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Good morning, it is great to be in the house of the Lord today.
We are going to be exploring a familiar passage this morning so please turn in your Bibles to Luke’s Gospel chapter ten.
Before we get started in the passage, turn to a couple of people and say, “Be a neighbor.”
Our passage begins in verse ten.
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word.
I will be reading this morning from the English Standard Version.
Luke 10:25-37
As I mentioned before this is an extremely well-known passage.
It is certainly known to the church but it is also well-known outside of the church.
The story of the Good Samaritan has long had a cultural impact.
We have Good Samaritan Laws.
When someone does something that is out of their way to do something heroic they are often called “A Good Samaritan.”
That all comes from this passage.
But while the passage is well-known, do we really let it change us?
Do we really follow the principles that Jesus laid out for the lawyer?
I think that if we are honest, myself included, the answer is probably “no.”
We are talking this morning about being a neighbor.
I remember growing up watching “Mr.
Roger’s Neighborhood” and everyone there got along.
Can’t you just hear Fred Rogers now singing, “Won’t you be, won’t you be, please won’t you be my neighbor?”
But we do not live in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood do we?
Not everyone gets along and by the end of our time together this morning, we will know what Jesus demands of us to be a neighbor to those who are around us.
The first thing that we want to note in this story is who was addressing Jesus.
Brother Paul preached on this section of the passage a few weeks ago.
A lawyer, or a scribe, came and the text said it was to “put him to the test.”
He wasn’t coming to learn something, he wasn’t coming because he wanted to grow closer to God, he wasn’t even coming to truly find out what he must do to receive eternal life.
No, he was coming to put Jesus to a test.
This, of course, was not the first time that this had been done.
We see this being done in Matthew 16:1
We see this again in Matthew 19:3
We see it in John 8:5-6
Time and time again we see the Pharisees and men of the law attempting to put out a question to try and trip Jesus up.
They wanted to catch him on a technicality.
It makes you wonder, why?
Why would they try to trip Him up?
Could it be that deep down, they really knew who they were dealing with and they did not want to give up their power to him?
We don’t know.
But what we do know is that the lawyer asked Jesus a very important question even though he was trying to trap him.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus knew what the lawyer was trying to do.
This is another pattern we see, each time they try to trip Jesus up, He sees right through it.
So Jesus turns the question around on the lawyer and asks him what the law says.
The lawyer responds, “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.”
Jesus said to him that he answered correctly.
This was an answer that almost any Jew would have given if they had been asked the same question.
The answer comes straight from the law.
The first part of the answer comes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5.
This is something that was known as the Shemah.
The Jews would get up and say this every single day, multiple times a day.
It was their anthem, their respect to God Almighty.
So this was no secret to the lawyer, or to Jesus.
It is what every Jew would have answered.
The second part comes from later in the books of the law, particularly in Leviticus 19:18.
So Jesus hears his answer and tells him that he has answered correctly and this is where things begin to get interesting.
The lawyer overplayed his hand.
He asked Jesus, to try and justify himself, who is my neighbor?
This was because he wanted to know the limits of who he was required to love as he loved himself.
Jesus, rather than answering the question, decided he's going to tell a story.
And this is where the story of the Good Samaritan now comes into play.
The man who was left for dead was travelling along one of the most dangerous routes in Israel in the early first century.
The stretch between Jerusalem and Jericho was about 17 miles and was well-known to be plagued by bandits.
The first two men that come across the man are the people who you would expect to help.
A priest, and a Levite or a temple worker.
But not only did these men not stop to help, it says they walked over to the other side of the road.
In other words, they went out of their way to NOT help the man.
But then an interesting thing happened.
The third man to come across was a Samaritan and he took pity on the man and helped him.
Now, if you do not know the history this doesn’t seem significant.
But this was an extremely big deal.
The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other.
For our time this morning it is not important why they hated each other, but let’s look at a couple of verses that will give us an idea of how the Jews and the Samaritans viewed each other.
John 4:9
John 8:48
Knowing the Jews and Samaritans hated each other makes the parable much more impactful.
The lawyer listening to Jesus would have been dumbfounded by the fact that Jesus had used a Samaritan in his example because they were supposed to be utter outcasts.
They were unclean.
They were repulsive to the Jews.
They were half-breeds.
Sub-human.
At minimum, this has gotten his attention.
Now we need to pay attention to everything the Samaritan did for this man who would have hated him and found him repulsive.
First, he bound up his wounds and disinfected them.
Next, he gave up his animal to transport the man on.
So instead of riding in somewhat a level of comfort, he put himself out and walked by the man’s side.
Last, he put the man in a hotel and not only paid for his lodging for that night, he paid for multiple days in advance.
It says he gave two denarii which would be equal to about two days pay.
And if all of that was not good enough, the Samaritan told the inn keeper that when he came back through he would pay for any additional charges the man may incur.
This is a stark contrast to the Priest and the Levite.
While they were going out of their way to not help the man, the Samaritan went out of his way to help him and went above and beyond the normal level of help in a complete act of selflessness.
At this point Jesus corrects the lawyer’s original question.
Look again in Luke 10:36-37.
Jesus did not ask the question, “who is my neighbor?”
Jesus said, “who was a neighbor to this man?”
This question seems similar to the lawyer’s question, but it is actually quite different.
Instead of asking who he was supposed to treat as his neighbor, he was asking how we can be a neighbor to those we come across.
I believe that Jesus is giving us three commands with this parable.
First, Christ demands our “whoever.”
Jesus made a point to make the hero of the story someone who was hated by the man he was helping.
But this did not matter to the Samaritan.
He put aside differences and showed love to the man despite the fact it would have been unlikely for the man to have helped him if the roles were reversed.
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