Luke 10:25-37
Opening prayer
Loving Father, open our hearts and minds to grasp how high and wide and deep is your love for us. Pour out your grace and mercy upon us once again and draw us closer to yourself through your kindly Spirit. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The story of the good Samaritan is a familiar one and well known. Many of us would be able to summarise it in a few simple sentences. Perhaps something like this: Well, it’s about an injured man who needed help on the side of the road and how two people simply walked by him before a Samaritan man finally stopped and helped him. The end!
In many ways that sums it up. And yet, there is a lot more going on in this story that Jesus tells and one that we need to listen to carefully, prayerfully, asking the Lord to open our hearts and minds to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly before him.
Luke chapter 10 contains three scenes if you like that illustrate what it means for us to live as Jesus’ disciples. In other words what are we called to do in response to what Jesus has done for us.
Scene one is all about us being ambassadors for Jesus – sent to represent him in the world (Luke 10:1-24). As his ambassadors, we are to go and tell others about Jesus. We are to share the good news of Jesus with friends, family members and neighbours. If you were at Annscroft last Sunday, this is what we were looking at.
Scene two is all about what it means to be a neighbour, looking for opportunities to show mercy to others in the name of Jesus. That’s what our passage (Luke 10:25-37) this morning is all about and we’ll take a closer look in a moment.
Scene three, and I don’t want to pre-empt what Graham might share next week (if he chooses to!) is all about us being worshippers who take time to listen to God’s word and spend time with him (Luke 10:38-42).
I think it’s a really helpful way to read the whole chapter and remember that all our being and doing flows out of a relationship with Jesus who loves, cares, enables and equips us to live for him and serve others in his name.
Let’s get back to scene two which is all about being a neighbour and take a look at what’s going on in this exchange between Jesus and the law expert.
Our passage tells us that an expert in law asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. It was a good question – one that was asked a lot in Jesus’ time. The question about eternal life was often debated by the Jews. It was very common for rabbis back then to discuss theological matters like this in public.
Jesus replies by asking the lawyer what was written in the Law and how he read it. Why? Not because the law saves us, but because the law shows us that we need to be saved (Romans 3:20).
The lawyer replies with the correct answer. He understood what the law said – basically love God and love your neighbour (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18).
But he was not willing to apply it to himself personally and admit his own lack of love for both God and his neighbour.
So, he tries to get out of this situation with Jesus by trying to justify himself. He uses the classic debating tactic ‘define your terms! What do you mean by ‘neighbour’? who is my neighbour? This question gets us to the heart of the matter in this scene. It expands our understanding of who our neighbour is and how we are to live in relation with them.
Jesus proceeds to define neighbour with an illustration. It is worth bearing in mind that Jesus doesn’t say this is a parable. Its more likely the report of something that actually happened. Why? Because it was well known that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a dangerous one where robbers and bandits often attacked travellers and stole their belongings.
Jesus tells the story of a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he is attacked by robbers, beaten and robbed, left half-dead on the road. A priest and a Levite, both religious figures, pass by without helping the injured man, a fellow Jew. These are the people you would expect to stop and offer help. They were meant to look out for those in trouble. It was their duty to help. But no, they walk past hurriedly.
Its easy for us to point our fingers at these two men for their lack of compassion towards a fellow human being in distress. We might want to pause and ask ourselves how many times we’ve made excuses when faced with someone who needed our help. I’ve done it.
What happens next? Well, when Jesus’s listeners heard about the priest and the Levite, they probably expected Jesus to say next that a common Jewish man came and helped. If that happened, this story would be another way Jesus showed the corruption of the religious leaders in that day.
But Jesus shocked them by saying that the man who helped was a Samaritan.
Why was this shocking? Because Jews and Samaritans despised each other both racially and religiously. The Jews considered themselves superior and looked down on the Samaritans as unclean people, beyond God’s help.
Jesus says a Samaritan who was passing by, saw the injured man and took pity on him. He stopped, got off his donkey. Ran to the injured man, poured oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them up. It is the Samaritan who showed love to those who hated him, who risked his own life on this dangerous road, who took the injured man to an inn, stayed with him, cared for his needs, spent his money and said he’d return to check up on him and pay any other expenses.
The Samaritan identified with the needs of the stranger lying in the road and had compassion on him. He was compelled by love to stop and care for the needs of his fellow human being. There was of course no logical reason why he should alter his plans, spend his money just to help one who was considered an ‘enemy’ in need. But then, mercy doesn’t need reasons. What the Samaritan did helps us to better understand what it means to “show mercy”.
Jesus then applies story or real-life illustration to the expert lawyer. Which of these three was a neighbour to the injured man? Jesus asks.
Do you see how Jesus has reframed the question? Its not “who is my neighbour”, bur rather “who was a neighbour”.
According to the thinking of the day the priest and the Levite were neighbour to the man who had been beaten and robbed. But they didn’t act like neighbours at all.
The lawyer knew the answer. He knew who the true neighbour was. And yet, he could not bring himself to say the name ‘Samaritan’. Did you notice that? He says the one who had mercy on him.
We might have expected the Samaritan to be an enemy, but he was instead a neighbour who showed mercy to the injured man – not from a distance. But in a very personal and practical way he tended to the need in an act of love, compassion and mercy.
I wonder how this story speaks to us today. How does Jesus’ definition of ‘neighbour’ challenge our understanding and how we respond to the needs of others.
The expert lawyer wanted to discuss ‘neighbour’ in a very general way. But Jesus doesn’t deal in generalities. Jesus is more specific. Jesus forces him to consider a specific man in desperate need, irrespective of caste, creed or citizenship. The same is true for us today.
As recipients of God’s grace, mercy and love, may we be channels of his mercy and love to all who are in need. May we show the same attitude the Samaritan showed in caring for a fellow, suffering human being and act with mercy and compassion towards them. It won’t be easy. It’ll certainly be costly and inconvenient. But let us not forget that God in Christ Jesus has shown costly mercy to each one of us. Let us then imitate our Saviour in and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.