Yesterday I had the task of moving a bookshelf between rooms in my house. It’s not difficult to move the furniture itself, but with all the books its a longer process since I had to empty the shelves, move the bookcase and then move the books in from another room and onto the shelves.
In the process I found or should I say rediscovered a book from my days in undergrad that sparked today’s blog. 2 The Heart of Love: Obeying God’s Two Greatest Commandments” by Ted Rivera. If you’re not familiar with the two greatest commandments; it refers to Jesus’ take on the Law and Ten Commandments, that are summed up into 1.Love God and 2.Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Sounds very straightforward? Right? Well, over several years I have heard various sermons highlight parts of the commandments. Some focus on what it means to love God, what love really looks like, and how we can love others once we love and accept ourselves. While all these are great areas to focus on, I’d rather focus on the question posed by the expert of the law found in the Gospel account of Luke.
This expert of the law, the Jewish Law to be clear, had approached Jesus and asked Him if there was anything else he should be doing. That is to be a better person, or maybe to get closer to God, or have Jesus put a good word in for him. Or maybe to impress others that he had done everything so perfect, according to the Law, or most likely, according to his own interpretation of the Law.
I get that, and to be honest have tried that before myself. We have this tendency to see ourselves as better than others when it comes to being a good person. We run through a little checklist in our minds and pride ourselves on all our good points we add up in our self-evaluation by our own standards. Yes, we tell ourselves they are God’s standards and we are pretty good at following them, but honestly we pick and choose the standards we want to use to evaluate ourselves. We interpret the law as we decide it should be interpreted. That’s what this guy in Luke’s account was doing. And Jesus called him out on it by looking at the intent and the heart of the law to love others.
As Luke 10 tells us “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus answered “What is written in the Law, how do you read it?” the man 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 ” “You have answered correctly. Do this and live.” “BUT, he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor?” (NIV, Lk. 10 :25-29).
In Jesus’ style of answering a question, he teaches with the use of a story, or parable that in turn poses the question back to the original questioner. And in this we have what’s called the parable of the Good Samaritan, who becomes the hero of the story in helping the beaten traveler. Jesus explains the three who came upon the poor traveler who had been beaten, robbed, stripped of his clothes and left by the roadside. The first two to pass by the injured man were both religious leaders, who presumably followed the Law, but each could not be bothered given their busyness, indifference, and there attitude that is was best if that actually crossed to the opposite side of the road. I think that maybe they could pretend they didn’t see him, or whatever, and they could justify themselves for not stopping to help. But it was, in fact, the Samaritan who stopped and helped the fallen man. He bandaged the wounds, and helped the man get to a safe place to heal, even leaving money for the injured man’s bills, “Look after him he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have” (Lk. 10:35).
We can learn so much from this parable. First all three men traveling could have stopped to help. We aren’t told the ethnicity of the injured man, but it is implied he was probably Jewish as were the priest and Levite who refused to help. We do know the Samaritan was not what at the time was considered a righteous Jewish person, but somewhat of a foreigner to Jews who generally would not even speak to a Samaritan.
Jesus asks the expert of Law who he thought was a neighbor to the fallen man? Which of the three? The man answers “The one who showed mercy on him” And Jesus relied, “Go and do likewise” (Lk. 10:36-37).
So maybe what Jesus was asking was not who the man thought was his neighbor, but rather was the man acting as a neighbor to others? Did he understand his neighbor was whomever he encountered? And it was his responsibility to love his neighbor as a neighbor by showing mercy. It wasn’t about who lived next to him, but whoever he was next to.
We tend to define neighbors as those with whom we share an address or zip code with us, but in Jesus’ parable all were traveling. They were not in their home town or neighborhood. The Samaritan was definitely not from the neighborhood, but yet he was the only one who stopped, cared for the man, getting his hands dirty, probably using his own shirt to bandage the wounds, I mean think about it, there weren’t any first aid kits, or prepackaged bandaids. He had money for his trip, but used some to cover the cost for a night at an inn, and left money for the bill for as long as he needed for recovery from his injuries. He even planned on returning to pay the accrued bills, but maybe also to see the man as well. It was not in his plans as he left his own neighborhood that morning. But he provided an example that we still can follow and gave the expert of the law something to think on. How to really love your neighbor by being a neighbor and showing mercy toward a fellow human being.
Be that neighbor who loves his fellow neighbor wherever they are from and wherever they reside. Let us show mercy as we have received mercy from God. God Bless- Nancy
Moving Forward 