  Jesus gets inside our hearts and stretches them three sizes larger like the Grinch's, out beyond what was respectable and reasonable. Jesus doesn't let the respectable, decent religious professionals be the heroes of his story--no, Jesus casts the unwanted foreigner with the wrong religion as the hero, precisely by having him do things that all the respectable characters are too busy to do.

And once we realize that, the game is already up. Jesus has gotten into our hearts and started pushing.  Jesus will not leave us as we are, and Jesus will not let us be content any longer with just leading quietly successful lives with promotions every few years and a better car on the off years.  Jesus will not let us settle for so small a vision as being "respectable religious people." And if we keep listening to him, we will find that we can no longer settle for just living for ourselves anymore.  That might have been a noble enough goal before Jesus started banging around in our hearts--but once he gets hold of us, and once he starts pushing the boundaries of our heart from the inside, we will be permanently unsatisfied with just being busy with our own lives. We will no longer feel like it's enough to do with our lives just to go to work and get gold stars from the boss for all we do there. We will not longer feel like our old pastimes are enough to give us purpose and meaning.  We will no longer be satisfied to say, "I've got the career, the romance and social boxes fulfilled on my checklist, the kids are doing all right, and my retirement account is going to keep me comfortable when I need it." Those are all fine things, but once Jesus starts stretching our hearts, we will no longer be content to be the priest and the Levite, comfortably isolated in their own lives and their own business. Once Jesus begins his work on us--work that begins already once you let his words into your mind and once his stories have worked their way from your ear canal into your brain--we will find ourselves increasingly pushed out of our bubbles of respectability to a new concern for the people who end up at the side of the road... and we will find ourselves not only pouring out our resources like oil and wine to care for them, but we will start asking questions like, "Why are there people who get left by the side of the road in the first place?"


So let this be a warning to you: it is already too late if you have made it this far into these paragraphs.  Jesus has already gotten his story into your head, and it will go to work on your heart.  It will, like it did for the lawyer who asked Jesus for lines and boundaries, break open the boundaries of our hearts and push us no longer to be satisfied with checking requirements off boxes and checklists.  We will be changed, and Jesus will make us more and more fully to love people we would have otherwise looked the other away from or forgotten about while making our weekend plans.


Be careful--Jesus has it in mind to change your heart, like he has it in mind to change mine, and all the world's.  And as we are pulled today out of comfortable apathy, it will dawn on us... he has already begun.


Lord Jesus, come and stretch these hearts of ours, wider and bigger than we would have had when we were trapped inside the bounds of respectability and comfortable isolation.  Change our hearts, and erase the lines we had drawn to keep others out.