THE GOOD NEIGHBOR, Luke 10:25-37 Today’s text opens with a question, “Teacher,” addressing Jesus, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Salvation in his eyes was about doing something. How can I earn my salvation, how can I gain eternal life was the question presented to Jesus. It is the question on the minds of so many people. How do we answer our deepest longings? How does one deal with the void that each of us struggles with that can only be filled by God? The natural response is to take action, do something, pay some dues and get this situation resolved. As with all such questions there is another side to this. In asking what to do we are looking to eliminate all other responsibilities. Tell me the minimum requirements and the rest of my life is mine. The problem for this man and for all who approach God in this way is that salvation is not earned but is given. In a very real sense there is nothing that you can do to inherit eternal life. The very fact that the man spoke of inheritance is a give away. You don’t earn an inheritance it is a gift. The short answer to his question is, nothing. You can do nothing to earn eternal life. But that is not the whole answer. Jesus points the man to the law. “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The man’s answer is correct and commendable. “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.” Jesus’ response was, “correct, do this and live.” The problem is that as laws go this is pretty ambiguous. It gives no clear direction because love is hard to define. We all have an intuitive sense of what love is but we can’t really define it. Love is something you fall in and out of. It’s an emotional response to someone or something. The definition of love is assumed by everyone and explained by non. What must I do to inherit eternal life is the question and Jesus answer is to love God and love your neighbor. For someone who is looking for a tangible set of rules to lay hold of he doesn’t get it from Jesus. Love often seems subjective. So the man and you and I are left with the problem of defining love and deciding if it reaches the level of eternal life. The God side is subjective. My love for God cannot be judge by others. How many people do you meet that say they love God but it has little impact on the way they live their lives. Its like the time when Jesus forgave the sins of the man lowered down through the roof. The question on everyone’s mind was how can this man Jesus forgive sins and how do we know they in effect were forgiven. Jesus understanding their confusion said, “So that you know that the Son of Man can forgive sins,” he said to the man, “Take up your bed and walk.” Love needs a tangible express our there is no way to judge its reality. For this man and for us the real problem comes with the command to love the neighbor. There can be no deception here. You sit though worship and people assume you love God. Put the love of one’s neighbor has to take on some kind of form. Again when we ask what must we do to be saved we are asking for the limitations on what is required. So the man, who was not real interested in helping his neighbor asked, “Who is my neighbor?” What he in affect was asking is, who do I have to love and who can I ignore? In this lies the problem. We all have busy lives. There is little time for ourselves and our friends and families after we do all that we need to do to survive. Long hours of work eat up our time. What little is left we want to spend it on ourselves. Add to our busy work schedules are the demands made on us by our families and friends. On top of those demands are those mundane responsibilities of shopping, cleaning and laundry. So if I have to love my neighbor who exactly is that person? Jesus tells a story. A man was going down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and he gets jumped, beat up and left for dead. What a horrible story. Who wouldn’t stop to help someone in such a desperate situation? Jesus continues. A priest sees the man and crosses to the other side of the road and keeps on going. You would think that a priest, someone versed in the Law, who knew the commandments and spent his life trying to keep them would have stopped. But he didn’t. After that came a Levite, a temple worker who also seeing the man, passed on the other side of the road. Two religious men who knew what to do didn’t do it. Don’t be too quick to pass judgment on these two men. What is striking about this story is that they are religious men. They of all people should know what to do, be moved by compassion and act on the man’s behalf. Jesus is looking for that reaction from us that’s why he uses them in his illustration. What you need to know is that the overwhelming majority of people don’t stop to help people in need. They don’t stop for various reasons. One reason people don’t stop to help is they think that someone else also aware of the need and maybe better qualified will help. People are afraid to get involved thing that something might happen to them. There might be a feel of inadequacy, that they aren’t sure what to do. There is always the, “it’s not my problem” attitude. And then there is the reality that we all have some place to be and have no time to help. The fact remains that when most people see someone in need they justify to themselves why they shouldn’t stop. The interesting thing is that if you ask people if they would stop we all tend to lie to ourselves and say that we are different and we would stop. The truth of the matter is that most of us would like the Priest and the Levite walk on by. This is an uncomfortable truth but instead of feeling the conviction we raise our pious chests and point fingers at these two men. How dare they walk on by? Jesus raises the bar in the story. A Samaritan comes by and unlike the two religious men he stops. A Jewish man lay dying on the side of the road and his religious leaders pass him by. A Jewish man lay dying on the side of the road and his cultural enemy stops. Do you start to feel the tension? The question is who is my neighbor. You might say those living in close proximity to you. You might say someone from you hometown. Or you might say someone who share you cultural background. In other words someone like your self. This is the answer that the man was looking for. If that defines my neighbor everyone different than me is out of the picture and I have no legal reason to love him or her. Jesus uses those of similar background to prove that that is not always the case. Even if we define neighbor tightly it doesn’t mean we will automatically act loving toward them. But Jesus wants to take this to another level. He brings a Samaritan into the picture because the Jews and the Samaritans hate each other. Race matters, it always does. If you don’t believe me you are fooling yourself. The Samaritan stops, bandages the man, takes him to get medical help, picks up the tap and tells the innkeeper that on his return trip he will pay and difference in the bill. This is the love that God is talking about in the law. Not doing this is what you confessed in the opening of the service. This behavior is what Jesus expects of you. Confronted with what real love looks like the man had to admit that the Samaritan loved the man and the religious leaders did not. Upon his confession Jesus told him to go and do likewise. The man wanted to know what to do to inherit eternal life. You can’t do anything to inherit anything. Eternal life like and inheritance is a gift. But once you receive a gift you must act upon it or else you haven’t really received it. Here is where faith and works come together. On the cross Jesus died for your sins. If you are a man or women of faith you believe that what Jesus did applies to you personally and you by faith are incorporated into the kingdom of God. Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” In other words Jesus is saying if you love him and believe him you will follow him. Jesus so loved the world that he gave up his life for it. He said if you want to gain eternal life you must loose your life for Jesus sake. The tangible out working of this death to self is love for the neighbor. The neighbor, Jesus points out, is anyone in need regardless of your feelings for that person. So we are left to figure out what does it mean to be a Christian in this city? Salvation is by faith alone, but as James points out faith without works is dead. We need to be praying that God opens our eyes to see the needs of the people around us because we instinctually will cross the street and pass by on the other side. Jesus would have us stop. Lord give us the grace to truly love our neighbor as we love ourselves and help us to live our faith out loud.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:07:09 +0000
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